Man Explains The 'Worst Ick' He's Ever Gotten From Another Person — And It Wasn't Even His Girlfriend
The ick would have started way sooner for anybody else.
@ohmontaine / TikTok A content creator and musical artist on TikTok named Montaine recently made a post describing the “worst ick” he’s ever gotten from another person “in history.”
Montaine claims that the ick was so bad that it didn’t even come from a person he was dating. “I was not dating the person, I was not even seeing the person,” he explained. “It was just from someone that my friend was seeing at the time.”
In order to understand the level at which this ick was, Montaine explained this woman’s backstory and how things ramped up to the point where he couldn’t stand her.
The worst ick he's ever gotten started when she stayed at their house for a month straight.
“I used to live with two of my good friends. We had a three-bedroom apartment, everything’s cool,” he started in the TikTok. “One of my friends starts seeing this girl, which kinda messed up the flow of the apartment, you know? You kind of can’t be like, boys when like, a girl’s around all the time but I got it.”
Montaine understood that everyone is likely to have a girlfriend at some stage, but he goes on to explain that “little by little” things grew to be a little too much. Things went from her staying over for one night, to two nights, until eventually, she had stayed in their apartment for over a month straight.
This might not have been a problem if she wasn’t already doing things that were annoying Montaine and his other roommate. “She would use the hot water up, right,” he explained, “would not do the dishes, and never left, so I just never felt comfortable in my own apartment.”
His other roommate felt the same way Montaine did, and Montaine called it a “nightmare situation,” but all of that wasn’t enough.
Montaine says that wasn’t enough to give him the ick.
“Did that give me the ick? Absolutely not,” he said. “You wanna know what actually gave me the ick? You know how celebrities have these little fan accounts online that will track where they are, what they’re doing, or their outfits that they’re wearing and so on?”
The phenomenon that Montaine is referring to might require a terminally online brain to understand, but basically, on all platforms of social media exist fan accounts called “stan accounts.” The entirety of the content being posted is related to that specific celebrity, but it could also be about a TV show or any specific entertainment or media franchise.
“Well this girl that my friend was seeing not only ran one of those accounts for a celebrity, [she] ran two different celebrities’ full-time accounts, where they’re big stan accounts on Twitter,” he revealed. That is not even why I got the ick.”
Things got weird when they talked about how she considered these celebrities to be friends.
He explained that any time they would go perform around the world, she would be there with a VIP ticket prepared. With these VIP tickets, fans are typically able to meet these celebrities, and so whenever she got a photo with them, she would post about them as if they were friends.
“I didn’t think it was weird until we were talking about it in our apartment one night… and she mentions one of them by first name,” he explained. He made sure not to reveal the artists’ names, for their own sake, but continued to pry at her relationship with them.
He asked, kind of rhetorically, “you’re not actually friends with them, right?” but she defied all expectations by responding that she actually is, claiming they go “way back.”
Trying to get her to understand that she isn’t actually friends with them, Montaine continued, explaining that even though she runs these accounts for them and may have met them, she’s not actually friends with them, but she started to get mad at him.
“I was like okay if you’re friends with her then text her right now,” he said. “[She] goes to Twitter, opens the DM, texts her. I was like ‘How long do you want me to wait?’ She was like ‘Just give me like 10 minutes, she’ll respond.’”
“10 minutes go by, do you think she responds?” Montaine asked his viewers. “No, and obviously, that is what gave me the ick.”
This kind of parasocial behavior is unhealthy for both fans and celebrities alike.
When a fan reaches this level of fanaticism, referring to a celebrity as anything more than someone they do not know personally, it’s considered a parasocial relationship. It’s a one-sided relationship where the fan typically spends emotional energy, interest, and time on the other person while that person, usually a celebrity, has no idea they exist.
It’s currently up in the air whether or not parasocial relationships are good or bad as there are advantages and drawbacks that come with both.
According to the National Register of Health Service Psychologists, these emotional connections may provide fans with feelings of affection, gratitude, longing, and encouragement. There’s a high reward for these parasocial relationships and very little risk of rejection — since they don’t know you exist.
On the other hand, Verywell Mind reports that some drawbacks may come in the form of how people with parasocial relationships may be easier to influence. This influence could change an individual’s political views, voting decisions, purchasing behavior, attitudes about gender stereotypes, or even trust in various groups of people, such as scientists.
It’s also important to understand when parasocial relationships go too far and become weird for the subject being fanaticized themself. Fans are not entitled to... well, anything from the celebrities they worship.
Montaine got an ick when this woman expected a response from a celebrity they did not know personally, and he may be in the right for feeling that way.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.