Riffing on fan followings I wrote about last week, this from a piece on the 'memification' Anthony Bourdain
"Social media can make it feel as if our lost loved ones are still alive beyond the screen, just out of reach; with celebrities we’ve never met, that phenomenon can be even more pronounced. In the age of the parasocial relationship, is it any wonder that people continue to engage with Bourdain’s image? He is far from the first person to loom in public consciousness this way; but Bourdain’s deification feels like something fresh: a parasocial relationship in which the living, yearning for a man who felt like a friend, try to commune with him via parody."
Riffing on fan followings I wrote about last week, this from a piece on the 'memification' Anthony Bourdain
"Social media can make it feel as if our lost loved ones are still alive beyond the screen, just out of reach; with celebrities we’ve never met, that phenomenon can be even more pronounced. In the age of the parasocial relationship, is it any wonder that people continue to engage with Bourdain’s image? He is far from the first person to loom in public consciousness this way; but Bourdain’s deification feels like something fresh: a parasocial relationship in which the living, yearning for a man who felt like a friend, try to commune with him via parody."
The piece is by Becca Schuh / https://idiotscontinue.substack.com/ and is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/magazine/anthony-bourdain-memes.html