Parasocial Heartbreak

In case you weren't aware, Zayn Malik announced that he was leaving popular boyband One Direction at the end of March and the world pretty much stopped turning. Much like NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys in the early 2000s, the members of One Direction are the fake boyfriends most teenage (and even some college) girls dream about. Although Rachel Karniol states that these parasocial romantic relationships are safe and provide an outlet for sexual socialization, the reaction that followed Zayn's announcement seemed extremely unhealthy.

Twitter, Vine, and Tumblr exploded with images and videos of girls crying and posts about how much they loved him and will never forget him. The fact that this little change in pop culture caused young girls to skip class, break out in tears, and miss out on sleep is unhealthy. He wasn't hurt, he's not even going to stop singing, he is just leaving the band.

And new media outlets played right into all of the chaos. Buzzfeed managed to publish over 20 stories just on people reacting to Zayn leaving One Direction and continued coverage for weeks.

Yet stories about things like the shooting in Kenya or the Israeli Palestinian conflict barely get touched and would not garner a similar reaction from any one of those girls. I don't think these parasocial relationships can be considered healthy when they cause young girls to become this attached to a person they will likely never meet and miss out on important news.

On the other hand, One Direction definitely proves Karniol's theory that "teenage girls tend to idolize feminine-looking men [...] when an individual who is not feminine-looking is selected as an idol, the idol will nonetheless be attributed highly feminine characteristics, such as being cute and lovable," especially in their younger days which at the very least makes them relatively safe role models or ideal boyfriends.

References

Karniol, R. (2001). Adolescent Females’ Idolization of Male Media Stars as a Transition Into Sexuality. Sex Roles, 61-77.