"Parasocial" became the word of 2025 according to Cambridge Dictionary: what it is and what celebrities and AI have to do with it

The Cambridge Dictionary has named "parasocial" as its word of the year for 2025, defined as the connection a person feels between themselves and a famous person they don't know, writes UNN.

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"Why 'parasocial'? As social media amplifies the intimacy fans feel with their favorite celebrities, and with the rise of AI companions that can take on various personalities, the word for these one-sided relationships – 'parasocial' – is having its moment," explain the dictionary's compilers on its website.

As the BBC notes, an example is the "parasocial" interest shown by fans when singer Taylor Swift and American football player Travis Kelce announced their engagement.

The term emerged in 1956 when American sociologists observed how television viewers entered into "parasocial" relationships with on-screen characters.

Editor-in-chief Colin McIntosh noted that it has recently been used to describe "a type of relationship between a person and a non-human, such as a celebrity."

"Initially, it was an academic word, confined to the academic sphere for quite some time," he added.

"It's only relatively recently that it has become common, and it's one of those words that has been influenced by social media," he pointed out.

Other examples cited by the dictionary include Lily Allen's breakup album West End Girl, which reflected parasocial interest in her personal life, and the emergence of parasocial relationships with AI bots, which people treated as confidants, friends, or romantic partners.

The dictionary recorded a surge in interest in the word after YouTube star IShowSpeed blocked an obsessive fan, calling her "parasocial person number one."

New words such as skibidi, delulu, and tradwife also entered the Cambridge Dictionary.

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