Someone can show you a moment without giving you the full story. They can share a space without inviting you into it. They can exist publicly and still have a private life.
Just because a window is open does not mean you are allowed to walk into the house.
Scroll through social media for a few minutes and you will see it. A local influencer you have been following for years posts something unexpected. A YouTuber hints at a breakup. A local celebrity deletes photos, moves out, or suddenly goes quiet. Within minutes, the commentary begins. “I always knew they wouldn’t last.” “She should not even be making moves like that.” “Nilijua tu.”
The certainty is immediate. The opinions are loud. And somehow, everyone seems convinced they understand exactly what happened.
Open any popular TZ gossip page, one of those “Udaku” hubs that function like a digital town square, and you will see the same pattern repeated at scale. Comment sections fill up with people demanding explanations, taking sides, and speaking as if they were present for conversations they were never part of.
What stands out is not just that people are reacting, but how confidently they do it. A single post becomes enough to build a full story. A short video becomes proof of someone’s character. People draw conclusions about situations they have only seen in fragments, yet speak with a level of authority that suggests otherwise.
It starts to feel like people are commenting on rooms they've never been in.
From following to feeling involved
A few decades ago, the celebrities we admired were distant from us. They were figures on a stage, voices on the radio, or faces on a billboard. You might see them once in a while, but their private lives remained private.
Today, that distance has collapsed.
In the current digital space, influencers share their lives in ways that feel continuous. “Get ready with me” videos, daily vlogs, casual updates from their bedrooms, cars, or kitchens. You see what they are wearing, how they do their makeup, and where they go on Sundays. You see the small, everyday parts of their lives that normally only people close to them would see.
Over time, that exposure starts to feel like familiarity.
It begins to feel like you know them.
Not in a factual sense, but in a personal one. You recognize their routines. You anticipate their reactions. You feel like you understand their personality. The content is casual, so the interaction starts to feel casual too.
Psychologically, this is what is known as a parasocial relationship. It is a one-sided emotional bond where one person extends time, energy, and interest toward someone who has no awareness of their individual existence. Through the familiarity effect, seeing someone repeatedly creates a subconscious sense of knowing them. Over time, that familiarity starts to feel like a connection.
You start projecting your own experiences, your own values, and your own expectations onto them. When they succeed, you feel proud. When they struggle, you feel disappointed. You begin to speak about their choices with a level of certainty that would normally come from real interaction.
And that is where the shift happens. You are no longer just watching. You feel involved.
When support starts to feel like ownership
This is where the behaviour moves beyond harmless engagement into something more complicated. Because the audience has “supported” the creator by liking posts, sharing content, watching videos, or contributing to their visibility, they begin to feel a sense of ownership over the creator’s life.
It starts subtly, but it shows up in very specific ways:
Demanding explanations: When a relationship ends, or something changes, people expect a full breakdown of what happened. Silence is seen as avoidance. Privacy is seen as dishonesty.
Aggressive side-taking: People pick sides, defend, attack, and “cancel” others as if they are directly involved in the situation.
Overstepping everyday boundaries: It can look small. Someone sees an influencer wearing something they like and messages them asking where they got it. Someone else sees their home and asks where they live, or which hotel they are staying at. On the surface, these feel like normal questions. But the assumption behind them is what matters.
The influencer has every right not to respond. They can ignore the message or say no. They are not obligated to share personal details just because those details appeared in a post. Seeing something is not the same as having access to it.
False familiarity from daily content: The more people watch “get ready with me” videos, daily routines, and personal updates, the more they feel like they know the person. That feeling starts to justify the behavior. It makes the overstepping feel normal, even though the relationship itself does not exist in real life.
Emotional investment that feels personal: People feel genuinely disappointed when a creator makes a decision they do not agree with. Not just disagreement, but personal disappointment, as if someone close to them has let them down.
The idea is simple. We supported you, so now you owe us access.
But support does not equal ownership.
The cultural layer
This is not just a global internet phenomenon. It hits differently in Tanzania because of our existing cultural grounding. We are a community-based society. We value cooperation and collective involvement. In our physical neighbourhoods, it is traditionally normal for aunties and uncles to comment on your life choices, for neighbours to discuss a marriage in the street, or for elders to demand an explanation when you stray from social expectations.
Social media has simply taken this existing community pressure and amplified it. It is no longer just the ten people on your street who feel entitled to your business. It is hundreds of thousands of people online. We have digitised the “vijiwe vya umbea”, and the influencer is always at the centre of the discussion.
The digital audience has become the new extended family, and they are just as involved, just as opinionated, and sometimes even more demanding.
The blur: Visibility is not access
The biggest mistake we make in the digital age is believing that visibility is the same as access.
The logic often sounds like this. If you post your relationship, then we are allowed to have opinions about it. If you show your home, then we can ask where it is. If you share your life, then nothing about it should be hidden.
But that logic is flawed.
Seeing something does not mean you are part of it. Being exposed to someone’s life does not mean you have access to it. Sharing is not the same as surrendering.
Someone can show you a moment without giving you the full story. They can share a space without inviting you into it. They can exist publicly and still have a private life.
Just because a window is open does not mean you are allowed to walk into the house.
That distinction is important because once it disappears, boundaries stop making sense. And when boundaries stop making sense, entitlement starts to feel normal.
A subtle shift in awareness
It is worth paying attention to the moments where you feel strongly invested in a stranger’s life.
Not to judge yourself, but to understand it.
Why does this feel personal?
Why do you feel like you are owed an explanation?
Where is that sense of certainty coming from?
Recognising the limits of your access changes how you engage. It creates space between what you see and what you assume. It allows you to follow without overstepping, to observe without inserting yourself into situations you were never part of.
Final thoughts
Familiarity is not the same as connection.
You can see someone every day, know their routines, recognise their voice, and still not know them. You can follow their life closely and still only see a version of it.
Visibility gives you something to look at. It does not give you ownership.
You can follow the story, but you do not own the characters.
Haika Gerson is a writer and psychology student at the University of Derby, passionate about human behaviour and mental well-being.
