When Kevin Bacon spent a day pretending to be normal, he hated it – can you really blame him?

I think what annoys me most is when famous people complain about the perks of fame. In a world where some people’s most meaningful social interactions rely on porn bots liking their tweets, I don’t want to hear of a millionaire feeling crushed by the embarrassing ordeal of being famous.

That is why it was very refreshing to read about Kevin Bacon’s recent experience in which the Unbound And Tremble Star goes undercover to explore life as a “normal” person. The 65-year-old actor commissioned a special effects artist to design a prosthetic, which he then put on before heading to an LA mall to get a feel for what it’s like to live here at the foot of Mount Olympus. His verdict? It “sucks.”

“People were kind of pushing past me and weren’t nice,” Bacon explained Vanity Fair. “Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to stand in line to buy a crappy coffee or something. I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to be famous again.'”

You really can’t disagree with him there.

Frankly, not being famous is awful. I have a few friends who, if you stretched the definition of the word to its extreme, could be called “celebrities,” and I can’t stand it when they complain about being recognized on the street. I’m barely recognized in my own house. I’d kill for that kind of validation.

The fact that I wasn’t famous nearly drove Kevin Bacon crazy, and it only lasted five minutes. Imagine how the rest of us feel. No special treatment, no adoring audience. No one wants to see me fight the X-Men or sell cell phones. They certainly aren’t playing a game called Six Degrees of Ryan Coogan.

Bacon isn’t the only celebrity who goes undercover. Apparently there are a whole host of celebs who get a perverse thrill out of pretending to be normal people with normal jobs, rather than the holy beings of pure light that they really are.

American talk show host Jimmy Kimmel used to have a semi-regular segment on his show in which famous people would use a similar trick to Bacon: they would dress up and try to blend in. Participants included Machine Gun Kelly, Miley Cyrus and Drake, who, after his public dismemberment by Kendrick Lamar, is probably thrilled that he can disappear whenever he wants.

Why all this fascination with celebrities dressing up as ordinary people? Not only why do they do it—at this point I’m just going to assume they’re looking for a way to break up the monotony of yacht trips and foie gras lunches—but also why do we find it so entertaining?

I wonder if it’s because we like to be reminded that, despite dominating the cultural landscape and dictating the zeitgeist, they’re basically just as human as you or I (let’s just ignore the fact that they need five pounds of makeup to do it). Maybe we want to put a damper on these big shots by making them do the most humiliating thing we can imagine – be ourselves. Or maybe it’s just because we enjoy the lie that status, money and good looks have their downsides.

Whatever it is, it’s hard to ignore that when Kevin Bacon gets tired of standing in lines and having his dinner reservations turned down, he can dramatically shed his mask of normality and go back to being the guy who gets harpooned in the first round. Friday the 13th.^th Film. He is a tourist in our lives and now he can return to the comforts of home and worldwide admiration.

And as for the rest of us? Well, I’m sure fame isn’t as great as it’s made out to be anyway.