On Parasocial Relationships

Godspeed Z Man

“Life is for living” - The Z Man

Welcome, to Sunday Evening.

The stunning growth in communications infrastructure in the last century has created the ability to instantly interact with people regardless of distance. It has also created the ability for a single person to send his message to millions of listeners with the press of a button. This technology has created a social revolution as ideas that would once take years to percolate through society happen at an increasingly accelerated rate. One only has to look at how fast a news cycle happens and fades away to understand that the relative slowness of older culture has undergone a radical shift to far more aggressive modes of change.

This, in turn, has formed a larger generation of what us moderns would deem ‘influencers”. As radio appeared, its power was soon used by charismatic individuals to spread their message to an eager populace. Father Coughlin was one of the earliest, and most notorious examples, his political diatribes during the Great Depression creating an enormous following that was a thorn on the side of the Roosevelt Administration. Roosevelt, with his fireside chats, worked within the realms of power to control messaging. While there was no two-way communication, countless citizens listened in and felt like they were speaking directly to them, forming an emotional attachment to the personalities talking through their speakers.

Television made its ascent, and people formed connections to the celebrities and newscasters they daily saw on the screen. Where before it would be a longer delay between updates, now newscasters read the news every day. Broadcasters like Walter Cronkite were espoused as a clear, objective voice explaining what was going on in the world, and many developed an emotional bond in the anchor, having the confidence he would never steer them wrong.

These sorts of parasocial relationships were common in the 20th century. Now the era of the Youtuber and Twitch streamer has allowed people to create an insane amount of content, with many streamers casting for hours a day to an eager audience that can’t get enough. Whether it’s politics, video games, or fashion trends, their audience listens to every word, and the conversational tone many have mastered makes it feel like listeners are part of the discussion. For those willing to spend money, the Superchat gives them a slice of the microcelebrity’s attention.

Still, at the end of the day it’s an individual with a brand communicating to an audience he doesn’t know. There is a massive disconnect in emotional investment that exists between the speaker and listener that can’t be closed. There’s simply no way for a streamer with thousands of listeners to personally know and be invested in every one.

While such parasocial relationships are almost universally seen in a negative light because of said disconnect, it isn’t always so. One positive parasocial relationship, far slower than modern streaming, is between the book author and the reader. If you are seriously reading a work, you are having a conversation with the writer, and giving him the benefit of the doubt while wrestling with his thought. After all, if you don’t trust the writer, or are just going to immediately agree or disagree with what he said without introspection, why are you even bothering to read it? As Mortimer Adler said in his seminal work, “How to Read a Book”

Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book. But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying.

This is the healthiest and most fruitful form of parasocial relation, and one that will foster the most growth from the listener, something every speaker or writer should aspire to.

Putting that aside, not every parasocial relationship needs to be this intense. Sometimes a voice telling his followers to persevere in the midst of chaos is what’s needed. This might be a president consoling his citizens during wartime or a pastor preaching to his flock during persecution. Sometimes it’s something more mundane. Rush Limbaugh at his prime in the Clinton years was a focal point in keeping the Republican party alive. His listener’s tendency to agree with his every word gave them the moniker of “Dittoheads”. He was charismatic, but not a challenging thinker. While I have mixed feelings about Rush Limbaugh’s legacy, he had talent, and many in politics today got their start listening to him.

One can give countless examples of negative parasocial relationships, the type where the broadcaster uses his listeners to increase his own clout, getting into beefs with other people in the sphere, and directing his audience to cause trouble while taking no risks himself. There are countless speakers telling their listeners they need to start a revolution while doing nothing but sitting on their computer screen. There needs to be a seriousness in what one does and the consequences of one’s words and directions. This doesn’t mean he’s responsible if some crazy guy takes a message the wrong way and does something stupid, but prudence and “skin in the game” needs to exist.

On a personal level, I’ve developed a few parasocial relationships in my time. One of the most formative books I read was Alastair Macintyre’s “After Virtue”. It singlehandedly broke my mind free from the incessant red team vs. blue team nonsense that flooded my mind during the 2000’s. It was a difficult work, and I had a hard time conceiving of a man who found value in both Marx and Aquinas, grappling seriously with both of their works.

This, in turn, made my wrestle with what he wrote, as he slayed many sacred cows. My personal favorite was his dismissal of Universal Human Rights as a total fiction with no real correlation with reality. There were plenty of other thoughts he had in the largely accessible work in an academic but conversational style that I often went back to. As I pondered it, his thought came to me like an erudite travelling preacher, gently nudging me in the right direction as he passed along. He never knew me, never exchanged a word with me. I still felt like he talked to me, encouraging me to expand my horizons to ideas I didn’t even know existed.

He passed away this year at the age of 93. It hit me a little, and I took out my copy of “After Virtue” to give another read this year to hopefully gain new insights I originally missed. This was nothing compared to the gut punch I got in the recent passing of John Christopher Zander, known as The Z Man.

If one is looking for more insights into his personal life, I have nothing. I was a simple paid subscriber who read most of his articles, loved his gardening posts, and listened to his Sunday Thoughts as I made brunch. The only direct correspondence I ever had with him was when he replied to a few of my comments. If someone asked him who I was, he would have no idea. Still, it feels like I lost a mentor.

I originally became aware of his writing from Gab. This was around 2016, and the dissident sphere was just as full of clout chasers and grifters as it is today. My go-to morning blog was rapidly deteriorating in quality, the owner constantly causing trouble with others in the sphere and developing an insufferable ego. I read some of Z’s recent posts out of curiosity and got hooked immediately. He seemed to be a more level-headed, sensible person. Soon I was a regular reader there as the other site faded.

Those of you who are familiar with The Z Man’s blog know its comment section was the best around. Every day there were hundreds of erudite, well-structured comments on the main article, and it shows the quality of the writing that its readers were also a cut above. Like many writers in Substack, I started out as a reply-guy, posting under the name “Chet Rollins” for years. As my current writing projects took off, I stopped having the bandwidth to do so, but I credit that comment section for honing my skills and putting my assertions and assumptions to the gauntlet. People were mostly respectful, but that place definitely wasn’t an old ladies club. This is fitting, since he started dissident politics crushing the numbskulls at the National Review, his comments often getting more traction than the article itself.

At his core he was in it for love of the game and for the friendships he formed. In his mail bag articles, you could feel his glee and gratitude to readers who gave random stuff. He would constantly support small businesses, was a strong proponent of Gab, and give shout outs to people who needed it. It was amusing seeing all the stuff he would shill on his blog, from jewelry to soap to Chaga tea. Every conference in this sphere he would try to attend, whether it was AmRen in Tennessee or VDARE in Virgina. During those gatherings, he always tried to communicate with the new generation and stuck his neck out for many young men, though many turned out to be underserving. I always said once the kids got older, I’d attend one and shake his hand. Alas, that will never be.

He only financialized himself after much consternation. He hated feeling like a beggar, a true old-school working-class mindset. It was the right choice. There is nothing wrong with making money creating something people enjoy. That’s very different than being a sellout. He always made sure people got their money’s worth, and his non-stop work ethic put everyone else to shame. Because of this, he had choice words for those who begged for money to support creating online content and then not delivering. He always had a strong personal code of honor in his dealings. For those developing an audience, you would not go wrong asking yourself “What would The Z-Man do?”.

His writing was the best of everything. He challenged and forced you to grapple with an imposing intellect. It really was incredible how vast and deep his reservoir of knowledge was. He also had an optimism for the future under a sometimes cynical veneer, never succumbing to total black pilling though he knew the path forward would be painful. He had a confidence without arrogance, strong opinions that were well formed, and an pithy style that got to the point. There was no place for meandering verbosity in a Z-Man article. He valued his time and respected yours as well. If you read with a healthy respect, you would be rewarded, even if you ultimately didn't agree.

The Z Man had his flaws. He could be a crabby guy on off-days, especially on Social Media, and many went to his Mute Motel for general misunderstandings. He also had blind spots for methods of thinking he saw no practicality in, like Philosophy. He was human, after all.

The most depressing part is the lack of closure. He had a gardening dream that will never see fruition, his truck project will never see the light of day, and his book will be forever unfinished. Perhaps it's best that way though. It would be sad if you didn't have goals and aspirations to your very last breath. Countless great men have left unfinished work, often dying long before their time. There was a blogger names Zippy Catholic who opened my eyes to the realities of usury, who died in a tragic bike accident. Even a man as prolific as Thomas Aquinas didn’t finish his work, the last paragraph in his Shorter Summa, fittingly about hope, being thus:

We must go on to show that men can reach that kingdom. Otherwise, it would be hoped for and prayed in vain. In the first place, the divine promise makes the possibility clear. Our Lord says, in Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom.” God’s good pleasure is efficacious in carrying out all that He plans, according to Isaiah 46-10 “My counsel shall stand, and thy will be done” For, as we read in Romans :1” “Who resisteth His will.” Secondly, an evident example shows that attainment of the kingdom is possible….

Hope for the future is everything. No one will ever replace The Z Man. He was truly one of a kind, and in a more rational time would have had recognition in mainstream discourse. I sincerely hope he is just the beginning. Though his memory will fade, those who keep the flame will write, collaborate, and push forward into America’s future. Some regular commentors who are now orphans will remember those challenging times and remember his insights and good character. Maybe when we win, our future historians will look back, prowling the digital archives for the great thinkers of the early 21st century. They will wonder where the term “Cloud People” came from. They will scour for where those keen insights of managerialism blossomed. They will search for who first coined the phrase “If you find a libertarian, beat him. He’ll know why.” And eventually they will come across the man who escaped Lagos.

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