tbh I find the widespread habit of referring to him by his first name like he's a personal acquaintance to be part of this mechanism. This is something tabloid newspapers do with sport and entertainment celebrities to milk money from fans who gravitate toward others who seem to be part of 'the family.' It's a PR strategy designed to exploit human social circuitry and convert it into cash money.

This sounds strangely familiar to someone else that owns a Twitter-like social network.

This is actually one of the bigger problems with discourse and politics today: the idea that "rude, crude, and unconcerned with other people's feelings" has anything to do with honesty—and, conversely, that being sensitive to those feelings and trying to take them into account when speaking is dishonest as opposed to kind.