LONDON: Do you feel a deep bond with pop stars like Taylor Swift or Lily Allen — even though you’ve never met them? If you do, then your behaviour is “parasocial” and bang on trend according to the Cambridge Dictionary, which on Tuesday unveiled the adjective as its word of the year for 2025.
Lexicographers picked it in a year they said was marked by interest in the one-sided parasocial relationships that people form with celebrities, influencers, and AI chatbots.
Parasocial is defined as “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know”.
The term dates back to 1956, when two University of Chicago sociologists noted television viewers developing parasocial relationships with television personalities, who they viewed in the same way as close friends or family.
As artificial intelligence becomes an ever-increasing part of people’s lives, “slop” refers to low-quality AI-generated content. New entrants to the Cambridge Dictionary, meanwhile, included “skibidi”, “delulu”, and “tradwife”.
The three were among “6,212 new words, phrases and meanings” included in the online dictionary over the past 12 months, it said.
The dictionary only adds words that are thought to have “staying power”, according to one of its lexicographers, Colin McIntosh.
“Internet culture is changing the English language, and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary,” he said.
Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025
