US EditionCambridge Dictionary Names 'Parasocial' Its Word of 2025
Cambridge Dictionary recognized 'parasocial' for its surge in lookups tied to social media and AI culture, with millions forming one-sided emotional bonds in 2025.
- This year, Cambridge Dictionary selected `parasocial` as its 2025 word of the year, defining it as a connection felt with someone unknown or artificial intelligence, with Colin McIntosh saying it `captures the 2025 zeitgeist`.
- The term dates to 1956 when sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl coined it to describe TV viewers' one-sided ties, and Colin McIntosh said it is about 70 years old and now mainstream.
- Online interest surged, with the Cambridge Dictionary website recording spikes in lookups as millions of people engaged with parasocial relationships involving Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce this year.
- Psychologists warned these patterns can produce misplaced trust and extreme loyalty, highlighting new concerns as people form bonds with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT treated as `friends` this year.
- Cambridge Dictionary expanded its lexicon with 6,000 new words this year, including delulu, skibidi and tradwife, while noting parasocial language evolves from celebrities to chatbots, citing Lily Allen.
130 Articles
130 Articles
Cambridge Dictionary names AI related 'parasocial' as the Word of the Year 2025
The word is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘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’.
Parasocial relationships are turning us all into stalkers
In 1920, a 53-year-old French milliner told her psychiatrist that King George V was madly in love with her. She had no hard proof of his infatuation – no letters, no gifts – and they had never met. But once in a while she would save her money and take the trip from Paris to London, just to stand outside Buckingham Palace in the crowd. There she received her messages from King George. On one occasion, she told her shrink, he twitched the Palace c…
Taylor Swift Inspired Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 Word of the Year | Just Jared: Celebrity News and Gossip
The Cambridge Dictionary word of the year has been announced, and you might be surprised to learn what pop culture couple inspired it! The 2025 word is “parasocial,” which 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.” Keep reading to find out more… That is a term that has been floating around onl…
Today, Tuesday, November 18, the Cambridge Dictionary chose “parasocial” as the word for this year 2025; we tell you why.And it is that the parasocial term refers to the unilateral relations that a person establishes with some famous figure, whether it is celebrities, influencers and even some fictional character.
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