>>359037661
>popular people don't realize they're popular until someone else tells them they are
This is certainly true. I remember probably the most popular person in /vrg/, at least at the time, realizing that other people don't have the entire room run up to greet them when they join.

All I've personally found is that it's impossible to make friends without being part of some exclusive group, either in VR or Discord. There's someone who I exchange messages with almost every day but we almost never actually do anything together because their inner circle server comes first. How can I as an individual possibly compete with a group of tens, maybe hundreds of people? They do that server's activity, then meet those people in VRchat, then if they want to play something else they've probably already been invited by someone from there. The only way we ever do anything is if they've exhausted all options from that group, and from their other DMs. I'm probably not even their last resort.

Every person I've ever found already has this kind of commitment that makes me the extremely low priority backup option. The people who aren't already heavily involved in a community are impossible to find because they never log in because they have no-one to see. Without god tier social skills, a bout of extreme luck, or living in VRchat, you're never making it into one of these groups in the first place.

In summary, I completely disagree that popularity is an illusion. Without popularity you're never going to be involved in anything.