I need help? Them's fightin' words.
This attitude is not a new one. People naturally find fascination in other people. In the case of public people, sometimes you find that you know a lot about somebody you've never met. I don't have that with anybody, but I recall reading a story about David Foster Wallace that said he felt awkward speaking with people because he was so honest in the stuff that he wrote, he felt that people knew more about him by reading him than they did with talking about him.
But then, I've got a different attitude towards this, because I'm a fiction writer, and a part of writing fiction stems from an obsession with people. I'm a gossip hound about people I don't even know. I don't follow celebrities, mind you, but if I read a book I want to find out as much as possible about that writer. I want to know where that book came from. For me, that's a story just as fascinating as the writing of the original book.
(And obviously, I don't feel an actual connection to somebody like Daniel Handler. I'd love to meet the guy, because he's a brilliant writer, but the "personal relationship" to which I referred was more the relationship between me and his work than it is between me and him. But it's not between me and one book of his, it's between me and the things that he creates as a whole.
Perhaps I'm going a bit overboard because I get offended when people say they get offended by things that I write about. But look: if you're arguing PC versus Mac, you're participating in a pretty fucked-up argument. I used to argue Mac versus Linux with a friend, I still defend my Mac here, and I'm aware more than the people I argue with that when I argue this, I'm doing it because my Mac and I have a relationship. Why the hell do I care if somebody online uses Ubuntu, or Android, or if they think Opera is better than my precious, precious Safari 4 beta? I'm not saying I don't care, because I do, and the people I argue with more often than not care also. It's because human beings become emotionally invested in the things that we use. When somebody insults my computer, they're insulting me and the standards that led me to be using the exact set-up that I do now. That's irrational, and I'm aware that it's irrational, but it's still how the human mind works.
That's the exact same as feeling a devotion to a person you don't know. The object doesn't matter: the irrational part is the devotion. (It's what bonds people together as human beings, so it's really not irrational, it's a part of our biological makeup.) So when this guy writes about how he feels this connection with Paul Graham, I understand it, even though I don't have the same connection with the guy. I have connections with other people that I don't know. I'm madly in love with Steve Jobs and Dieter Rams in a way that makes me want to get to know them as people sheerly to know what sort of mind could create the things that I use and love. That's completely normal, in a messed-up sort of way.
But as I said before: I read this article as a kind-of-farce. I doubt this guy was being completely honest in his writings. Similarly, do I stalk Daniel Handler? Of course not. I just read his interviews when I find them. But that doesn't stop this from being a relationship between me and a guy that makes things.
I've had that relationship in reverse with people who've liked the things that I do. I'll meet people that feel they know me through a crappy Flash video I did a while ago. And while I don't feel that that gives them a good idea of me, that's because it was a bad video. I fully expect that the people who use sites I design or who read stories I write do know me, and when I meet them there's a feeling that I don't have with other people, that in a way this person and I are friends. Because in the process of writing, of creating things, I've shown a part of myself and made it public in a personal way. When I write, a part of the process involves my getting to know myself better. And when those people read my writing, they've taken that in, and they've gotten to know me. Not my story, but me, because everything I write is me, everything I know is a part of me, and the relationship between a person and a piece of art is absolutely, in some non-trivial way, a relationship between that person and the artist. That's natural.