That is the miracle of the digital age, but all miracles have side effects. I once met a famous old artist. He said that the scariest thing about fame is not being hated by others, but that at some point, you start to completely believe in the compliments of others. Because then, people no longer look at themselves in mirrors, but look at themselves in the eyes of the crowd.
The crowd can turn an ordinary person into a talent overnight. It can also make a person think that they know everything just because many people press the like button. And when the praise lasts long enough, people begin to confuse fame with ability, between influence and intelligence, between the number of followers and self-worth. Perhaps that's why recently, people often encounter strange behaviors on social media. A KOL is angry at being commented on; an influential person scolds the audience for disagreement; a person with several million followers declares that those who argue against them are all "not of the same class".
The ancients called it "arrogance". Young people now call it "crazy", "crazy fame", "crazy power", and perhaps, today there is also a new form: "crazy follower". The pitiful thing about this craze is not that others see it, but that the people involved often do not recognize it. Because if a person who is drunk is still sometimes awake, then a drunk person in the applause of the crowd often finds it very difficult to know they are drunk.
And the crowd online is the most erratic thing in the world. Today they throw you into the clouds. Tomorrow they may forget you to go praise someone else. Today you are a symbol of success. Tomorrow you may become the subject of jokes. The most worrying sign of a person is not that they have too many followers, but that they are starting to believe that those followers have turned them into someone different from the rest of humanity.
That is a form of misunderstanding. And all misunderstandings about oneself, in the end, are the beginning of tragedy.
