The word was first coined by University of Chicago sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, who observed television viewers engaged in “para-social” relationships with on-screen personalities, resembling those they formed with “real” family and friends.
They noted how the rapidly expanding medium of television brought the faces of actors directly into viewers’ homes, making them fixtures in people’s lives.
Senior editor Jessica Rundell said: “We’re not here to judge what’s a good word, what’s a bad word and whether it’s valid – it’s more if it stands the test of time and if people are using it all over place.”
New entrants to the Cambridge Dictionary included skibidi, delulu and tradwife.
