What makes a star?

Heyyy, I'm back with more random babbles. I'm very sorry that I didn't post anything last week but I was away pretty much the entire week (yes, I'm making excuses).
Anyway, the other day I was thinking about how some player are recognized as stars even if they have an average year (say 6 on a scale of 1-10) and how others are ignored even if they have several very solid seasons (let's say 8 on the same scale).
For example, let's compare these players (they will remain nameless for now) (also note, I meant to write this earlier so the stats I found are a couple of weeks old):

Player A (Career Stats): .269/52 HR/ 191 RBI/ 1208 AB

Player B (Career Stats): .273/43 HR/127 RBI/ 1043 AB

If you look at the stats, these players appear to be very similar. Except for the fact that one is a star and one is not. See, player A is the vastly underrated Josh Donaldson of Oakland. Player B is Bryce Harper. Both are early draft picks (although Harper was first overall and Donaldson was 48th) , many baseball fans on the east coast have never heard of Donaldson while basically ever baseball fan ever knows of Harper and has since he was a teenager. So why? why, out of these two very similar players only one is famous?

First thing: Career track record and reputation. Harper was a mega-prospect, a star since before he was drafted. Donaldson was not. Donaldson emerged as a legitimate major league player in 2012, Harper has been dubbed the next Babe Ruth since 2010.  Basically, Harper has enough buzz surrounding him that even though he has been injured a lot recently, he is still hyped to be one of the best players in baseball.

Also, Harper plays in a bigger baseball market than Donaldson, so he has more national exposure than Donaldson. Although Oakland has the best record in baseball, the Bay Area is dominated by the Giants. Harper plays in the rapidly growing Washington market and is on the east coast (which for some reason means more coverage automatically...I don't know).

Basically, that's two reasons why the perception of these two players is so different. I thought that this was an interesting issue with the All-Star Game tomorrow (because,all the starters are never the most deserving...) Enjoy Donaldson in the Home Run Derby tonight folks!

~TBC