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@ Laeserin
2024-12-29 20:29:03
## The paparazzi are we
One of the things that bothers me about social media, in general, is that it gives celebrities an air of approachability, that they don't actually offer.
Theoretically, a celebrity could respond to any one of the dozens or even hundreds of people asking them questions or lodging complaints or singing their praises, but they usually only respond very selectively and leave everyone else just sitting there, as a living monument to the ReplyGuy.
And, as a wise man once said, ReplyGuy is a hoe.
## Death of a ReplyGuy
This is usually because of time and energy restrictions, but also due to distaste, disdain, or indifference. Regardless of motivation, it is simply the nature of things, when a larger number of people are clamboring for the attention of some particular person.
> Ooh, ooh! Can I have the next question?!
> Would you please address my bug?
> May I have a microsecond of your time?
Social media (and I include GitHub in this category) ups this game considerably, and potentially turns it all into a dangerous psychological torture, by making us all preoccupied with people who don't interact with us. The most irrational of groupies because we are forever making almost-contact with our stars.
If we can see them talking to _one_ person, we're supposed to feel like they've spoken with _all_ of us. But they haven't. They spoke with someone else, and we were allowed to watch. No different than on television, except that we might be disappointed and eager to return the next day, to renew our futile attempt.
The same intoxicating feeling that playing the lottery elicits. Everyone is a _potential_ winner, but there is only one jackpot. Come back next week. Buy another ticket. This next time, is your time. Promise.
## The view from the peanut gallery
It is all an illusion that there is no hierarchy, where there clearly is one. Celebrities of the past had, at least, the decency to remain slightly aloof. But they all want to be one of the Common Folk, now, just as every multi-millionaire aspires to see himself as fundamentally working-class.
All of celebrity social media is a stage, and most of us are merely spectators or commentators, to what is playing on it. This is why, if someone treats me like someone sitting in the peanut gallery, my instinct is to treat them like an actor.
Because, in reality, that is what they are.