The popular media is tremendously powerful. It has taken me a lifetime to realize just how powerful. It works away at us over decades, slowly modifying social values and educating newer generations to a modern Political Correctness. Its mostly responsible and benign, but I am wary of it. It works just like peer pressure.
Now, the cult of celebrity is so overbalanced that some people seem to feel that thier own (humble) lifestyles are so empty that they are worth little or nothing. The dream they have bought into is `fame'. As consumers `fame' is thier opium. Also, the only way they can empower themselves and make thier lives meaningful is to grab some fame of thier own, if only on kareoke night.
The reality is that `fame' is a shallow and unworthy goal in itself, but that is all thats required for now. But this is the dream the media have sold us. What happens to society when no-one is content to form part of the audience, because everyone insists upon trying to take the stage.
The problem is not the making of music or musicians. We are just as much victims as anyone else. I try to maintain a balanced perspective, I have to work at every day.
The article is good, its message is welcome.