Parasocial Panic and the Man Teaching Me SEO.

There’s a word I learned recently: Parasocial.

Apparently, it describes the kind of one-sided relationship people develop with creators, influencers, YouTubers, podcasters and online personalities they spend a lot of time watching.

Which immediately made me stop and stare into the distance for a moment because… wait a minute.

You mean to tell me the man teaching me digital marketing through hours and hours of SEO lessons, WordPress tutorials and website breakdowns does not, in fact, know me personally.

Shocking.

I would like to clarify that I was not sitting there thinking we were best friends. I was not preparing matching friendship bracelets or anything dramatic. But after watching enough lessons, something strange starts happening.

You hear the same voice constantly. You learn their habits. You start recognizing their phrases. You notice when they sneeze. You notice when something falls in the background lol and you even start predicting what they are about to say before they say it. And somewhere in the middle of all that, your brain quietly files them under: “familiar person.” Not celebrity. Not Stranger. Familiar.

I think online learning does that to people, especially when you live alone or spend a lot of time in your own head. Voices become company. Lessons become routine. And the internet slowly starts blurring the line between education, entertainment and emotional familiarity.

Which is why I has an existential buffering moment where I saw another ad from the lecturer promoting a completely different program. Not because he did something wrong, not because I was angry but because my brain suddenly remembered: “Oh right, this is a business.”

This man recorded these lessons years ago. Meanwhile I’m over here saying “bless you” when he sneezes in module 2. That’s insane but also very human. And the funny thing is, the digital marketing course accidentally taught me what a funnel was without directly teaching me. First comes the free course, then came the trust, then the familiarity, then the emotional connection and finally the curiosity about what else he has to offer.

Suddenly I wasn’t just learning about funnels. I was standing inside one. Which honestly feels like the most effective teaching method ever created. The weird part about the internet is that connection and business now exist in the same room together all the time.

Someone can genuinely help you and still be marketing to you. Someone can teach you valuable things and still hope you eventually buy something. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. And I think growing up online means learning how to emotionally separate: “This person helped me” from “This person belongs to me.” Because they do not. (Sounds a bit creepy but I had to put in the there to make a point.)

The ‘connection’ was real. It just wasn’t mutual. Which sounds a bit sad when written dramatically but honestly, I find it more fascinating than depressing. The internet has created this strange new version of human interaction where people can become important parts of your routine without ever knowing your name.

A podcast voice can keep someone company during difficult times. A YouTube creator can inspire someone to change careers. An online lecturer can accidentally become part of somebody’s everyday life while teaching the SEO and repeatedly saying, “This is basic stuff.”

Sir, respectfully, it is not basic stuff.

And maybe that’s the thing I am learning while buffering through adulthood, digital marketing, and life online in general. Sometimes familiarity is not friendship. Sometimes comfort is not connection. And sometimes the people who help shape your life will never even know they did.

Strange world. Anyway, back to WordPress panic.