Selfie Culture, Obscure Narcissism, and the Opacity of Being Known.
The social psychology & neuroscience of cultural narcissism.
“Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?” -Pablo Picasso
Narcissism is one of the most overused words today. It’s also one of the most misunderstood words in the English lexicon. We think we know what it is, but we don’t. Most psychologists relegate it to a disorder. Social media throws it around when it wants to blame a politician for being self-serving. The word has a long history, of well, narcissism
In the DSM-V, [think of this like a clinical bible for psychologists], narcissism has a host of seemingly related characteristics - some can include:
- Thinking you're better than others [Who doesn’t do this from time to time?!]
- A family history of mental health-related symptoms [This is a feudalistic conception of health, that if your parents have it, you must have it too]. - It’s an environmental disorder. [This means that there are values, beliefs, and actions in one’s world that make narcissism readily available].
It’s that last one that is the most important one. When you read the word environment, hear the word: CULTURE.
Humans are environmental beings. We are wired not just to be in a community, but to be influenced by it. We are intersubjective. That’s a fancy academic word that means, we all agree upon what we think is normal.
So, am I saying we have developed a cultural value of narcissism in Western society? Yep.
Everything from buying a house to who we should fall in love with. From taking a selfie with a celebrity to consumer altruism [i.e., buying a Starbucks drink with the hope that they will donate a percentage of that purchase to a great cause]. Narcissism is everywhere.
DEFINING NARCISSISM
But, first, let’s define Narcissism better than a clinical psychologist ever could.
Simply put: It’s a desire to be known. It’s a way we manipulate our own emotions and the emotions of others to play the roles we need to feel known. Too simple? Think of someone you might know who you think has narcissistic personality disorder. Then ask the question: Do they want to be known? [Don’t equate the word known with fame, or widely known]. The likelihood is that these people will fit this definition.
In this sense, narcissism births selfie culture, not the other way around. We’d like to think that any psychological disorder is birthed out of something else - but, in reality, it is the disorder that begets the practices that sustain its presence as being normal. We, as Westerners, have a cultural value of being narcissists.
I get it—that is a hard pill to swallow. But, through globalism, narcissism can only birth more narcissism. Practices, habits, social rituals - these are not inert objects, they take on a life of their own when fueled by another idea. All ideas are connected to other ideas. No single idea stands alone. It’s referred to as correlation.
Even when we are attempting to understand how narcissism works and social environments, we have to there is a relationship between values and ideas in a culture that allows those certain ideas to live within the walls of its environment.
Notice, for example, how consumerism works so well in America. It’s not that consumerism is an idea on its own—but it is propped up by another idea called: the consumer. You and I.
Alongside that, our actions define consumer behavior. Even so, there are also ethics that are derived from said consumer behavior. For example, we all know it is wrong to steal food from a grocery store. Every idea has its own closed ecosystem. See how it’s all connected in a closed system referred to as consumerism? This is the same with the value of narcissism.
This is equally important to understand when we are trying to unpack the social implications of narcissism.
For something to be alive in a culture, it has first to be a value. Social narcissism is a value.
The key to fully understanding this, though, is not to think of narcissism as a standalone concept. It is a phenomenon that wants to continue itself. How is anything continued? Through ritual, habit, and identity. These ensure the status quo remains the status quo. Our identities are a narrative we keep telling ourselves about ourselves and repeating behaviors we’ve accepted as true around the identity we’ve habituated as the way we are in the world.
When something becomes normal in a culture, what is detrimental about it becomes more and more obscure. After all, if it is the acceptable thing to do, no one measures anything against it - hence, why it’s referred to as the status quo.
THE ABJECT IMAGE
Within the context of selfie culture, and “avatar-making”, we have to address the idea of self-representation. Why do people create versions of themselves that do not exist? It is to be known by others or themselves. It is referred to as the abject image of self.
A scientific research project was done on those who had created avatars on social media platforms—-and over time—some had bio-physiological responses to these avatars. Meaning, they judged their own bodies based on the ways they altered their avatar to look like the person they wished they were, rather than who they currently are. As I am sure you are aware, this creates a chaotic inner storm of different biochemical responses that lead to depression, self-loathing, and even body dysmorphia.
What are the implications here? Well, in short, we have a culture filled with people who think it’s normal to hate themselves. Let that sink in. The cultural norm and stressors placed upon us by ourselves are that if we don’t consistently find reasons to hate who we are, we feel like something must be wrong.
The irony is, is that the avatar was just a representation of the self. We hate the gap between the picture of who we are and who we think we are meant to be. We give up our existential power over to something that doesn’t even exist [a social media avatar] and then measure our self-worth and identity based on what we are not.
Keep in mind, this is how Western consumerism works. It needs you to feel a lack, so you go out and purchase commodities that promise to fill a void [which doesn’t exist in reality] to then wait for something else to come along and to promise to fill this invisible void.
It’s crucial to recognize that being known is something we all desire. It’s what drives us to fall in love. It’s what drives us to get jobs, buy a car, and run for president. Recognition is a form of social opium. This might sound like an overstatement, but neuroscience agrees. We are addicted to finding a sense of self. And, that’s where we go to find it. The senses.
The sense of embodiment is critical to a person's conception of self. Embodiment is the understanding of the physical body and its relation to oneself.[The study of human embodiment currently has a large impact on the study of human cognition as a whole. The current study of embodiment suggests that sensory input and experiences impact human's overall perception. This idea somewhat challenges previous ideas of human cognition because it challenges the idea of the human mind being innate.
Notice that a lot of our society is built around sensory stimuli. If you walk into your favorite restaurant, it’s probably because there are sights, smells, and tastes that bring you a sense of enjoyment. That’s key. You enjoy it. You enjoy experiencing yourself in the places you like to go. That’s what you’re doing anyhow. You’re not walking into a restaurant experiencing your friend’s sense, but your own - and they….bring you joy.
The opaqueness of being known is what consumer society relies upon - it disorients us into making us think that the more we buy, the more avatars we make, the more sense of joy we experience - but, it’s a loop of sensory overdose forced upon by things outside of us in our environment.
The clarity about how to free ourselves of this societal deadlock is to notice that the merry-go-round of social sensory bombardment keeps us from ever experiencing our own biological necessity for a clear knowing. Avatars, social media self-profiling, the commercialization [of almost everything!] keep us from ever accepting the reality that we are wired to know ourselves without outside input.
Do not take this to be some clarion call for self-improvement [it’s not!], its to show us the efficiency of science and how the human brain that evolution gifted us with is inherently skilled with tools and strategies to help us discover ourselves with the circus-like objects that exist in our world, that ultimately hide the fact that we think we’re enough [in psychology, its referred to as; self-efficacy].
The more we rush into all of the surface-level saccharine within our current context of social media and online constructed caricatures of ourselves, the more we deny that evolution has bestowed upon us a responsibility to learn about ourselves [rather than outside of ourselves].
Call To Action: Do a Dopamine Detox for one week out of every month.