What the classic film reveals about social media, online identity, and one-sided emotional connections.
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When did the world become so fake? Today, everywhere is saturated with social media posturing, unreachable goals, and conveniently placed advertisements. But it would be doing a disservice to blame ‘those kids and their phones’ on our fabricated reality; technology is a neutral force. So what ideas are behind the facade of the everyday?
The Truman Show came out in 1998, building a world that was curated, perfect, and impossibly fabricated. This film revolves around Jim Carrey’s character Truman Burbank as he begins to suspect that his life is scripted. This movie is revolutionary for its layered approach. We not only see what happens to Truman, but also the world that views him as a TV show. Two security guards watching from work. A man alone, TV set up in his bathtub. Workers and patrons at a restaurant, screen set up in the corner of the ceiling. None of these people share Truman’s curated suburban life, but they all idolize the message that the show puts forth, the narrative of the nuclear family.
One of the main tensions of the inner film is Truman’s desire to travel, which is constantly rebuffed by the people in his life. The actor for his wife constantly encourages him to settle down, pressuring him to have a child.
The nuclear family sprang up from the Cold War. As with many forms of propaganda at the time, there was a desire to create a national identity. And tools, like television, were an ideal way to spread this message. In 1950, Encyclopedia Britannica circulated a short film entitled A Date with Your Family; this video, and other media like it, were targeted attempts to spread Christian and patriarchal ideals to create a sense of identity during the Cold War.
The short film dissuades discussion of unpleasant topics and sets implicit sexist expectations (women help cook, set the table, and will get dressed up. Men have work or homework to do and only need to wash their hands before dinner). It continuously implies a need to watch what you say and do, a control of ideas in the name of family dinner, “be yourself, just make sure it’s your best self.”
This video would have been aired on TV, programming in many households and in front of many faces. The Truman Show is a critique of these Cold War ideals. The only person who can ever hope to live up to them is in a fabricated world. Every person who watches him from the other side of the television idolizes him and his life; sound familiar? I’d say it seems parasocial.
This word was coined in 1956 to define one-sided relationships people formed with celebrities and actors; many people know this word in modern contexts. Influencers and social media personalities easily attract people on the other end of the screen. According to Cleveland Clinic, these parasocial relationships can blur boundaries, isolate you, and foster unrealistic expectations. Someone in a parasocial relationship, especially someone who is already lonely, can be a perfect target for propaganda.
That word, propaganda, might seem stark or paranoid, but it is the reality. A study published by the University of Washington found that influencers directly profited from spreading misinformation about vaccines, often selling alternative health products to the vulnerable people who followed them. We might be inclined to see relatives fall down these rabbit holes and chalk it up to their previous politics or conspiracy-minded brains, but as much as they may be unpleasant or downright horrible, they are only part of the problem.
Individuals have been victims of propaganda since long before the rise of social media, The Truman Show still critiques a relatively modern ideal, and an ideal that continues to this day. A popular new emerging style of content centers around ‘trad wives,’ women whose presence online centers around being stay at home wives and mothers. They are often financially dependent on their husband and have immense power imbalances in their relationships. They echo the ideals of the nuclear family and are at once an agent of propaganda and a victim of it. Much like Truman, they influence others, but have no freedom to escape.
We all live in some level of fabrication. We have ideas about life that doesn’t happen to match with reality. The more steeped society gets in technology, the easier it is to believe what we see unconditionally. And sometimes there isn’t time to check the validity of that article or figure out if that person online is lying. More than ever life is a continuation of falsities. At the end of the day, the only way forward is to have a tether. Foster people in your life who will pull you back into the real world. We all have those moments when we slip up, and take the falsity to be real, even if we think our beliefs are immutable. So perhaps it’s better to go with the flow, see new information and examine it, don’t get stuck in a rut. And maybe go watch the Truman show, it’s quite a good movie.
Sources:
Meservey, Simmel. “Date with Your Family, a : Simmel-Meservey : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive.” Archive.Org, 1950, archive.org/details/DateWith1950.
Moran, Rachel. “View of Vaccine Misinformation for Profit: Conspiratorial Wellness Influencers and the Monetization of Alternative Health.” Ijoc.Org, 2024, ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21128/4494.
“Parasocial, Adj. Meanings, Etymology and More | Oxford English Dictionary.” Oed.Com, 2026, www.oed.com/dictionary/parasocial_adj?tl=true.
Tzani, Calli. “Social Media’s Dangerous Fantasy: How the ‘trad Wife’ Movement Fuels Inequality and Gender-Based Violence — University of Huddersfield Research Portal.” Hud.Ac.Uk, 2025, pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/social-medias-dangerous-fantasy-how-the-trad-wife-movement-fuels-/.
“Why Parasocial Relationships Feel so Real.” Clevelandclinic.Org, 2026, health.clevelandclinic.org/parasocial-relationships.