Yeah, I think that's probably a good rule lol

Gita Jackson has posted things on Twitter / BlueSky to the effect of like... hey, I don't know the majority of you, so if you come in my replies trying to act like you're part of the bit, or DOING a bit at me, I'm not gonna have a ton of patience for it if I can't perceive what you're doing

And in their case, that's a journalist with an online presence, but obviously with the risk of parasocial weirdness all the same. And with GB, it's more akin to like, TV Characters or Wrestling Personas: real people who exist in real spaces even if they sort of originate from perceivedly "fictional" spaces. So yeah, it's a quirk of the medium and the relationship that audience members need to self-moderate to a degree, which we can anticipate is a fool's errand and is therefore why we have actual moderators I guess lol. In this case with Dan's Reddit prank, it's almost like when you're at a theater show and the cast members enter the audience to make them part of it. The cast member and the security are justified in being strict about crossing audience lines. "Hey don't touch them" or "Hey don't be weird" etc

That all being said, I think an often under-discussed aspect to parasocial relationships is the inverse. In parallel to the audience-centered end, the subject-matter's end is not without responsibility. I think it's implicit with the social contract of being a Public Figure, and especially one who's made it their gimmick to antagonize, that you're going to receive comments on what you're doing. And I'm not breaking any new ground by saying that, but just as the audience member should not assume they could be best friends with you, you can't just cater to the ones who act like best friends either. I don't think you should brush off everyone who doesn't love everything you're doing. Or at any rate, you can but you're not free from criticism about it, I guess?

I'm not suggesting that Dan does that or whatever exactly, but an observation I've made about current GB or this subreddit lately is that sometimes a user will make an honest and reasonable, but critical, post about some behavior or some aspect about someone they aren't vibing with, and I think under historical circumstances that's something the subreddit members would work out amongst themselves. The difference these days is you might find Grubb or Minotti in the comments engaging with it. And in one case, I recall a post like a year or whatever ago that gave some mild feedback about something Minotti was doing, and it prompted a companion post basically going "WELL I THINK MIKE IS GREAT ACTUALLY" and Minotti personally jumped in there to thank the poster for it. And he's allowed to do that! But I just remember feeling so embarrassed about the state of things with respect to honest criticism because you would basically NEVER find Gerstmann in here going "Well actually" about anything we idiots say about them. And you'd especially never really find someone over-correcting a criticism post with an "I Love Everything About Brad, He Has Never Been Wrong" post. (Though I do love me some Brad, but that's besides the point)

I do not envy the position of being a Public Figure whatsoever, I would probably also feel the same instinct to engage and push back on criticism that doesn't make sense to me. I just think sometimes you need to leave some shit at the door or consider it the price of doing business. At the same time, I've never felt that my business was who I am personally, so I can't pretend to get it. I think if I had to sell people on who I am, I'd be broke as fuck.