Back before large cities the average person would only know those in their village, they wouldn't know who hundreds or thousands of strangers are from other regions other than maybe through reading writings of authors or something like that. With modern technology many people have a feeling that they "know" various celebrities more in the way they know a friend. By this I mean that they obviously realize they aren't actually friends with the celebrity but in their head they think of them more as a full person rather than having strictly defined boundaries and understanding that what they see on the screen doesn't necessarily translate to a real person. It's hard to explain what I mean exactly I guess but basically this leads to people being influenced by celebrities and media personalities in ways that aren't healthy. For example in a village you knew everyone and had a good idea how they live their lives. With celebrities a person may feel they know them and how they live but in reality that celebrity may be a total degenerate in their personal life. This leads to some otherwise regular well meaning people picking up traits of extreme psychopathic narcissists and I think this is part of what is poisoning our society.