Can Creators Be Friends With Their Fans? - SimplyPodLogical #151

Cristine in her groupchat with fans: can you BELIEVE Beyn only got me two cups of tea today? The audaci-tea!!!!

When I saw the Colleen “apology” video, I immediately thought any adult will look at this and see an unhinged woman whose career is unraveling before her eyes. A child may actually see that video and feel bad for her, or not notice how crazy that “song” is. I find it odd she chose to make a song, it seems like another tactic to get children or her younger followers take pity on her. It was an automatic red flag, and aside from that I have second hand embarrassment from that video.

I think Colleen missed the point that she’s both a loser AND a creep for this 😭 there’s no “good” intention that makes what she did feel normal, even if the conversations were average and not horribly creepy, they can’t be your true equal friend because they’re KIDS

As a therapist, I really appreciated the discussion about how we have a skillset and a plan to be able listen to and support someone in trauma processing (and still keep ourselves protected) - because you're right, if you open up your DMs you have no control over whether you are exposed to information that could be heavy, triggering, or otherwise negatively affect you in some way.

We love an emotionally mature queen, Cristine

My favorite parasocial relationship is when ben tells the chickpeas he hates us

as a teacher i think if your fanbase is majority children/minors, you have to draw the line. you are the adult in the situation, it is your responsibility to say no, we can't be friends. i care about my students, we spend a lot of time together, and with them being upper elementary i can joke and play with them in a way that's fun for the both of us. but we are not friends. if anything comes up that is concerning, i immediately bring it to the school counselor or administrator, because that is their job. and sure there are students who move on to middle school who i love to keep up with, but i think the most exclusive i would get with any interaction would be attending one of their extracurricular activities, and only if was invited as a former teacher and nothing more. most of my "keeping up" is just asking younger siblings about them and telling them to say hi. i love my students, and i think any educator could admit we all have our "favorites", but they never stop being students in our eyes. a part of me will always see that ten year old kid, and i can't have a mature appropriate friendship with a kid.

I think creators can be friendly with their fans, but I don’t think creators with a very young fan base can really interact as friends. Like it’s very strange to imagine that any adult would be making friends with literal children and talking to them like they’re people who could understand any issues an adult would have. And like they bring up in the video, there is a power dynamic there. It’s hard to imagine a normal friendship forming between a creator and a fan who has already felt like they know this creator. Like children especially have a tendency to idolize people they admire and I think that it can so easily be abused by someone in power. Like this whole situation is especially distressing to see since Colleen herself is a mother and I can’t imagine her wanting her children having this kind of relationship with some other adult.

Wow Cristine's hair is extra pretty today!

I think Ben and Cristine made a lot of great points here. Age gap, power imbalance, creators not having much time for real life relationships, creators being financially supported by their fans to some extent, etc. Personally, I don't think it's impossible for a creator to become friends with someone who used to be a fan, but I think friendship requires a different dynamic between the people involved than the dynamic that exists between a creator and a fan. I also think there needs to be a particular way that relationship begins that doesn't involve the fan being creepy/stalkery or the creator being creepy in a different way. For example, one of the creators I watch is Molly Burke, and the last time she went to guide dog training she met some people there who were fans of hers. But the key is that they were also there to attend the training, so neither side went out of their way to meet the other or even really knew it was going to happen. They had a legitimate reason for ending up in the same place at the same time, under circumstances where normal people very well might become friends if they met that way. That's the sort of opportunity where I can see potential for relationships developing and changing, perfectly naturally. At the same time, though, Molly has shared some information about having to deal with at least one fan forming an unhealthy attachment to her and trying to create a relationship she didn't want to have. That is just plain awful. I'm not saying that friendships can't start online or that purely online friendships can't happen. I've definitely had some. But I do think it's easier for people within fan communities to make friends with each other than it is for fans to make friends with the creator and vice versa. Exactly because of power imbalance and money stuff, even where age gaps and so on don't exist. I think both the creators and the fans need to be careful, even though I understand how content creation can be a lonely job and also understand that the people who watch a lot of online videos/streams might be people who don't have much going on IRL either. In fact, it's probably because of those things that people need to be even more careful. Be safe out there, people! That's my two cents :)

I’m a school counselor, and I completely hear you about including this conversation in the curriculum. One of my go-to questions I ask students is, “what are the online rules in your house?” It helps me see what precautions are in place at home and what gaps they may need help with. At the end of the day, parents make the rules, and I’m hopeful I can encourage my students to be critical thinkers and good decision makers!

I experienced a similar situation to the colleen stuff with another youtuber (onision) when i was in my early teens. At the time i thought it was so cool that this person i admired wanted to interact with me, but looking back as an adult, the way this grown man was talking to me was extremely inappropriate. I know there were several fans who were heavily exploited (sexually) by him, some in real life. There are definitely parasocial relationships that can be positive (cristine being a great example) but the negative side to it is scary.

I think you're hitting it right on with the employee/employer dynamic and where responsibility lies, and I think that exactly is what a lot of people missed with the Try Guys drama.

I used to volunteer as a digital crisis counselor for chat line aimed at suicide prevention for youth. One story really stuck out to me related to this whole parasocial relationship topic and how much of an influence creators can have on their fans, especially children. This kid that reached out expressed feeling depressed and betrayed because someone in their life didn’t disclose the severity of their illness that they unexpectedly died from. The whole conversation felt like the youth was grieving a family member or close friend who they had a complicated relationship with, but they ended up saying they were talking about a YouTuber. It was really disturbing how much of a personal relationship that kid felt they had with that (adult) creator. So much so that it was affecting their mental health tremendously. Super important for creators to set those boundaries especially when they have young fans.

I’m a teacher and I can see some parallels in the parasocial relationships and the relationship between myself and my students. I teach middle school aged kids (11-14) and they can struggle with the boundaries between myself (late 20s) and them. I care about my students and like to hear about their lives but I am not their friend. I have had students upset when I tell them this, particularly when I was a new teacher. Teens don’t seem to understand that it is weird if a 20 something wants to hang out with you and that it crosses a lot of boundaries!

I feel online parasocial relationships are like getting to know a character in a book. It's a one way relationship with someone who doesn't even exist. The time I've spent with Harry Potter via pages in books has been meaningful and impactful and is very real and valid. I have spent countless hours with him, sharing thoughts and feelings, being inside of his head and the thoughts I've had while reading changed me as a person, I laughed, I cried, I grew. But Harry Potter is not a real person and the experience doesn't exists outside of text. Just like reading a book time spent in parasocial relationships is meaningful but there's no relationship there. If I saw my fav streamers irl I wouldn't even acknowledge them because like Harry Potter the person I spent time with is more of a persona then a person I know.

My favourite parasocial relationship moment was when Ben said "fuck you" to me on stream one time 😂 I loved this week pod, I liked the way you approached this subject and raised very interesting points!

I think creators and fans can be friendly towards each other, but not friends. If the parasocial dynamic is not present anymore, e.g. the fan and creator build a relationship outside of the context of the creator's occupation, then sure, a friendship can form.

I think what’s important is also teaching PARENTS how to handle situations like this with their kids. Most of these teenager’s parents KNEW about the group chat and were the ones taking them to these live shows. When I think about situations like the one Christine described, I always think back to that video of those kids staking out a YouTubers house and their parent getting mad when the YouTuber didn’t want to give them their autograph. Like, parents also need to be taught boundaries.

Colleen strikes me as someone who is extremely immature and hasn’t learned social cues in life, always seeing admiration from everyone. She can’t stand it if someone doesn’t like her. This doesn’t excuse her behavior at all, just something I’ve noticed. Unfortunately young fans are the easiest to get to admire you. I don’t think you can be true friends because of the power dynamic like Cristine said.