The Year We Named Our Loneliness

If you want to know what matters to a society, pay attention to its words. Cambridge Dictionary’s 2025 choice, parasocial, holds up a mirror to a world hungry for connection -- but often settling for the illusion of it. The term describes the emotional bond people feel with someone they’ve never actually met, whether a celebrity, an influencer, or even an AI chatbot.

First coined in 1956 by sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl to describe the early bonds viewers felt with TV personalities, the word has surged back into the spotlight. Today it describes millions of invisible connections happening every hour online. Fans celebrated Taylor Swift’s engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce as if they were close friends. Listeners discussed Lily Allen’s breakup, revealed in her new album West End Girl, with heartfelt concern. And some users are now developing surprising attachments to AI tools like ChatGPT, mistaking digital imitation for genuine companionship.

Colin McIntosh, a Cambridge lexicographer, said parasocial “captures the 2025 zeitgeist,” as language shifts with culture. Cambridge’s dictionary swelled by another 6,000 words this year — adding entries like slop (low-quality internet content, often AI-generated), memeify, delulu, skibidi, and tradwife. Simone Schnall, a psychology professor at Cambridge, called parasocial an inspired selection, noting that these one-sided emotional bonds have “redefined fandom, celebrity and, with AI, how ordinary people interact online.”

Underneath this cultural moment is something deeply human: a longing to be known. Parasocial relationships feel safe. They ask nothing of us, demand no vulnerability, and require no real commitment. But they also cannot offer what our souls most need: mutuality, dependability, presence, and love.

Scripture points us toward a different kind of connection. Romans 12:10 urges us to “love one another with mutual affection,” and Hebrews 10:24–25 reminds us not to give up gathering with others so we can encourage each other in faith. The church remains one of the few places where people still practice embodied, face-to-face community -- a gift in an age of digital shadows and pixelated friendships.

So here is your invitation for the week: Take a single step toward real connection. Reach out. Join in. Encourage someone. Sit face to face instead of scrolling. In a world shaped by one-sided attachments, may we choose the courageous, mutual, Christ-centered community that heals loneliness and changes lives.