Understanding Para Social Breakups on Twitter

Abstract

Celebrity and fandom have been studied extensively in real life. Perceived virtual relationships, commonly known as para-social relationships (PSR) have been shown to exist between celebrities and fans (Horton and Wohl, 1956). The end of such relationships, para-social breakups (PSB), have also been studied (Eyal and Cohen, 2006). However, with more and more celebrities using social media, the dynamics of PSR and PSB have changed. Using data from 57,000 fans for the top followed celebrities on Twitter, we try to understand how para-social breakups manifest on Twitter. We hypothesize that a PSB on Twitter happens as an act of unfollowing the celebrity and study the differences in engaging in a PSB between various types of fans. We find that, surprisingly, the most devoted fans are more likely to be involved in a para-social breakup. Given our scale and dependence on non-reactive data, our paper opens new avenues for research in para-social interactions.