By Safaa Hafiz
Having feelings for a real, tangible person is definitely not abnormal, it’s natural- but what happens when the one who sweeps you off your feet happens to be a fictional being? I’m talking about book characters, TV show characters, cartoon characters… I think you know what I’m talking about. During lockdown, meeting new people and social interaction was drastically harder. Many people, especially teenagers, began turning to the media for entertainment, and this saw the spike in attraction to unreal entities, AKA ‘fictional characters’. A major example of this happened to be when the popularity of Draco Malfoy (from Harry Potter) reached a new high and took over social media platforms, such as TikTok, and was dubbed ‘DracoTok’. It’s not uncommon now for people to say they were ‘in love’ with a character, because at the end of the day that is what they were created for, but what happens when that attraction is biologically and emotionally real. If you’re reading this article, you’re either really weirded out by this concept or relating to everything I’m saying, so before I continue I’ll break down biologically what happens when you have ‘feelings’ for a certain someone.
Let’s imagine you’re sitting in class when that beautiful human being walks in and you all of a sudden feel elated and bubbly inside. Three chemicals are released in your body to invoke such feelings. Number one is norepinephrine, which basically increases your heart rate and spikes your blood sugar to provide you with a boost of energy. Norepinephrine is what causes you to have a physical reaction, like sweaty palms or rosy cheeks. Secondly, the well-known chemical called dopamine. Dopamine affects our mood, attention and stimulation, and this process actually happens when you take recreational drugs, like cocaine. It could be said that when you have a crush, you really are ‘high on life’.
The third is endogenous opioids which is what makes us attracted to the other person and conclusively, makes us have a crush. All three play a major role in our perception and attraction.
Now, how does this all tie into fictional characters? Its been shown that when we simulate agency- when we know something isn’t real but part of our brain still thinks it is. We can still believe a character is not real, but subconsciously we assign thoughts and feelings to it and become attached to them. We can also undergo ‘experience taking’ where we begin to experience the reality of a character as if they were you! It all seems to make sense that our brain, as amazing and complex as it is, can fall for the little tricks too!
I should try to warn you not to fall in love with these fictional characters, maybe give you a disclaimer and say ‘I’ve been there and I was suffering’ but in reality, many of us enjoy falling for these perfect people that live happily in our minds. I would also try to tell you how to get over these crushes, but I’m also no expert in that either. I think the only logical way to get rid of them would be like any other crush, either wait until someone better comes along or just stay in pain and denial. You can choose. As we move on through our lives, the characters we read about and watch come and go, like people in our lives, so being attached to them isn’t unhealthy at all, it’s natural. My last piece of advice would be to enjoy it, just like I do. Go out and watch edits, reread pages and fangirl/guy over whoever you want, because life is too short to care about whether they are real or not!
Cover by Beka Robinson
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