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Even though I know it would be better for my life and well-being, I cannot tear myself away from Ke$ha's highly stilted MTV reality show My Crazy Beautiful Life. This week's theme was what other people think of Ke$ha, which is very telling regarding the inner lives of stars in a way reminiscent of Reese Witherspoon. Just as Reese confirmed that for at least one star, "Do you know who I am?" is right at the tip of her tongue, Ke$ha confirms that she cares what you think of her. She really, really cares. That's no way to be the carefree weirdo she's based her persona on. On last night's show, Ke$ha despaired over Perez Hilton's negative opinion over her and cried tears of joy when the Los Angeles Times compared her to Dylan.

Part of the show was taken up by her fans, dubbed "Animals" in the way that every artist's fandom is dubbed some stupid name these days. This segment strikes me as a wonderful time capsule of the bizarre mimicry fans adopt to pay tribute to their pop idols in 2013. I know people have been doing this for decades. Kids are always going to dress up like idiot ravers circa '96 and/or Zinka models to attend concerts reminiscent of raves in 1996 and/or Zinka photo shoots. That is fine. What strikes me as particularly dumb about Ke$halikes and Gagalikes is that these artists preach individuality and the virtue of weirdness to a room full of people who are dressed exactly like them. These people are listening, but not that hard or to the wrong things. Everyone fails.