The Golden Gazette

I personally love my name. Actually I guess I’m content with it. My first name, Lauren, is pretty basic. I know about a hundred other Lauren’s so it’s not a super unique name, but I do have a little story behind it. My mom was a teacher so when she was thinking of baby names, if there was a name she liked but then a student she had that gave that name a negative connotation to her, that name was no longer an option. Luckily, my dad’s name is Laurence so switching her choice to Lauren was pretty easy. Now that’s not to say that I am solely named after my dad, it’s just a coincidence. Lauren was a popular name for the kids of 2003, and it just helped that it was close to my dad’s name. Now my last name is what I really like: Golden. It’s a stereotypical Jewish last name that is decently common, but that doesn’t make me love it any less. I couldn’t ask for any better of a name than the color description of first place and beauty. I personally can’t think of any negative connotation to the...

Something that has been around for many years but is greatly increasing in recent years is the concept of parasocial relationships. It’s truly so intriguing to me because of how common these relationships are on minor scales, but also on large scales too. The kicker is, most people don’t even realize that they themselves are partaking in a parasocial relationship. Before I go on too far, I should probably share what a parasocial relationship actually is. By definition, parasocial relationships are “one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence”. These relationships most commonly involve those being in one-sided relationships with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams,) or television stars.  Now let’s rewind back to when I said that many of us have these relationships on smaller scales. You may be thinking, Lauren, what the heck this is so crazy and od...