The Boston accent: Some call it grating, others call it iconic. While staring into your phone in bed, it comes clanging through the too-bright screen.
“Get ready with me IN KOREA!”
Maybe, you’d call it enchanting. Or maybe that’s the addictive nature of social media, sucking you into a rabbit hole before you have the chance to realize it.
“I’m getting divorced. Take a moment… take it in… you’re gonna wanna sit down for this.”
Mikayla Nogueira, a TikTok influencer with over 17 million followers, might have originally intended her fame to come from her sensational makeup prowess when she first started posting videos in March 2020. Yet, six years later, her reputation stretches beyond just elegant smokey eyes and cutting contour. A string of controversies has sat her at the top of an infamous empire. Dedicated detractors have dredged up it all—old videos proving her jarring accent followed her fame; how the L’Oreal mascara that “changed her life” was actually a set of falsies she glued on before filming; how even her claim of being a professional MUA for 13 years, as a 24-year-old, could simply not be true—but still, today, her almost-daily uploads average around 130,000 likes a piece (Leighton & Cheong, 2023; “Mikayla-Nogueira”, n.d.). Despite the evidence of her lies piling nearly as high as her mountain of PR boxes she receives from companies like Burberry, Louis Vuitton, L’Occitane, and Nars, her platform continues to thrive. In an online where authenticity is the greatest asset on the market, one has to ask themselves, why?
Grocery halls. Hair transformations. Day-in-the-life’s. These are just some of the videos Nogueira produces adjacent to her makeup focus. As she currently navigates divorcing her former partner Cody Hawken, her audience is right there with her through emotional disclosures, get-ready-with-me’s, and sponsored ads. The same way you might stand by a friend under scrutiny, her audience is the armor shielding her from the scorn of her own deceit. They are steadfast, forgiving, optimistic, and perhaps a little naive, but that doesn’t thwart them in their staunch defense against anyone who challenges their beloved Masshole. Notably, however, she is not an outlier; in fact, this is the very nature of social media influencers, their audiences, and the parasocial relationships that link them.
In the age of social media, friendships are no longer dictated by location or reciprocity. Parasocial relationships (PSR) are “nonreciprocal socio-emotional connections with media figures such as celebrities or influencers” (Hoffner & Bond, 2022). From MySpace and Tumblr, to YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, individuals from around the globe have been connecting and forging relationships through content and consumption for decades. In the early stages of the internet, an intriguing trend caught the eye of researchers. Kraut et al. (1998) conducted a longitudinal study that followed 169 individuals through their initial years online. They discovered that participants who spent increasing amounts of time online engaging in shallow virtual exchanges observed decreases in familial engagement and communication, along with diminishing social circles, in their material lives. Further, these participants reported higher rates of depression and loneliness. They called this the internet paradox,where the interconnectivity of the internet resulted in exasperated sense of isolation.
25 years after the study, in 2023, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared an epidemic of loneliness. He stated, “We need to protect against [social media apps that] seek to maximize the amount of time children are spending online at the expense of their in-person interactions.” According to his report, adolescents today experience a 70% decrease in real-life social interactions, yet make up the wealth of those who use social media daily (Summers et al., 2023; PartnerCentric, 2025). It is firmly established in research that feelings of loneliness tend to surge in late adolescence, tapering off throughout adulthood, before gradually increasing again in late adulthood (Luhmann & Hawkley, 2016). Additionally, the research is consistent in raising loneliness and social isolation as significant risk factors for suicidal ideation and behavior (Motillon-Toudic et al., 2022). Such raises the question of how the newfound prevalence of parasocial relationships, like those Nogueira and other social media influencers foster with their audiences, interact with these findings: Namely, are they helpful, or hurtful?
One study aimed to observe the mediating role of friendship in regards to parasocial relationships (PSR) with social media influencers (SMI) and perceived loneliness. Questionnaires evaluating “feelings of loneliness, favorite SMI, what kind of relationship they have with him/her, the number of good friends they have in real life, and their friendship quality” gathered feedback on these markers. Researchers found that higher reported number of PSRs often correlated with exasperated rates of loneliness, particularly in the presence of less reported friendships. Participants who could name more abundant friendships appeared to be protected from these effects, however. (Gaëlle, 2026). A sample survey of individuals in South Korea found that with greater dependency on parasocial relationships came greater experiences of loneliness, though these relationships did not necessarily impact interpersonal trust. Yet, dependency on social relationships, as opposed to parasocial, decreased loneliness and increased trust (Baek et al., 2013).
Loneliness as a subjective experience is more complex than mere isolation. A literature review evaluating 400 texts published between the years 2011 and 2021 found a consistently strong correlation between experienced loneliness and both suicide and parasuicide; however, they also revealed the various influencing factors rooting from the individual (such as core beliefs, emotional duress, lack of coping skills, or brain chemistry), from society (such as relationships or economic hardship), and from culture (traditional expectations or religion). Particularly, comorbid mental conditions, including substance use disorder, as well as economic hardship, posed an acute risk for the completion of suicide. Not only is loneliness a patchwork of numerous conditionals, but there is also no numeric scale to measure it by; while loneliness correlates with a relatively lower amount of social relationships, the feeling generates predominantly from one’s perception of active social support in their own life (Shoib et al., 2023; Zebhauser et al., 2014).
The idea of perception is central to understanding loneliness, especially within the online context. Social media is often presented as a holistic detriment to the individual, but user harm does not stem from mere engagement with the apps. Rather, it derives from the “self-comparisons” that occur internally within the user upon engaging with online content. Self-comparisons function as a means through which an individual can evaluate themselves—their efficacy, presentation, social ranking, and more—through others, and is more or less believed to be a prosocial behavior derived from the evolutionary need to remain aligned with the “in-group”, or tribe. Whether these self-comparisons aided or harmed the individual appeared to depend on self-esteem (Gilbert et al., 1995). Several studies capture the relationship between social media usage and psychological well-being in application. When analyzing what drives engagement habits, researchers revealed that participants who particularly engaged with social media in search of a sense of belonging reported increased positive feelings and community connectedness upon usage (Liu et al., 2018). When approached with a similar positivity, parasocial relationships appeared to promote solidarity, connection, and community within users, and even proposed social media as a protective factor against loneliness, one that can “facilitate coping, foster personal development and identity exploration” (Hoffner & Bond, 2022). Perception underlies the influence of social media and parasocial relationships on loneliness and well-being, but also suicide. A national survey conducted in Korea revealed that social media usage reduced social isolation, reflecting positively on psychological well-being overall. The greater one’s psychological well-being, they found, the more negatively individuals felt towards suicide, whereas greater social isolation was correlated with a more positive outlook on suicide (Choi & Noh, 2019).
Evidence showcases four primary motivations for why social media users follow SMIs on Instagram: Authenticity, consumerism, creative inspiration, and envy. These motivations heavily influence how much one entrusts, engages with, and consumes materials promoted by SMIs (Lee et al., 2022). Mikayla Nogueira provides an excellent example of this phenomenon. Such a densely packed history of controversy, particularly one of deception such as in her case, should shatter the illusion of truth that the parasocial relationship is built on and thus alter the perception. However, while authenticity was the strongest motive driving user interaction and engagement with SMIs, the parasocial relationship Nogueira has forged with her fans subsists because her followers are not seeking authenticity in her; rather, they seek consumerism. Nogueira presents herself as savvy, self-made, and luxurious through her ostentatious showcases of wealth, such as extravagant grocery hauls, brand-sponsored weddings, and mountains of PR. While she may be exposed for exaggerating her accent, there is no denying her clearly abundant fortune. Thus, the perception remains in tact, the parasocial relationship perseveres, and Nogueira’s platform grows, unencumbered.
In conclusion, whether or not social media and the parasocial relationships we foster there propagate positive or negative influences on our lives appears to depend on what we seek the platforms out for (Smith et al., 2021). These findings place the responsibility of our online experience on us. While that can seem, at first, discouraging, we must keep in mind that responsibility is not fault—rather, it is opportunity. With such agency, we can take a variety of different steps to create a safer space for ourselves on social media, to protect ourselves against negative self-comparisons and especially the feelings of loneliness that may follow doomscrolling. For one, consider setting screentime limits on your phone to reduce the amount of time you spend online, or even schedule into your day when you are on- or off-line. Continuous scrolling often leaves us vulnerable to witnessing some kind of triggering content as we can never predict what the algorithm will push onto our screens, so this can help us find a better balance and protect us in the long-run. When you are offline, you can try to fill your time with activities that help ground and connect you to yourself, such as hobbies, mindfulness practices, spending quality time with friends, or even just having a brief conversation with a stranger while you sit in a cafe to remind yourself you are part of this thing called humanity, too. Lastly, especially for those of us whose primary form of connection occurs online, choose who you follow wisely: How does the content they create make you feel about your appearance, your skills, your value as a person. If it is anything less than worthy, you know what to do!
~ Isabella McIlvaine
Isabella McIlvaine is a rising doctoral student in Clinical and School Psychology with experience working in both psychiatric research and healthcare settings. Her passions include creative writing, mental health, cooking, and animals!
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