Every online existence is a noncommercial simulation of celebrity culture: Users develop a character (i.e., the best-case portrait of themselves) and then track the size of its audience (via the number of friends they acquire or page views they receive). Private citizens now face a dilemma previously reserved for the authentically famous: How do they cope with the disparity between how they are seen in the communal sphere and how they live in private? This is why Hannah Montana works. Teenagers can relate to her.
