The Cambridge Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2025 is ‘parasocial’.
According to the wordies at the Cambridge, ‘parasocial’ means ‘involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.’
I’m trying to get at what they’re saying there.
It appears that part of what they’re getting at is that feeling that we know people we see on TV or in the movies or hear on radio.
We’ve seen and heard them so often we feel we know them.
That seems to be part of what they mean by ‘parasocial.’
The word is not a new one—it’s been around since 1956.
The Oxford defines parasocial as ‘a relationship characterized by the one-sided, unreciprocated sense of intimacy felt by a viewer, fan, or follower for a well-known or prominent figure (typically a media celebrity), in which the follower or fan comes to feel (falsely) that they know the celebrity as a friend.’
In other words, ‘parasocial’ is a word that describes stalkers.
So far, not a nice word.
So why has the Cambridge Dictionary suddenly chosen it in 2025 as their Word of the Year?
My guess is that it’s because it now involves artificial intelligence.
We’ve all seen those stories in which AI creates a ‘deep fake’ artificial person who offers to have a ‘relationship’ with the poor, lonely person hunched over their laptop.
Is that a ‘parasocial’ relationship?
Is that why the Cambridge dons have chosen it for this year?
They are calling it ‘the language of fandom.’
But I repeat, why now?
Perhaps it’s because we are living in a highly isolated age—in which people relate to their devices (their phones or tablet computers) and can no longer connect with real people.
Are ‘parasocial relationships’ now replacing real relationships?
At least in the lives of some people?
And when it comes not to AI deep fakes but real media people all of this is leading to new language.
There is now the expression ‘toxic fan’—meaning pretty much what it looks like: ‘a fan of a celebrity who behaves in a way that does not respect or is harmful to that celebrity or others.’
I suppose all of this telling us about the world in which we now live.
Very sad.
Tonight, I will join John Stanley on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Nine Radio Network for 'The Word Clinic' -- right after the 10pm news (9pm in Queensland). This is your opportunity to call or text to ask any question (or make any comment) about words and language.
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