The Death Of Kobe Bryant

My friend had texted me "RIP Kobe Bryant"
Which I thought was a joke. As in "man, Kobe got caught for raping ANOTHER girl, he's done"
Nope
He died in a foggy morning in Calabassas. Which is odd, considering I had woken up to a very foggy day here in Los Angeles and wondered how anyone could see past their face.
Why would you fly a helicopter in this mess?
During the decades (now) that I've lived in L.A. I've never once watched a Lakers game. Nor have I seen any NBA game. To me, it's all in service to promote overpriced physical equipment gear to underprivileged children. In other words, if you aren't 6 feet 6" and don't have coordination to throw a ball into a round hole, nothing at Dicks Sporting Goods is gonna help. Kids are dumb, so kids thought they could be Kobe.
What does bother me is how large his presence is on media right now. They treat him like a God. As does his former players. And have run multi story in reverence to his life which was unfortunately cut short. Not one of us wanting to address the elephant in the hotel room in Colorado. That he is a flawed God. That Gods fall from the heavens. Many tributes about to happen. Many really obnoxious as no one really knew Kobe. Many phony. This isn't one of them, because it isn't a tribute (sorry, title may have misled you) or a personal eulogy. Because frankly, none of these guys are that inspiring. I'm still trying to figure out how he got this large so fast.
By reverse engineering, I've discovered...media built the house of Kobe.
They've beefed (pun..Kobe, get it) him up since childhood and relentlessly shoveled his fame into our living rooms. If he wasn't playing, we got updates as to why or why not. He played his entire career in Los Angeles. Which just made rich famous people feel MORE elite.
He was just incredibly good at something. Though it wasn't to cure cancer or adopt puppies. He just played real good (sic).
But the media keeps the tributes coming. Whatever lets the world express their grief. I know, and have thought, that every once in a while some higher power reminds us how human we really are. Regardless of how big the media builds us their Gods.