Hm. It was before the 20th century maybe. People knew of artists by name, not by their social life and sex tapes. The pop culture paraphilia is a very recent thing.
You're claiming that gossip and hero worship and celebrity didn't exist before the 20th century which is a wild claim that you'd need to back up with evidence. Humans haven't changed that much over the centuries.
Like most things I read outside programming on this board, it is people talking out their ass about things they don't know much about but they think they do because they are well paid to write javascript.
