Paraqualia

I’ve been thinking a lot about how life feels at the moment, wrote this the other day. I’m not sure if the word exists anyway, can’t find anything perhaps a NEW DEFINITION????

A Paraqualia is a simulated experience, where media portraying an experience is the surrogate to the experience itself. As a more general form of a parasocial relationship, of which paraqualia is a super set, paraqualia mimics an experience by portraying the experience as having happened, all be it in a compressed and tuned form. Paraqualia can manifest in many ways. A character may experience a life changing event in a movie, perhaps they shape themselves, realise a deep truth or achieve a dream. These experiences are mapped via empathy onto our own experience, but it is condensed and vapid. A paraqualia can also occur through the potential of the experiences becoming, which paradoxically short circuits the earning of a reward. A plan delivered by a self help guru is intoxicating. Through it, and the presented potential of results, the experience of actually undertaking the plan, which may be difficult, is circumvented. Instead, the reward is delivered as the potential itself, and as a result no action is undertaken. Paraqualia may also be formed through the lived experiences of people we hold relationships with.

The danger with paraqualia is it’s potent and self-reinforcing allure. In circumventing the action required for a reward, where potential or empathetic experience of reward is surrogate, the experience is never actually undertaken. This creates a loop in which the brain begins to correlate the desire to experience, the potential for experience, and the empathetic experience of other’s experience, with the feeling of wanting experience, which I will call missing. In a parasocial relationship, this is dangerous as it promotes unhealthy behaviour in which isolation is reinforced by and reinforces the loop of missing and paraqualic satiation.

Loneliness is writhe in modern society. As sources of parasocial relationships are abundant and easily accessed, the path of least action creates this seeking. In this, the brain understands that the trigger missing of loneliness can be satiated by parasocial media.. Th When someone embedded in the loop interacts in a real social environment, they may not be able to navigate the complex and noisy real world, as their brain does not have experience dealing with these nuancesus the pull of parasocial media heightens and the loop is reinforced. This is evident in pornography, where we place our psychology in the empathic mode to embody what we perceive. The parasocial relationships here are obvious, and more prominent then ever with cam girls and only fans. These services thrive on the idea that the person cares about you, the viewer. A paraqualia is developed, that simulates a potent and highly sexual relationship, which is addictive in that it only touches upon true connection and satiation. As such there is a lack, and the loop is reinforced into an ever tightening spiral.

This resonance also exists in the self help space. Self help looks to give the consumer a tool kit to tackle a personal issue, a lived experience or navigate life in the general. Self-help content however does not actually address these issues. Instead it provides a plan, the execution of which would amount to significant work. The missing of feeling lost or confused in life is satiated by the potential of removing it. In this way, the paraqualia is experienced as the actualization of self, through the lens of the potential. The resonance occurs in the same way as before. Navigating the plan necessitates a frustration. If that frustration passes a threshold, the mind retreats to the paraqualic self-help content, seeking new potential and hope in the face of frustration. The breaking of the loop becomes harder and harder the longer the loop is reinforced.

Another example lies in the consumption of anti-systemic media. This is especially true if sourced from places which are built in and of the system. Netflix is a prime example. Netflix is a capitalist entity, that seek to monetize the attention of watchers, creating a model which delivers content until the content is exhausted. The rise of binge watching is a potent example of paraqualia, but I will return to this shortly. For now, I want to address the prevalence of anti-systemic themes in Netflix’s portfolio. Addressing systemic issues within art is a powerful tool. I am not saying it isn’t. Moreover, I am not saying that just because there is a need to navigate a system, anti-systemic art produced from it has no value. We all must live, and if the system is encompassing, it must be navigated. However, in the case of Netflix, the anti-systemic sentiment can, in a slightly paranoid light, be seen as induced paraqualia. In showing anti-systemic content, in which there is often agreeable discussions and resolutions which hold weight in anti-systemic spheres, people who wish to see the system dismantled experience the paraqualia of actualising this. The contents of the pre and post resolution experience are condensed, and the resolution accelerated into now. In this, the viewer becomes satiated. A paranoid view of this would be to see it as intentional. A satiated anti-systemist would do little to address the system. In my opinion, a more likely situation is that there is a proportion of viewership profiled as anti-systemic, and this content is directed at them to grab their attention. However, I believe the effect of the paranoid view still manifests.