Reddit Discourse - Tumblr Posts

I wish Redditors had never been exposed to the term 'parasocial relationship'.

I keep seeing posts in subreddits of popular YouTubers like Danny Gonzalez and DylanIsInTrouble ranting about how the teenagers are ruining the subreddit by sharing fan edits, talking about how much they love Danny or Dylan, or making jokes about their crushes on them. They're saying that this is creepy and wrong and would make these YouTubers uncomfortable.

It seems like these folks have forgotten that celebrity crushes are a normal thing and have been for a long time. Of course, some of the young fans may go over the top and cross a line, and in that case they need someone to tell them where the line for appropriately expressing admiration is. But trying to pathologize entire fan groups for what is mostly normal fan behaviour feels very unnecessary.

The discomfort thing is a valid concern, but afaik most YouTubers don't check their subreddits often. When making videos about their subreddit they usually filter to top posts in the past month. The vast majority of these posts are general memes and fanart.

I often marvel at the negativity towards fangirls outside of spaces like Tumblr. Given that our userbase here is mostly people who have been here a long time, I wonder what would happen if younger fangirls from Twitter or Tiktok migrated here. But most of all I wonder what would happen if Redditors never heard the term 'parasocial relationship'.