Country Artist By Names

Last friday night I went the the Josh Thompson, Lee Brice and, Luke Bryan concert at Emens. I was so excited for the concert all day, I had relgiously been follwing Josh Thompson on twitter that day. At every place Josh has a concert at he will hid meet and greet passes or tickets to the show someplace on the campus. I really wanted the meet and greet passes, so I took part in his scavanger hunt though out the. When talking to my other friends and boyfriend about what he did, I caught myself just using his first name. After the long day of following Josh on twitter I did end up getting meet and greet passes. When meeting him that evening I called him by his first name, and had small conversation with him because I followed him on twitter so much I had known what he had been recently up to. It didn't sink in until later that night that I have a Parasocial relationship with him. I believe one of the reasons that I have a parasocial relationship with Josh is because of my internship this summer. There I went calling him by first name when just talking about him in this blog. WOW

For my internship this summer I worked with a radio station and helped out with about 8 different concerts. Before each concert I helped out with the meet and great session for the country artist, and while waiting for them to start I could hang out with the artist and get to know them a little more. All of the country singers that I meet were great people and feel like we had down to earth conversations. But now because of my internship and getting to hang out with the artist I catch my self calling them by first names, and keeping up to date with them via twitter and Facebook.

I had never really noticed all of this until Friday night, when it all had really sunk in. Even when we had talked about this topic in class I hadn't thought about having parasocial relationships with the country singers. I am not a huge tv watcher and don't follow characters from shows, but my passion is in music so as much as I hate to admit it I do have a parasocial relationships with many of the country singers that I met over the summer, and also ones that I haven't met. All thanks to my internship this past summer I now have parasocial relationships with these artist.