Meeting people I’ve only ever seen in my Zoom physics classes. Meeting a celebrity after months of seeing them on social media. Finding out an online figure I followed for years is an abuser, a sex pest or just an all-of-the-above terrible person. The world is slowly revealing its ill-intentioned machinations. A universe projected or simulated, a facsimile or dream of higher beings. There’s this disconcerting feeling I’ve picked up from many of these situations, one that I find a common thread in — but while of course all of them find their origin in some sort of artifice, we can take it deeper than that. We can sift through these layers of reality and burn away every last one, but in order to cast these shadows out for good, we have to trace them back to their source. We have to dive into Plato’s cave.
Let’s say you chained up several people from birth so that they were always facing the wall of a cave (kind of a fucked up thing for you to do, but just roll with it for the parable). All they have ever seen is that wall of the cave, with one exception. If you were to place a torch behind them, shadows — like puppets — would dance for them on the wall. Those bound would not know anything of light, darkness or life — they would perceive those shadows as their truest reality. But let’s say you freed one of those cave-people (how nice of you). Without the rest of the cave-people knowing, this person turned around to see the torch and the shadow-casting objects in front of it. Furthermore, they venture outside of the cave into the world. For a moment, the outside world’s light burns their eyes, but they eventually adjust. They look out and take in the beauty of the world, eventually realizing — watching objects all around them block the sunlight and cast shadows — that the reality of the shadows was simply a projected one. Let’s say you take them back to the cave (that’s not so nice of you). If you chained them back up (I don’t like where you’re taking this), would they not long to glimpse the outside world again? Would they not attempt to explain to their fellow cave-mates how the world actually works? Would they not be dismissed entirely by their peers in the best case, or, in the worst case, would these claims not enrage the people of the cave so that they would then kill the one you had freed (was that your plan this whole time)?
Now, you might be familiar with this parable, even without me casting you in it. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” is one of the Greek philosopher’s most influential passages, published in his magnum opus “The Republic.” The metaphor is clear in his story — the way we perceive reality is conditional, limited by the senses we possess that are unaware of higher, truer realities. Plato used it for his own philosophical arguments of idealism, but the parable holds a broad spectrum of applications. The idea of universal truths existing in imperceptible layers has been interpreted endlessly: from Buddhist enlightenment to Christian ascension and “The Truman Show” to “The Matrix” series. Matrix metaphors as a modern Plato’s cave are used by political movements of all alignments as an analogy for uncovering the insidious inner workings of world powers. Even further is the possibility that the entire universe as we know it functions as a hologram or a simulation (even if my physics major brain dislikes the concepts). However, disregard all of that for a second. For a moment, there’s something I’d like to place above philosophical allegories, religious endgames, Platonic pop culture, governmental gospel and the entire universe itself — and that’s you. And me. And us: all of us, the way we perceive and treat each other.
Let’s say you built a stage for the prisoners of Plato’s cave (kinda cool of you, good job supporting the arts). The dwellers of the cave are brought up staring not at the cavern’s wall, but at the spotlight upon it. Performers act out whatever they could desire to on Plato’s stage, complete with a catered set design. As the performances go on, systems begin to develop within the players’ minds. They notice how certain performances elicit different reactions from the audience, and which emotions they can bring out from/by the way they play certain parts. Over time, as performing becomes required, it becomes more rigid. Some performances opt to bring out the most positive engagement, while some want to muster up any declaration of emotions they can. To the audience, the props become reality and the performance becomes the actor’s personality. Let’s say you took one of them backstage (where are you going with this, I didn’t like how it ended last time). They see the lamp illuminating the stage and, although it burns at first, they see performers outside of their acted-out existences and they see the cardboard backs of the set. What would happen if you took them back to their chains (again, I guess)? What would happen if the performers were taken with you? What happens when our parasocial parables — the narratives we form with those we think we know — burn away?
The metaphor is clear, right? The phenomenon of parasociality — especially with internet-established “relationships” between cyber-celebrities and their audiences — is not anything new and has been oft-discussed, even here at The Michigan Daily. We form attachments to the projections created by internet personalities, and are repeatedly disillusioned when those shadows are cast away. These performances are catered to both the whims of the audience and to the stage they are performed on — user engagement and the online platform of choice are driving factors. But now that we know this, the solution is clear, right? Never return to Plato’s cave and never mistake the stage for the world. What if, instead, this knowledge doesn’t illuminate shadows but deepens them?
Let’s say you put the world behind a screen (it’d seem more accessible that way, good job). You still have Plato’s prisoners, but let’s say you gave them access to the “true” world as well (how kind of you). They have spent their lives seeing the two worlds. Some regard both of them as virtually the same — after all, it’s only a screen separating one world from the other. Some do treat the two as separate, as many things happen behind the screen that could not reasonably happen in the real world. Collectively, their treatment of what lies within the screen and the world that lies beyond becomes contradictory: What is beyond the screen is not real, what is beyond the screen is also real and what is beyond the screen is a reality higher than our own — as accumulated evidence of what is exceptional about existence — curated, biased, manipulated as it may be. The light of the screen does not illuminate: It insists that you accept its elevated existence.
And so these Platonic parables become perplexing. The parasocial parables drift further and further into the philosophical shadows. We treat performers as simultaneously everything they project themselves to be and everything that they deny themselves to be. They are cast as people in our lives and as props for our entertainment at the same time. The internet makes actors of us all. What would Shakespeare think? All the world’s a stage and you cannot escape.
That is, unless you do know the truth. So who are you? What parts of you are personality and what parts are performance? The puppets or the shadows? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. I want you to answer. Look at me. Look at these words, rather — whether they’re in print or on a screen — because I’m talking to you, as I have been all this time. Ask yourself these questions: Do you know the answers to them? My pen is mightier than the scalpel, —would you let me carve into you and answer me?What happens when we’ve parasocially bound everyone, ourselves and the future — the foundations of our realities?
Well, I’m not sure. I’ve been standing on Plato’s (historically very broad) shoulders to outline this issue, but I don’t consider myself a philosopher. I am, however, a physics major and a student journalist for a lot of similar reasons, most of which involve attempting to dissect the world as rationally as I can. In that rationality, of course, is my irrational and therefore absurd pursuit: I’ve sworn myself to not follow the steps of Plato’s prisoners or their shadows. I’ve sworn myself to the sunlight — to see the truth no matter how much it burns. Plato’s parable and parasociality can sometimes be interpreted as binaries: you’re enlightened or you’re not, you’re parasocially attached or you’re parasocially aware, in or out of the matrix or in or out of the simulation. The problem with the term “parasocial relationship” is that it implies the choice to form a relationship. The reality is, people intrinsically bond to any projection of life — in art, in the world, in Plato’s cave — and if I’ve written this well, we’ve formed something like that here, because escaping the cave is a constant struggle. So in the closing words of our shared parable, I’d like to ask you something. Please, just treat whatever reality you’re given with reverence, with kindness — and just a little bit of caution for what could be behind the shadows.
Digital Culture Beat Editor Saarthak Johri can be reached at sjohri@umich.edu.