Are lolitas parasocial with the brands?

Sometimes it just takes one person to put a thing to words to get your mind whirring. Which is exactly what happened when a friend said that lolitas have an interesting relationship with brands that almost feels parasocial. Do we? Is our community unique in that? Or is it a marker of the times that we live in, where a degree of parasociality underpins nearly all of our consumer interactions?

Photo by Alok Sharma from Pexels.com.

Before anything else, I want us to refrain from dramatising for a second here because the mere existence of parasociality in ourselves doesn’t immediately mean that we’re obsessive stalkers with no boundaries who are a danger to society and themselves. I’ve observed it in my partner in how he talks about the streamers he follows – he’s very aware of that and doesn’t engage with these creators any more than just watching their videos. I’ve observed it in myself in how I am more likely to shop with a company that’s championed by the creators that I follow and even in how I think about them. And I’ve definitely observed it amongst lolitas, even if it may sometimes be disguised in a more ‘fangirly’ outfit. People don’t just ‘stan’ Angelic Pretty or frequently buy from Atelier Pierrot – they talk about Maki and Asuka’s designs specifically, they comment on Connie’s posts as if they were friends, they know the names of the brand shop staff and follow their own accounts, they will make their decisions on event attendance or ticket tier based solely on that brand being a guest, and so on.

Without getting into the generational argument of the matter, I find that people who engage with more online things than offline ones pretty much always display a thread of parasocial behaviour or thinking. Again, not all of it is alarm-worthy, and it seems a natural extension of  what creators are willing to share of themselves and how much they reach out to their fans. Creators and platforms that share more of their personal life foster more parasocial relationships with their fans than those that promote clearer boundaries between work/creativity/content and life/rest/personal stuff. We see it happen in large scale from as well-known as Swifties taking the Easter egg hunting too far to as commonplace as streamers (who are already showing their own rooms, albeit curated for the views) openly discussing their own lives with people directly in the chat/livestream.

That so much of lolita fashion and much of its community is, and always has been, based online places it in the same broad bracket. We see individual lolitas take pictures and film reels in their own rooms, maybe drop a hint of their personal life matters, and form friendships with certain people that may eventually transcend online spaces at international events or during travels. But many don’t then separate that from when interacting with lolita models and/or designers who are doing the same stuff. Some lolitas translate being a frequent buyer with having a personal connection because in a community this small repeat purchases really are noticeable. Especially the one-person-owned indie brands love to see their creations be worn and may comment something complimentary, but that doesn’t immediately make you besties – it makes you a creator and a loyal fan. Amidst the anonymity and obvious money-grabbing from most online shopping, the change in how personal shopping feels when it’s from an indie brand (a handwritten thank you note, a few sweets with your order, a comment on or a repost of your post tagging them) is so refreshing that it can get into people’s heads. 

And I don’t think that this is necessarily restricted to just lolita fashion. I think any alternative community is prone to some degree of parasociality in our commercial interactions because the very nature of the community being alternative makes people band together. And the smaller or more specific the niche, the harder people will cling onto something that they feel is ‘theirs’ or ‘one of them’. For example, the kind of parasociality that I observe in lolita fashion is probably comparable to what I see people in the TTRPG communities display if they watch a lot of people playing the games on YouTube (Dimension 20, Critical Role, Adventure is Nigh etc.), but far less than romance readers who seem to more often seek to engage with other readers rather than with the authors and creators (though they may still form micro-communities around individual authors, especially if they are online more than others). As such, it isn’t so much about how much individual creators are online that drives the parasocial behaviours from their communities as much as it is about how much of that whole niche interest is confined to online spaces only. Certain hobbies and interests have made it easier to engage offline. Becoming a romance reader is far more accessible thanks to the relatively low cost of books and access to libraries, with shops putting on dedicated events that’ll take place all over the country at a low cost or even for free, than attending a lolita meetup, where you need to spend however much on at least one coord and then some for the meetup itself (travel, food, tickets etc.). The cost barrier of lolita is what creates the online lurkers and then pushes people towards more parasocial relationships.

Hopping to art galleries is a very different level of hobby than hopping to art galleries with lolitas and as a lolita.
Photo by ΘSWΛLD from Pexels.com.

But ultimately, lolita brands, indie or otherwise, are still businesses. No matter how many times you may have met their designer or representative at events, how much they might share of their personal life on their Instagram stories, how often you buy from them, how much they are an active part of the wider lolita community (that isn’t directly your own), your relationship is still that of a customer/fan and a seller/creator. The expectations that they will do something because it’s best for the community instead of doing whatever furthers their business model and gains them the most profit is misplaced at best, and the way that some people respond to it as if the decision was an actual personal slight is certainly lacking in that perspective. Whilst you should expect good customer service with timely response times and offers of resolution to problems from every business, the line stops whenever any personal feelings enter the picture.

Does that mean then that we should treat brands differently? Aren’t we all one community, the brands as much the wearers of it as they are the providers of the clothes that allow us to group ourselves based on a fashion style? I’m afraid that I have bad news for anyone asking these questions: nothing is this black and white in real life. Yes, brands are still a part of our community. There wouldn’t be one without them because, frankly, buying is way easier and faster than making. There’s nothing to say that it’s impossible to genuinely befriend someone who designs and/or sells lolita items, and take your relationship from parasociality into something real. That’s no different to befriending another comm member, so long as it happens just as naturally and isn’t forced by one side. At the same time, yes, lolitas should expect to treat brands and their representatives differently from ‘just regular lolitas’. They have a job to do which has a real impact on their livelihoods and potentially that of other people. You don’t have to agree with their business decisions, but you have to respect that ultimately their priorities are different to yours and you often don’t have the full picture that informs their decisions. Don’t take their business decisions personally or as a slight against the entire lolita fashion community because no-one has the power to speak for the whole lolita fashion community as we are not a monolith.

So yeah, the relationship that lolitas have with brands catering to us is certainly more complex than just a client-seller one. And whilst for the most part it makes our community a better place, by allowing us these close connections and reducing the hierarchical boundaries between the creators and the wearers, when it goes sour, it’s the kind of sour that really contorts your face into some weird shapes. Lolitas would do well to remember that no creator, whether an individual or a small chain with factory manufacturers, owes them anything beyond product quality control and responsive and respectful customer service. If more people in our community responded to those customer-seller boundaries, instead of projecting everything from their personalities to their feelings onto whichever brand or brand representative they are fans of, I feel like our whole community would benefit from that.