to all the parasocial relationships i’ve had before.
I am not an influencer, but I've certainly developed parasocial relationships with influencers. During my "research" phase for digital media, I watched countless YouTube videos, read influencer Substacks, and listened to podcast episodes, in order to try and wrangle out what it was that others were doing and what the general audience was interested in. Through this, I became weirdly attached to some influencers and repulsed by other influencers--but equally fascinated by both categories. While I'm a huge advocate of doing your research, I actually think this research phase did me a disservice--I only grew distracted by others and found myself in endless cycles of comparison. But how had I wound up in these parasocial relationships in the first place? As with many things in my life, the answer was video games.
This week, I delve into the parasocial relationships that I've developed over the years before answering two reader questions about how practice group placements work in biglaw and how to emotionally deal with student debt. I round off with a few links to what I've been looking at recently, including a video game studies course that I'm obviously taking!
traditional power and grassroots power in parasocial relationships.
My first parasocial relationship was with a video game character when I was around 10. I had been playing Final Fantasy X, and when I found out the true nature of the protagonist whom I was playing as, I started bawling. I went into the kitchen to find my mom, who immediately asked me what was wrong.
[spoiler warning for FFX] "Mom," I managed to make out between heaving sobs, "I'm--not--real."
"What do you mean, you're not real?" My mom clearly was puzzled. "Of course you're real."
"No," I tried to clarify. "My character--in--FFX--is just a dream." I gulped. "I'm not real!!!!!" I continued wailing. [/spoiler]
She chuckled a little and then gave me a hug. "It's okay," she rubbed my back. "It's okay."
But it wasn't okay. It wasn't going to be okay. Because from that day forth, I was filled with an incredible longing to connect to something--or someone?--in the real world in the same way that I connected with Tidus, Yuna, Lulu & co. through my TV screen. And I would spend many years, many false starts, and many dashed hopes chasing that feeling, whatever it was.
I've only recently begun dissecting this feeling in earnest. I used to think that my penchant for intense parasocial relationships stemmed from my being an only child who was often left home alone. After all, parasocial relationships have been shown to satisfy some of our affective, behavioral, and cognitive needs similarly to traditional bidirectional relationships and can also help us feel less lonely. Maybe I was just using parasocial relationships with fictional characters to offset some of my loneliness?
But as I've gotten older, made friends, and created a pretty active social calendar for myself, I still feel the pull of parasocial relationships. There's a satisfying depth to intensively researching someone online--what they put out there, what they appear to omit, what other viewers say about them--that is distinctly different from learning about someone through an in-person conversation. Even for people whom I meet IRL, I still love Googling them to see what they have put out there about themselves online. I'm always acutely aware that any time, we are merely a representation of ourselves, and that representation of ourselves says a lot about ourselves, our conscious and subconscious decisions, and our own relationship with the outer world. When anyone posts something online, they are attempting to foster a parasocial relationship with whomever is out there. Otherwise, they could just make whatever the thing is--video, newsletter, podcast--and keep it to themselves. But by posting online, there's a sense of them reaching out to the world and hoping, with sometimes a child-like naïveté, that others will reach back.
And once the audience has reached back, what does the creator owe this invisible now-audience? I had this discussion with a friend who's a professor, because we like talking about what's "appropriate" classroom behavior when we're standing behind the lectern instead of sitting in front of it. We know that in order to be good instructors, we need to be available to our students when they're taking our course. (We have both had our fair share of experiences trying to chase down professors.) But what do we owe former students? My friend's courses are quite large, so they were of the mind that they didn't owe former students anything and would only respond to those former students whose current work interested them.
I wasn't quite sure I agreed with that--after all, what is a professor without students? Except, of course, the very different incentive structures and institutional acknowledgment as between a tenure-track professor (them) and a non-tenure-track instructor (me). That's core to the central inquiry here: Who gave you power? The tenor of receiving power from large entities with large amounts of power feels different from receiving power in a more grassroots style, and the expectation we have for those who receive traditional power is different than we have for those who receive grassroots power.
For those who receive traditional power--from old educational institutions, from established media companies and publishers, from old money--they automatically feel more removed. I don't feel like I have contributed significantly to their power. I adore Professor Catharine MacKinnon's scholarship but have no illusions that either Yale Law or Michigan Law care about what I think when considering tenure offers. Sydney Sweeney was chosen to be in Euphoria by gatekeepers and executives whose existences I can barely fathom. And while I enjoyed Ronan Farrow's reporting, he was going to be a breakout star regardless of whether I read his articles. While I am sure that Professor MacKinnon, Sweeney, and Farrow feel some obligation to the powerful institutions which gave them their influence in society, I doubt they feel as large of an obligation to their Twitter or Instagram followers, and neither do I expect them to. After all, who am I? No one.
For those who receive grassroots power, on the other hand--anyone who generates any sort of following primarily through social media--they feel more immediate already. When I hit Subscribe or Follow, that's a direct act of contribution, just a little, to that person's power. When a creator does something I don't approve of, I unfollow or unsubscribe, even if I know that my one departure won't make that much of a difference to the creator's overall platform. But it still feels like the right thing to do, like voting.
This "voting" mechanic of following and subscribing on social media imbues social media platforms with a sense of democratic participation and election. And as with elected officials, the voters invariably feel that the elected officials have a duty to the very people who helped put them into office in the first place--and reasonably so. So it's perhaps not so surprising to see tweets and commentary about creators in the same way that we see discourse about politicians--people question how they got elected/their clout in the first place; people call them ugly; people urge others to de-platform or "cancel" those who have committed wrongdoings. Neither politicians nor creators are celebrities--they are individuals whom we have voted for, one by one. And that significantly colors our parasocial relationships with them in a fundamentally different way, both good and bad, compared to our parasocial relationships with fictional characters and celebrities.
✍️ ask cece
how do practice groups work during a biglaw summer program?
Q: I was wondering if you could explain how firm recruiting works in terms of placements and what your summer looks like. Do you have a choice of what practice area you go to, or are you given more of a broader view of your firm and legal work generally? I’m particularly interested in your specific area of the law.
- Anonymous
A: I used to think that all law firms were the same--and there are many similarities between them--but when it comes to how practice area placements work and what summer associate programs look like, they can really vary. Most biglaw firms ask you for preferences on practice areas of interest before your summer, but you aren't committed to what you put down in the same way that you are when you start full-time. The biglaw summer associate experience is primarily for experimenting, trying out practice areas, and learning about the firm and its various practice groups. Some firms, however, have "hot" practice groups that may require you to spend your summer networking and volunteering consistently to try and get an offer for that in-demand practice group--it's usually impossible to unintentionally get an offer for a hot practice group. Other firms with hot practice groups may not even give full-time offers to summer associates--instead, they may require you to be in a larger, more generalized practice group (like General Corporate or General Litigation) for a year or two before they will consider you for an internal transfer.
For example, when I was looking to do tech transactions or privacy during my summer, I actually found out that my top firm going into the interviewing process didn't guarantee offers for their tech transactions group and only hired one person into the privacy group every two years. As a result, I decided to summer elsewhere--but I also saw plenty of summers decide to take that chance and really prove themselves over the summer. Both choices are valid--it just depends on you and what kind of path you are more comfortable with. These are questions that you should definitely ask associates and Legal Recruiting once you have a summer associate offer in hand (but not before!), as they will vary considerably from firm to firm.
how do i emotionally deal with taking on student loans?
Q: I’m starting at Stanford's business school in the fall. I have to take out $70K of student loans and feel overwhelmed. It’s my first time having debt, I’m scared I won’t find a job I enjoy that also pays the bills, I’m scared I’ll be one of the 15% of Stanford's grads who don’t have a job offer by graduation, and I’m scared of having to work through burnout just to pay it off. One horrible panic attack later, I’d love your advice on how to manage my emotions surrounding the debt I’ll be paying off for the next 5-10 years.
- Nancy
A: Hi Nancy! First of all, congratulations on starting business school! What an amazing accomplishment, and I know you'll have the most rewarding time. Second, debt sucks. $70K is a truly daunting amount, but I have full faith that you will manage. Concerns around student debt are often driven by our irrational fears around money (which are totally common and understandable), and it's good to take a step back and try to approach your debt as a financial planner would approach your assets.
(1) Try to understand the "money scripts" that you use. Our initial feelings around money are often emotionally-charged and a consequence of our parents' attitudes about money (which is a consequence of our grandparents' attitudes about money). I listened to a Hidden Brain podcast episode about rewriting your money story to try and get more comfortable with my own money issues, and it helped me contextualize my fears a bit more. So take a moment to inventory your experiences and memories which have impacted your fears around student debt, and recognize that many actions when it comes to money will look and feel irrational.
(2) Talk to graduates of your business school about how they approached loan repayment. I know it can be really scary to think that you might be in the 15% of graduates who don't have a job offer by graduation, but I can assure you that whether you have a job offer at graduation or not doesn't mean a thing! Many graduates who have job offers at graduation end up moving from that initial job fairly quickly, and others who did not have job offers at graduation end up finding a dream position in the months shortly thereafter. Some of my best friends waited until after graduation from business school to start job hunting, given the particular industry they wanted to work in. So often, we want to think that if X doesn't happen, then we are doomed--or conversely, if Y happens, then we are set for life (or at least for now). But we are never actually set. Talking to, and seeing how, my colleagues and friends approached student debt was really helpful for me, because it highlights the fact that there is no one way to approach repayment. I've seen people work nonstop and live frugal lives for four years in order to pay it back faster; I've seen others accept that loan repayment was just going to be a facet of their life for the next 10-20 years. Both are valid approaches, and those who have taken both paths have been perfectly fine and happy. Even those who have burned out and quit (or just quit for another reason) are doing just fine with respect to loan repayment, due to things like accumulated savings and loan forbearance (minimum monthly student loan repayments are much lower than you would think). Internet chatter tends to be really loud and negative about any type of debt, but they don't know your particular circumstance (nor do they really care, let's be honest). If you can speak with some graduates or your Financial Aid office about this, you will likely receive a much more realistic view of debt management than your fears portray. You've gotten yourself this far in life--there is no reason (or evidence!) to doubt yourself now.