How did being “famous” become a thing? How did society peg people who are singers, actors, writers, etc. as a “celebrity”?
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Mass media. It became possible to record entertainers, copy those recordings, and broadcast them across the world. This was already kind of possible with writing, but performances like singing and acting are much more intimate. Suddenly, just by dint of consuming popular music or theater/film, everyone in the country was seeing this person’s face or hearing their voice. Our brains aren’t really built for regularly seeing someone we can’t actually interact or be friends with, so a whole side industry grew up of sharing the details of these people’s lives to partially scratch that itch. Thus, celebrities.
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