The best way to cheapen anything is to overuse it …
I recall a sports clip from many years ago, where a veteran basketball player near the end of his career was reminiscing about his prime and comparing it to the supporting-cast status he was about to assume with his latest team. He made a comment along the lines of “I’ve been a superstar; it’s fine with me if I don’t have that role anymore.”
Perhaps he thought he was being humble. For my part, I thought that if I didn’t remember him from a fairly illustrious college career, I wouldn’t have picked him out of a lineup of one.
Superstar?
This word took flight in the 1970s, as far as I can tell. It was originally intended to draw a distinction between well-known people and really well-known people, usually from the sports or entertainment industries. However, I think most would agree that the term reached its zenith when Andrew Lloyd-Weber and Tim Rice affixed it to the title of their most famous rock opera, ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’
Admittedly, a reference like that set the bar quite high for anyone else who might want to be affiliated...