Within the past two years the words “Narcissist” and “Narcissism” have become commonplace in describing a large amount of individuals. A girlfriend of mine and I were discussing this very topic recently, and attributed the increase of “narcissistic” persons due to social media. Anyone, can be a star today, based on how many retweets you have, how many likes you receive on your Facebook profile picture, all the half-naked selfies taken in front of mirrors, let alone the slew of professionally photographed pictures some will have taken for sheer self-promotion.
What has happened to society? We live behind a veil of Instagram filters to erase our wrinkles & delete our spots, and apps which will lengthen a round face or round out a narrow long face. No wonder so many online daters face disappointment when they meet someone in person, because the person who shows up for the date looks nothing like the pictures they posted in marketing themselves in the human cattle call of love.
The lives we lead today are more synthetic than cheap polyester. Constantly plugged into our devices being fed an endless news feed of what is hot and what is not. Checking our phones to see how many people viewed the video we just posted on YouTube; maybe this time it will go “viral”.
I think of the Kardashians as the queens of social media, Kim coined the term “break the internet” when she decided to publically release nude photos of her post baby body with a champagne glass balancing on her booty shelf butt with champagne rolling down her back paired with an elated look of happiness. She is gorgeous, absolutely, and it did create media frenzy, and she “broke the internet” so to speak as far as social media goes. I watch “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” occasionally, and I do enjoy the drama, but when it comes right down to it, none of them are very talented, they all seem to be detached from reality, severely shallow, but they are pulling in heaps of money based on having very little to offer besides living an opulent lifestyle most can only dream of having.
Social Media has the ability to do so much more for the greater good, but sadly it has become a sewer for shallow fodder, which the masses gobble up. It is the platform for narcissists to finally show the world how marvelous they are, the gateway to poor indiscretions and a swimming pool for egos abroad. We are living in the days of “it is all about me”.
I had heard and cannot quote the source, but social media is the number one cause for divorce today, where one either discovers someone new, or rediscovers a past love they decide to revisit. From the amount of friends who have lost spouses due to this fairly new phenomenon, I don’t doubt this as truth for a moment.
We want the newest gadgets, we want to be up to date with the latest and greatest in technology, but in all of this connectedness we are actually disconnecting with what is truly important and organic. Our friendships have turned into text only chatting where it is so easy to misinterpret when intonation is not present; emoji can only express so much, let alone delayed messages where one assumes another is angry, break ups happen via text or email, and the phone rarely rings.
I miss the days of calling a friend up and going for a coffee, or going for a walk outside. Remember checking voicemail to see if a boy called, now we flick on our phone to see if a text has come through. We need to unplug more, spend time with our friends, appreciate what we have, not be looking for an upgraded boyfriend or wife replacement, what we see online are just illusions of grandiosity and rarely reflect any truth, or only moments of truth. We look on Facebook and see couples, who look perfect and happy, but we only post the pictures we want others to see, it is all a façade. Hell, if you look at my FB pics you may think I am the most jovial happy person on earth, which couldn’t be more far from the truth. Looks are just looks, some people look like they have their poop in a group, but really they are train wrecks barely held together with shoddy scotch tape and rusty tacks. We are all dysfunctional to some degree and most of us wear masks. I do and I will be checking after this is posted to see how many hits or likes I receive. I am just as much a part of the problem, but at least I recognize it.
You Know Jacques! 