Ah, the “cult of personality” and the obsession with celebrities! I’m reminded by your insights of a conversation I had years ago with one of my former (high school) students whom I have continued to mentor into her adulthood. She was obsessed with MJ. One day she was bemoaning some tabloid story about him, expressing how “depressed” she felt; she also mentioned her intention to meet him someday (with, it seemed, the notion that they would become friends, at the least…) Her inane comments so annoyed me that, forgetting we were on a public bus, I berated her for her foolishness and reminded her of the remoteness of her life from his (notwithstanding the idea of six degrees of separation), that caring so deeply about his life did not mean that there was an authentic connection between them, or that it would result in a significant impact on her life. A man seated near us began to laugh, then winked at her and said, “she’s right…why you gonna cry over someone when he don’t even know you’re alive.”
In Reverie Blog 
Ah, the “cult of personality” and the obsession with celebrities! I’m reminded by your insights of a conversation I had years ago with one of my former (high school) students whom I have continued to mentor into her adulthood. She was obsessed with MJ. One day she was bemoaning some tabloid story about him, expressing how “depressed” she felt; she also mentioned her intention to meet him someday (with, it seemed, the notion that they would become friends, at the least…) Her inane comments so annoyed me that, forgetting we were on a public bus, I berated her for her foolishness and reminded her of the remoteness of her life from his (notwithstanding the idea of six degrees of separation), that caring so deeply about his life did not mean that there was an authentic connection between them, or that it would result in a significant impact on her life. A man seated near us began to laugh, then winked at her and said, “she’s right…why you gonna cry over someone when he don’t even know you’re alive.”