Okay, I’m typing this one-handed, half-asleep, and the baby monitor is making that faint static sound that means he’s just *about* to wake up, but I really need to get this out and I’m just wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this deeply unsettling phenomenon or if I’m totally alone in this bizarre projection. I’ve been a stay-at-home parent for three years now, which is wonderful and fulfilling in so many ways, but also profoundly isolating and frankly, identity-eroding, and I think that context is important for what I’m about to describe. So, there’s this podcaster, right? Very popular, lots of critics, lots of devoted listeners, and I’m definitely in the latter camp. I listen when I’m doing dishes, when I’m folding laundry, when I’m pushing the stroller for the third time that day just to get out of the house. And I find myself, more often than I care to admit, scrolling through comment sections, through Reddit threads, through Twitter… or X… I don’t even know what we call it now, but I’m there, and I’m engaging. And I’m not just engaging; I’m DEFENDING this man. With a ferocity that genuinely startles me. Like, someone will make a comment about his tone or his perceived arrogance or a misstep in an interview, and I feel this immediate, visceral, almost protective surge, and I find myself typing out long, meticulously argued rebuttals. Like, "You’re misinterpreting his intent," or "He’s clearly employing Socratic method there," and I’m citing specific episodes and cross-referencing past statements, and I’m just… all in. And the thing is, I don’t even *know* this person. I mean, obviously. I’ve never met him, never spoken to him, and yet I feel this almost… almost filial connection, or like he’s an old friend from college, someone I *have* to stand up for. It’s the same feeling I used to get when someone would criticize my actual best friend, that immediate instinct to shield and clarify and explain away any perceived flaws. And I keep catching myself in the act, my thumb hovering over 'post,' and I just think, *What are you doing?* This is a complete stranger. This energy, this protective impulse, it’s… misdirected. And I know it’s not rational, and it's not even about the specific arguments or the intellectual rigor of his content, it’s this raw, emotional response. And then I start to wonder if it's some sort of transference, or if I’m projecting some missing piece of my own identity onto him, or perhaps that unfulfilled part of me that used to engage in robust intellectual discourse before my brain became 90% nursery rhyme lyrics and schedule adherence. Maybe it’s a vicarious experience of advocacy, or just a desperate need to feel like I’m *part* of something, defending something, when so much of my day is spent in this beautiful, but terribly small, domestic sphere. But then the guilt sets in, because I have a wonderful family, and a partner who tries, and I shouldn't *need* this external validation or this surrogate friendship. And I'm just sitting here, exhausted, feeling this profound disconnect between my internal landscape and my outwardly calm, competent mom exterior, and wondering if this protective instinct for a PODCASTER is a symptom of something deeper, something I can’t quite articulate or even look at directly. Anyone else feel this unsettling, almost obsessive loyalty to someone completely outside their actual life? And what does it *mean*?