Why Hayden Panettiere's Death Feels So Personal To So Many Millennials

Culture & Parenting Reporter, HuffPost

When a famous person dies unexpectedly, people who enjoyed their work often feel the loss deeply. The news of Hayden Panettiere’s death at 36 has particularly hit many millennials who grew up watching her performances in a way that can be hard to articulate.

Therapists and mental health experts say that reaction is completely understandable, and it says something meaningful about the generation that grew up with her.

“I hear this from clients all the time – that there is this confusion about why they’re crying over someone they’ve never even met,” Gina Moffa, a grief therapist and author of Moving On Doesn’t Mean Letting Go: A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss, told HuffPost.

“We have all felt it at some point with a favourite public figure. And what I say is this: Your brain doesn’t actually care whether the relationship was mutual. It bonds with what’s familiar, what’s constant, what’s shown up for you again and again, even if that showing up only ever went one direction over a TV screen or a radio.”

The clinical term that helps explain what many people are feeling right now is a parasocial relationship – a one-sided bond that the brain forms with a public figure through repeated exposure. But experts say the term doesn’t entirely capture what these connections actually feel like from the inside.

“If someone’s voice or presence has been an important or meaningful part of your life for years, through your breakups, your late nights trying to fall asleep, your growing up, your body doesn’t check whether they knew your name or were an actual part of your life in any reciprocal way,” Moffa said. “It only registers that this was steady, this was meaningful to me, and now it’s gone.”

Therapist Tychelle Graham-Moskowitz explained the neuroscience behind these bonds.

“Our brains process the familiar faces and voices of celebrities we come to know and love the same way they process real friends because we see them on our screens, often daily, in our own homes,” she said.

“This is partly rooted in mirror neurons, which fire when we observe someone else’s emotions and allow us to internally mimic or feel connected to what we see as we may be experiencing many of the same emotions and events in our own lives,” she continued.

“When we watch a celebrity on TV, these mirror neurons let us resonate with their emotions, creating a bridge of identification.”

That’s why your brain doesn’t need a two-way relationship to form a meaningful attachment. Spending formative years with a pop culture figure creates a sense of familiarity, which can foster a genuine sense of companionship.

“Whether it is music, movies, sports, television or social media, we can feel like our paths have mirrored the path of the celebrity and we have ‘grown up with them’ or they represent a particular moment or time in our lives,” said Dr. Jessi Gold, a psychiatrist and chief wellness officer at the University of Tennessee System.

“I think about this like, ‘Oh, that movie meant so much to me when...’ and we have feelings that associate with that movie, that time, that........

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