Idolizing people: a recipe for disappointment and unfairness
The era of the internet and multiple communication mediums has opened the doors for a vast amount of information, including bits of basically everyone’s personal lives.
Artists, celebrities and anyone with minimum recognition have been able to reach those who “follow” them and to show a bit more of what was only reachable through their public work. But in that process, it has made people believe that they are in fact close to them in a personal level.
With that personal closeness (most of the times illusory) the need or desire towards idolizing has taken new levels. Fans are able to send messages and show their support to those they admire (which I don’t think is a bad thing, unless it is believed that they are better, superior or worth worshiping). Admiration and inspiration are a completely different thing, compared to idolization.
This idea of idolizing regular people (like we all are) has reached new heights, to the point in which those who are the receivers of such worship feel uncomfortable, start doubting themselves and even asking people to drop them from the heaven they are put because it makes no good to non of the parts.
It is easier to realize about this with normal-day to day relationships. It is a complete recipe for disappointment and unfairness to believe that someone’s family, friends or barely known people “are a certain way”, while expecting them to be the best version of themselves, always. This ends in dehumanized people, by putting over their shoulders these unreal and socially constructed standards, and instead of inspiring them to accept themselves, they can be lead to guilty failure.
In the end, such failure is not only translated into disappointment for those put on a God level, but also for those who will see their idols’ flaws as a betrayal and something that they have the right to judge.
