We live in the age of superstars. We love celebrity status. And it's killing us.
To be fair, we have a heart-level problem. Christians call it a "worship" problem. Worship, simply put, is what we do when we ascribe ultimate value to something. The thing that we most ultimately value will be the thing to which we devote our attention, our resources, our energy, and even our full selves. We do it all the time, without even thinking. We'll give ourselves over to the thing that we most highly value. The problem is that we ascribe ultimate value to cheap substitutes rather than to an eternal and complete God, and end up feeling used, broken and frustrated. The Bible calls that misguided worship "idolatry". Idolatry is worshiping something other than God, displacing Him from his rightful position of having ultimate value.
The reason I provide that as an up-front caveat is because time and time again we find that the thing we consider to be ultimate is usually ourselves. In fact, we have been bombarded by the message (at least in my lifetime) that we need to look out for ourselves; that we are the most important person in our universe, and that we should be okay with that reality. We want to, and nearly succeed in, worshipping ourselves.
But the situation is even more complex. When you ascribe ultimate value to something–when you are worshipping it–it is rarely if ever just a personal thing. The natural outcome of your worship is that you will want others to worship the thing you ultimately value as well. It's impossible not to! The 21st century result is that all of us are vying for the attention of others; holding out the thing that we consider to be of the most value–ourselves–and hoping that others will join us in our idolatry.
While self-worship may have always been the agenda of the human heart, it has been propelled by advanced communications in the 20th century, and exacerbated further by social media in the 21st century. Give someone your smartphone and tell them to take a picture of the most interesting thing they can think of, and nine times out of ten they'll take a selfie. But that's just a symptom. Advances in communication and social media gave us at least three opportunities to promote our self-worship that most people throughout history didn't have.
First, it expanded our influence. Prior to the extreme advances in communication in the 20th century, the number of people whose influence extended beyond their town, city, and especially their state was few and far between. Most people's influence extended to their family, at best. Now, you can have instant access to literally billions of people. Drop the right tweet, post the right status, and you might find that suddenly you have real influence. The truth is that even people with a modest number of followers on Twitter or Facebook have a significantly higher amount of influence than someone would even dream about 100 years ago, simply because we are more connected.
Second, social media allows us to craft an alternate identity, or at least, highlight only the good parts of our real selves. The advances in technology mean that we can craft our little self-worship idol in a way that we know people are going to value it. Celebrities are created not because of who they are, but because of who we perceive them to be. We value the false identity they've created; not the real deal.
Alternatively, the best way to make sure that no one ever worships you is to let them get to know you. Then they find out the whole package and realize it's not that great. That's why your family doesn't think you're a superstar, even if everyone else does. In fact, no matter how great you are, your family never thinks you're that great. I'm pretty sure Barack Obama doesn't have his kids call him Mr. President at the dinner table, and I'm doubly sure that they talk back to him just like my kids talk back to me. I doubt LeBron James' mom and family cater to his every need at Thanksgiving dinner because he's arguably the best basketball player in the world. (Not to mention that if either of them actually expected that type of behavior from family, we'd think they were arrogant turds anyway, not worthy of our respect.)
Social media allows us to skip past having to let people in on the real deal and only show them what we want them to see. And we're okay with it, because the vast majority of them are never, ever going to know the real story. It's not just that what they are consuming is a limited version of ourselves; it's that all they will ever know is a limited version of ourselves. We can carefully craft the idol.
Third, and perhaps the thing that destroys us the most, is that our celebrity is quantifiable. How many followers do you have? How many friends? How many likes did you get on that last status update? Who commented? Who is talking about you if you google your name? You might not have had even a percentage of that information before the advances in technology. "How famous am I?" would have been a much more difficult question to answer with any accuracy.
These three opportunities exist for every single person in the 21st century to allow them to promote their own ultimate value. All of us have access to the tools that will give us influence. All of us can create a false identity to be worshiped. And all of us can quantify, every second of every day, exactly how well we're accomplishing our agenda. And it's killing us.
Every day we measure our self-worth (intentionally or unintentionally) by comparing ourselves to other people's false identity, and then turning around and seeing how many people are "liking" ours. Admit it: you would feel better about yourself if 50 more people liked your last status update; no one posts that selfie and feels good when they get zero comments or likes. Chances are, they'd be devastated.
This is why today, more than ever, we need to be pointing people's hearts and affections back towards Jesus. Only once we begin to see Jesus as having ultimate worth do we begin to release our agenda for our own glory. Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, promises to change us on that heart-level. Jesus gives us the confidence that we measure up and that he loves us, regardless of how many likes or comments we get. He's the only one who is going to love you perfectly, and not the fake you that you've crafted for outsiders. The real you that's sitting on your side of the computer.
My advice? Stop chasing celebrity or superstar status and start embracing Jesus. Instead of killing yourself trying to chase down the love of others, enjoy life with a God who chases you down because he already loves you.