I think it says something quite dark about our society as a whole that we have basically commoditised distress and are encouraging some people often themselves in dire circumstances to prey on others to the benefits of the middle men. I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands.
To a degree it’s also quite normal to have parasocial reactions to personaes from media, it only becomes problematic once people substitute actual social relationships with extreme parasocial relationships.