The Cambridge Dictionary has chosen “parasocial” as its Word of the Year for 2025, following a sharp rise in global lookups tied to creators, viral fan behavior, and growing concerns about AI companions.
The term refers to a one-sided connection someone feels toward a public figure, fictional character, or artificial intelligence.
Cambridge says searches for parasocial had already been climbing throughout the year as debates grew about creators and marketers leveraging one-way relationships with fans. That interest expanded as personalized AI chatbots became mainstream, sparking new conversations about their psychological impact.
Searches spiked after viral IShowSpeed incident
The biggest single jump came on June 30, 2025, when YouTube streamer IShowSpeed blocked a fan who called herself his “number 1 parasocial.” Her reaction went viral, pushing searches for the term to one of the year’s highest points.
Cambridge cites the moment as a clear driver behind parasocial becoming one of its most-searched definitions of 2025.
In June, lookups rose again amid coverage of Meta, OpenAI, and broader concerns about how AI chatbots could affect children’s mental health. By September, Cambridge updated the definition of parasocial to explicitly include relationships with artificial intelligence.
Throughout the summer, the term kept resurfacing. In July, xAI rolled out a subscription version of its Grok chatbot with anime-style companions that critics argued encouraged unhealthy parasocial connections. In August, 44 state attorneys general warned 13 AI companies to add protections for minors against harmful “chatbot parasocial relationships.”
That same month, global coverage of Taylor Swift announcing her engagement to Travis Kelce just days after her appearance on the New Heights podcast sparked another rise in lookups as fans debated their reactions using the word.
Cambridge says the rise of AI companions, ongoing creator-fan controversies, and heightened discussion around influencer culture all converged this year. Parasocial becomes their pick shortly after Dictionary.com selected 67 and Collins Dictionary named vibe coding as its Word of the Year.
