Why do some artists never seem to write back?

I get my fair share of messages and emails from strangers because of my artist career and like most artists, I love it. I'm not exactly Tiësto but some people seem surprised to see I maintain my own MySpace page, like I might have hired someone to do it for me. I don't mean to offend those who might think that way but seriously, that's just ridiculous. I know much, much bigger artists than me that can work their way through their daily messages over a cup of coffee. Many artists log onto MySpace several times a day. Why do they do that? Nobody changes, updates or maintains their page on a daily basis, do they? No. They come primarily to read messages and comments. Knowing that, why is it that some of these artists never seem to write back?

When you're an artist with exposure beyond the confines of your bedroom, you have to choose how available you're going to make yourself to your audience. Although this changes based on anything from your daily mood to who's writing and what's being written, it also depends on how big the artist is perceived to be on both ends. This may sound cynical but there's plenty of reason to argue for it too. The more attention you get, the more people will want to interact with you. When artists/celebrities reach a certain level of perceived fame and fortune, semi-fanatical people pop up like mosquitoes on a hot summer day and ruin it for the rest of us. They're not always easy to differentiate from the norm either. I was so excited about (and not used to) receiving fan mail at first that I replied to absolutely everyone who wrote. Occasionally, a polite, thankful reply on my end would spawn another 20 fanatical mails within the hour, requesting stuff like altered versions of my songs customized for the person who wrote. Some people write to me asking for advice in a way that makes it sound like I was throwing up tequila and tacos at 4 AM in their bathroom last Friday. When this happens, you start thinking twice about writing back all the time. I do believe some people are so busy or get so many messages they genuinely don't have time to reply to them but above all, I think a lot of artists don't write back because they feel it compromises their image of being big and unattainable. It's an elitist, narcissistic type of mentality where you have to be on their level or have something to offer to qualify for a reply. Sometimes that pisses me off but frankly, it also serves a purpose. How much of an icon would Justin Timberlake seem like if you talked to him every day, heard him casually talk shit about a psycho fan from last Tuesday, hung out and got drunk with you every once in a while? He would go from being an icon to a living, breathing, burping and farting human being. We all are but from a marketing point of view, when you're in the spotlight, it's better to preserve this illusion than to break it.

In the world of dance music, very few people are genuinely unattainable through MySpace. If you're a well-spoken, reasonably intelligent person and write something nice to someone you appreciate, I can totally understand why it can be frustrating if they don't write back. Knowing that they easily can just makes it worse, too. However, it doesn't hurt to see the big picture as to why it is this way.

If my MySpace page ever hit seven figure profile views, I'll probably delete this blog and pray nobody ever read it.