The Virtue of the Virtual Friend

You’ve had a long, stressful day. You get home, make dinner, and settle onto the couch. You don’t turn on the TV; instead, you open Twitch or YouTube. You click on a familiar face, a streamer you’ve been watching for years. For the next three hours, you listen to them chat, laugh at their jokes, share in their triumphs and frustrations as they play a video game. Maybe you type a message in the chat, and for a fleeting moment, they read it aloud and respond. You feel a sense of connection, of community, of comfort. This person feels like a friend.

Or maybe it’s a podcaster. You’ve listened to hundreds of hours of their voice, their intimate conversations, their personal anecdotes. You know their sense of humor, their political leanings, the names of their pets. When you see a new episode has downloaded, you feel a genuine sense of pleasure, like you're about to catch up with an old pal.

This is a parasocial relationship: a one-sided, unreciprocated bond where one person invests emotional energy, time, and interest, and the other party—the celebrity, the streamer, the public figure—is completely unaware of their existence. For decades, this phenomenon was seen as a sad, slightly pathetic substitute for "real" friendship, a symptom of loneliness and social isolation. But is that the whole story? As these relationships become an increasingly normal part of modern life, a more complex question emerges: Can these virtual, one-sided friendships actually be a good thing? Can they, in any meaningful way, contribute to a well-lived life?

To answer that, we can’t just turn to modern psychology. We need to go back 2,300 years to ancient Athens and consult the West’s original and greatest philosopher of friendship: Aristotle.

Meet Aristotle. A student of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great, Aristotle was a polymath who wrote on everything from biology to poetry to politics. But at the core of his ethical framework, laid out in his masterpiece, the Nicomachean Ethics, was a single, driving question: What is the good life for a human being? His answer was eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia: More Than Just "Happiness"

Eudaimonia is often translated as "happiness," but that’s a weak and misleading translation. It’s not about a fleeting feeling of pleasure or contentment. Eudaimonia is better understood as "human flourishing." It is the state of living well and doing well, of actualizing your highest potential as a human being. It is a life of excellence, purpose, and meaning.

And how do we achieve this state of flourishing? Aristotle’s answer is clear: by living a life of virtue. Virtues are character traits—courage, temperance, generosity, justice, and so on—that are the golden mean between two extremes. Courage, for example, is the mean between cowardice and recklessness. For Aristotle, these virtues aren't just abstract ideas; they are practical skills that you develop through habit and practice, like learning a musical instrument. You become a courageous person by repeatedly performing courageous acts.

This is where friendship comes in. For Aristotle, friendship is not just a pleasant social bonus. It is an essential, indispensable ingredient for a eudaimonic life. You cannot flourish alone. Why? Because, he argues, a true friend is "another self," a mirror in which we can see our own character and practice our virtues. It is in our relationships with others that our moral character is truly tested and forged.

The Three Tiers of Friendship

Aristotle was a master classifier, and he broke friendship down into three distinct types:

1. Friendships of Utility: These are the most common and the lowest form. The bond is based on the mutual usefulness of the parties. Your relationship with a coworker who helps you on a project or the barista who knows your coffee order falls into this category. The friendship lasts only as long as the utility does.

2. Friendships of Pleasure: This type of friendship is based on shared enjoyment and good times. Your drinking buddies, your gaming squad, the people you go to concerts with—these are friends of pleasure. The bond is based on the fun you have together. When the fun stops, the friendship often fades.

3. Friendships of Virtue (The "Perfect" Friendship): This is the highest and truest form of friendship. It is a bond between two people who are of good character and who love each other for who they are, not for what they can get from them. They admire each other’s virtues. They push each other to be better people. This kind of friendship is rare, takes a long time to develop, and is the most enduring. This, for Aristotle, is the kind of relationship that is truly essential for eudaimonia.

So, where do our modern parasocial relationships fit in?

The Streamer as a Friend of Pleasure and Utility?

At first glance, it seems parasocial bonds fit neatly into the first two categories. They are certainly relationships of utility. The streamer provides entertainment, a sense of community, and a cure for boredom or loneliness. In return, the viewer provides attention, and perhaps financial support through subscriptions or donations. The utility is clear on both sides.

They are also, undeniably, relationships of pleasure. We watch streamers and podcasters because we enjoy their content and their personality. They make us laugh, they excite us, they comfort us. The bond is rooted in the positive feelings we get from the interaction.

But can they ever approach the third, highest level? Can a one-sided relationship with a person you’ve never met be a friendship of virtue? The immediate answer seems to be no. A core component of a virtuous friendship is reciprocation and a shared life. The streamer doesn’t know you; they cannot act as a mirror for your character in a direct way.

And yet, it may be more complicated than that.

A One-Way Mirror for Virtue

While the relationship isn't reciprocal, that doesn’t mean it can’t be a vehicle for moral development. A viewer can absolutely admire the virtues of a public figure and be inspired by them. We can watch a streamer who demonstrates remarkable resilience in the face of adversity, a YouTuber who shows immense generosity by using their platform for charity, or a podcaster who practices intellectual honesty and courage in their discussions.

In this sense, the public figure can act as a kind of moral exemplar. We can watch them navigate difficult situations and learn from their choices. We can be inspired to cultivate the same virtues in our own lives. The streamer, by embodying a certain character, can push thousands of viewers to be better people, even without knowing their names. It is not a friendship between two virtuous people, but it can be a relationship where the perceived virtue of one party inspires the moral development of the other. It is a one-way mirror, but a mirror nonetheless.

Furthermore, the communities that form around these figures can be a powerful space for practicing virtue. The friendships formed in a Twitch chat or a Discord server between fellow fans are very real. Within these communities, people can and do practice generosity, kindness, and mutual support—virtues that are absolutely essential for a flourishing life. The parasocial relationship with the central figure becomes the catalyst for very real, Aristotelian friendships between the viewers.

A Stepping Stone to Eudaimonia?

Aristotle could never have imagined a world of livestreaming and global celebrity. His model of friendship was based on the face-to-face interactions of the small Greek city-state. And we should be clear: a parasocial relationship can never replace a true, reciprocal, virtuous friendship. To believe it can is to risk falling into a shallow imitation of a good life.

But to dismiss them as entirely pathetic or useless is to miss the point. In a world that is often isolating, parasocial relationships can be a powerful source of comfort, pleasure, and, most surprisingly, moral inspiration. They can serve as a vital stepping stone, providing a sense of community and offering models of character that can genuinely encourage us to cultivate virtue in our own "real" lives.

Perhaps the Aristotelian view of our virtual friends isn't to see them as a sad substitute, but as a modern, imperfect, yet still valuable tool in the timeless human project of striving for eudaimonia. A true friendship of virtue may be the goal, but if watching a stranger play video games online inspires you to be a more courageous or generous person, who is to say that isn't a small step toward a life of flourishing?