We’re all too familiar with parasocial relationships. The name for the phenomenon is a recent one, but we’ve experienced them since we knew of our first celebrity. Growing up with the internet and what seems like uninhibited, direct access to the most rich and famous individuals on Earth is a power that some people definitely should not have access to.
There’s the obvious cases of Taylor Swift’s stalker and every girl who has written a One Direction fanfic on Wattpad. Even the Beatles had diehard fans who knew where they would be at all times. Being obsessed with someone who has no idea who you are can definitely be taken way too far in terrifying ways, but we’re not going to talk about any of those freakish stories here — just a hilariously outrageous one.
We all know Timmy T. Love him, even. Timothée Chalamet, it seems I have grown quite fond of you though there are no sexual urges or desires you come to me as a long lost friend with whom I once picked apples in Papa’s orchard (I apologize for the odd Twitter reference). He’s been one of the slightly polarizing white boys of the decade for a while, so naturally, he has some dedicated fans. It’s completely normal for young celebrities to have young fans thirsting after them. But this story is something on another level.
It’s been rumored for a few months that Timmy has been dating Kylie Jenner, but I don’t think any of us quite believed it. It seems unnatural, doesn’t it? But after months of speculation, the pair shockingly debuted at Beyoncé’s 42nd birthday concert at SoFi Stadium.
When I saw the footage of their PDA, I was a little weirded out, I’ll admit. But honestly, I couldn’t be mad at it. Two people look like they’re having a good time at the MOTHER of all mothers’ concert? What better venue for a hard launch?
As it turns out, some people didn’t take to this information as well as I did. For some, this event was Thee Great Concert Disaster of 2023. People across the globe fell to their knees in despair- particularly the manager of the Timothée stan account Club Chalamet. Club Chalamet was distraught beyond belief as they went on their Twitter and Instagram accounts to demonize Kylie Jenner and call her a “stalker” whose appearance with Chalamet was merely due to her family’s media manipulation tactics.
Obviously this behavior is far outside the bounds of normality toward somebody you don’t know, but it isn’t completely out of the ordinary these days. Stan culture and the inevitable misogyny that comes with it has reached new heights in the last decade, and at this point, so many young people have been raised with it that they fail to see the issues. There’s something different about Club Chalamet, though.
The manager of the account has since been revealed to be a woman named Simone Cromer- and get this- she’s 57 years old, according to Rolling Stone. Go read that again, it’s not a typo.
After her public meltdown post-concert and subsequent Instagram post urging fans who were “distressed” by the Chalamet-Jenner kiss to take care of themselves and “step away from social media for a couple of days,” she did something hilarious. Ms. Simone hosted a Twitter Space for about an hour listing reasons why the relationship between Kylie and Timmy is fake but something she said stood out. She explained that “We’ve never seen them go to Olive Garden. He loves Italian food. I mean, why not just go to Olive Garden?”
This facet of the meltdown truly sent Twitter into a spiral. Who is this middle aged woman and why is she so messed up over some 27-year-old she doesn’t know? Simone’s mind works in interesting ways, which isn’t shocking given that she is literally 57 and deep into stan culture. It’s one thing to grow up with it, but for someone who was nearly in their twenties when the internet was born to be this invested? It’s fascinating, no?
In her most recent update just yesterday, Club Chalamet tweeted, “It’s been over 10 days since the fandom imploded and Club Chalamet is still standing,” before reiterating her impassioned support for the young actor. I’m fascinated to see how this situation develops, because Timmy is just a young guy living his life. Although Simone has posted on the Club Chalamet Instagram acknowledging that she, nor any fan, has a say in the star’s life, she continues to spend her time criticizing his choices.
This is the thing about parasocial relationships — if people really cared about the celebrity they claim to know and love so well, they would support them from afar with the understanding that they do not know the ins and outs of their life. If they are happy, shouldn’t that be enough? There’s the obvious fact that becoming too invested can lead to shock when a famous person is associated with someone who has done something horrible or is revealed to have done that horrible thing themselves, but that should tell us something about how much parasocial relationships limit our critical thinking.
Celebrities are people, and people are intrinsically flawed. We make bad decisions and we go through phases. It can be easy to forget that just because somebody is rich and famous, it doesn’t mean that something about their character made them deserving of that. Just remember, take everything you see with a grain of salt. What we see on the internet is a miniscule, curated portion of reality.