The Myth of Narcissism
Narcissus was a beautiful young man who rejected all suitors including
the nymph Echo. Echo pines for Narcissus until she fades away. The
Gods punish Narcissus and arrange for him to fall in love with his own
reflection. Narcissus looks into a pool and pines for his own reflection
until he dies.
Sigmund Freud on
Narcissism
According to Freud
(1991) narcissism is concerned with the investment of libidinal energy; libidinal
energy directed towards the self (ego-libido) and others (object-libido). Freud
believes that primary narcissism is related to an infant’s focus on its own
body/needs and forms. Freuds theories support the idea that the baby/infant has the fantasy
satisfaction of being a whole coherent idealised self - the Ego-Ideal; the idea
of the Ego-Ideal is reflected back by the mother, the baby/infant does not
have to worry about anything, everything is done for the child by the mother;
In the child’s world they believe they have taken care of everything, thus
believing in a type of self gratification. However, there comes a stage where
as infants, we must separate ourselves from our mother to become individual,
this is called the Oedipal complex stage, which occurs between the age of 5-7. This
separation causes painful feelings of anxiety, loss and separation that are
repressed into the unconscious “On Narcissism” (Freud, 1991)
According to Freuds studies, the ego-ideal is an unconscious strategy
to return to oneness, to recover the baby’s omnipotence and wholeness. “As the child develops, he is disturbed by the admonitions of others and
his own critical judgement is awakened, he seeks to recover the early
perfection, thus wrested from him, in the new form of an ego-ideal” Freud 1914,
pg. 51
Narcissism in adult life is expressed in narcissistic
object choices and as adults we still need to see the self, reflected back
for a feeling of identity; these ideas developed by Freud make sense of why the
selfie is so popular among many people. By mirroring back the idealised image
of yourself, in return it makes you feel good about yourself. The selfie offers you the opportunity to try
and take the ‘perfect’ picture of yourself, which you can angle, edit, filter
and upload to your liking; in terms of Freuds ideas, the reasoning for being
narcissistic is so that we fell less separate and therefore have less anxieties
to deal with, which were formed by the psyche split.
Additional Research
I carried out some research involving the idea of narcissism with selfies, which I could use within my essay.
I carried out some research involving the idea of narcissism with selfies, which I could use within my essay.
The online article ‘A selfie isn’t a form of protest,
it’s a form of narcissism’ (2014) by Lara Prendergast speaks about there being
a new formation of protest among youths; unlike the 2011 London Riots and the
2010 tuition fee London riots, Prendergast introduces the idea of ‘The Selfie
Protest’ or ‘SelfRighty’ where you can protest peacefully, without even getting
out of bed.
Lara Prendergast speaks about a variety of protests, all carried out
by the use of the selfie; she’s mentions the ‘who needs feminism campaign’ in which lots
of people explained why they needed the movement. The
#StandbyMe
protest, whereby students in Sheffield
protested government policy on immigration, this was executed by friends of
many nationalities who took selfies together. Prendergast also mentions the ‘I
too, am Oxford’ selfie protest, which was done to raise awareness about racial
prejudice. Finally, Lara Prendergast uses the
example of the recent posts (seen across Instagram) to help create awareness
for cancer. (2014)
Prendergast concludes her article with, “Using
a selfie to protest something is not brave. Maybe the first person to do it was
brave, but it has quickly become hackneyed, and smacks of narcissism. It is
about I, not we. The pretense is ‘we’re all in this together’, but that’s
obvious drivel. Posting a photo of your makeup-free pout, or you, set against
the glorious Oxford cityscape, with a soft-effect filter on, may make you feel
better about yourself, but does it really help your cause? It raises awareness,
sure – but awareness of yourself. That’s it. It’s frustrating that people seem
to think it’s doing anything else” (2014)
To continue my research on narcissism and
selfies, I looked at a Tumblr account (2013), which showed and made fun of
inappropriate selfies; some of the posts included people actually taking a selfie
at a funeral. This for me is defiantly a form of narcissism, there is defiantly
a time and a place for a selfie, and to have the urge to want to take a selfie
at a funeral is quiet unsettling for me.
Pamela Rutledge,
who wrote an online article, developed from ideas surround narcissism and
selfies notes the following: “Some view these self-created self-portraits as
proof of cultural—or at least generational— narcissism and moral decline. I, on
the other hand, view them as a by-product of technology-enabled
self-exploration” (2013)
Pamela Rutledge goes onto say throughout the article that she does not
believe selfies are ‘new’ they are rather a development of western
civilization, which is known for self portraiture: “Western civilization has a
rich history of self-portraiture that continues to expand with technological
innovations. Where once they were the province of the elite either in
status or skill, cell phones and Instagram have democratized self-portraiture,
making them less precious and more fun…Voila selfies” (2013)
Pamela Rutledge identifies the relationship between the selfie and
media; noting that anything, which is considered as mainstream in society, will
be shown interest by marketers; she gave the example of shopping Centre
Westfield, who launched a contest called “Selfies Style” which urged people to
post selfies that highlight individual style. Rutledge notes that this was
carried out “after research indicated that six out of every ten women used
their mobile device to take self portraits, most of which end up on Facebook” (2013)
Rutledge believes that selfies are not a form of
narcissism because they facilitate self and identity exploration; she believes
the best way to know yourself is to see yourself and states “By offering
different aspects through images, we are sharing more of ourselves, becoming
more authentic and transparent—things that digital connectivity encourages”
(2013) Rutledge also talks about selfies as a form of ‘normalizing’ she talks
about the idea of the ‘ugly selfie’, which takes away the narcissism of
airbrushed, perfected model pictures across the net and replaces them with ‘real people’ Rutledge
notes, “One artist commented that the ugly selfie challenges her own vanity and
puts her personality
back into the self-documentation” (2013)
This article formed many arguments against the selfie being a form of
narcissistic, mobile media practice; I will look at using some of these ideas
within my essay.
Other then Freud’s theories surrounding narcissism I felt it important
to consider research regarding narcissism that discusses the culture of
self-representation in relation to celebrities. I found the following research,
which I hope will help me understand the link between the selfie and
narcissism.
In Danah Boyd’s article called Fame,
narcissism and Myspace (2007) he makes the following points:
-We have a generation growing up being told that they can be anyone,
magnifying the level of narcissism.
-The unions crumpled in the 1980s and by the time the 1987 recession
hit, there was a teenage
wasteland. No longer were young people being socialized into
meaningful working class labor; the only path out was the “lottery” (aka
becoming a famous rock star, athlete, etc.).
-We ignore the fact that working class kids getting working class jobs.
-Fame offers freedom: It just takes a few Internet success stories for
fame-seeking narcissists to begin projecting themselves into the web in the
hopes of being seen and being validated.
-The question remains… does micro-fame (such as the attention one gets
from being very cool on MySpace) feed into the desires of narcissists to get
attention? On a certain level, yes. The attention feels good, it feeds the ego.
But the thing about micro-celebrities is that they’re not free from attack. One
of the reasons that celebrities go batty is that fame feeds into their
narcissism, further heightening their sense of self-worth as more and more
people tell them that they’re all that. They never see criticism; their
narcissism is never called into check. This isn’t true with micro-fame and this
is especially not true online when celebrities face their fans (and haters)
directly. Net celebrities feel the exhaustion of attention and nagging much
quicker than Hollywood celebrities. It’s a lot easier to burn out quicker and
before reaching that mass scale of fame. Perhaps this keeps some of the desire
for fame in check? Perhaps not.
In Jonathan Freedland’s article, on the Guardian online: The
selfie's screaming narcissism masks an urge to connect. (2013) Freedland discusses the selfie
regarding digital media culture and makes the following points:
-This July, there were an estimated 90m photos on
Instagram – the go-to platform for the selfie – with the hashtag #me.
And that figure will be far, far higher now.
-You post a picture of yourself and wait for the verdict; your
self-worth boosted by a happy spate of "likes", or destroyed by the
opposite – a resounding silence.
-The selfie wants to connect: in that respect, the selfie is like so
much else in the digital world – all about "me," but revealing a
sometimes desperate urge to find an "us".
John Paul Titlow’s article
called Me: Instagram Narcissism And The
Scourge Of The Selfie (2013) takes
a look at how people are becoming almost famous online, by just posting pictures
of themselves. Titlow notes the following points within his article:
-Some are getting the approval
they're seeking in a big way. Michael Saba is a 15-year-old from Boca Raton,
Florida, whose Instagram photos often find their way to the app's Explore tab
among teen pop stars, professional athletes and professional photographers. But
despite his 45,000 followers and hordes of teenage fans, Saba is not a
celebrity. He is, as his Instagram profile says, "just a kid who takes
pictures."
-In our weird new world, it's not uncommon for young
people to achieve this new type of psuedo-fame, fueled solely by social media.
And we're not just talking the type of notoriety you can get from a viral
YouTube video, which tends to require at least a sliver of talent, humor or
skill. Instead, these kids are amassing huge followings just for being
attractive. It's like a high school popularity contest on digital steroids, but
this homeroom has more than 45,000 kids in it.
-A good thing: "I like to think that Instagram offers
a quiet resistance to the barrage of perfect images that we face each
day," writes Sarah J. Gervais in
Psychology Today. "Rather than
being bombarded with those creations… we can look through our Instagram feed
and see images of real people – with beautiful diversity."
-A bad thing: Some research suggests a correlation
between social media and narcissism, but the condition's increase long predates
the rise of smartphones, says Jean Twenge, a researcher at San Diego State
University who studies issues related to social media.
"It's probably both that higher narcissism causes
people to use social media in narcissistic ways, and that some social media
causes higher narcissism," says Twenge. "But it's definitely a
two-way street."
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, has written a lot around
narcissism and social media in his article for the Guardian called ‘Sharing
the (self) love: the rise of the selfie and digital narcissism’ (2014) his points highlight important
factors regarding how social media is used today, being showing off as a main
factor, his considerations include how the showing off, celebrity wannabe
culture is resulting in unfeasible goals amongst young people today. I have
noted some of his points:
-Welcome to the age of digital narcissism, a world of
endless ostentation opportunities and unlimited bragging possibilities.
Showing-off has never been easier and, ironically, more celebrated.
-In the past decade, social media has taken us to
unchartered territories of egotistic adulation by enabling everybody to
broadcast their life and be the star of their own 24/7 hour show: consumers
became actors and consumable products at once.
-We are now more connected than ever, but also less
interested in other people, except when it comes to finding out what they think
about us. It is as if being closer to others made us more antisocial. Freud,
who would no doubt have thousands of Twitter followers today (if he could
sum-up his views in 140-characters), referred to this as the "hedgehog
dilemma". That is, humans are like hedgehogs in the winter: they need to
get close to each other to cope with the cold, but they cannot get too close
without hurting each other with their spines.
-Needless to say, most social media users are not
narcissistic. Yet, social media is to narcissists what crack is to crack
addicts: the more narcissistic you are, the heavier your social media
use is. Indeed, scientific
studies have shown that the number of status updates, attractive
selfies, check-ins, followers and friends, are all positively correlated with
narcissism, as is the tendency to accept invites from strangers, particularly
when they are attractive. The reason for these
correlations is that narcissistic individuals are much more likely to use
social media to portray a desirable, albeit unrealistic, self-image, accumulate
virtual friends and broadcast their life to an audience. Klout is a better
measure of narcissism than of social reach.
-The big problem with the rise of digital narcissism is
that it puts enormous pressure on people to achieve unfeasible goals, without
making them hungrier. Wanting to be Beyoncé or Jay Z is hard enough already,
but when you are not prepared to work hard to achieve it, you are better off
just lowering your aspirations. Few things are more self-destructive than a
combination of high entitlement and a lazy work ethic. Ultimately, online
manifestations of narcissism may be little more than a self-presentational
strategy to compensate for a low and fragile
self-esteem. Yet when these efforts are reinforced and rewarded by others, they
perpetuate the distortion of reality and consolidate narcissistic delusions.
Diana Mjojo’s article called The ROI of Selfies: The
Rise of The Micro-Celebrity (2014) spoke about fame on social networks and the
rise in micro-celebrities; she notes the following:
-Instagram has brought on the rise of the micro-celebrity. A new kind of
celebrity landscape, where the subject of your fandom actually engages with
you, which in turn creates more of a connection. It’s clearly prime sowing
ground for profit.
Lately the term micro-celebrity has been thrown around a lot in light of
Sylvain Labs’ documentary, ‘Instafame’, in which she follows the life of New
York based teen who has 81 000 followers on Instagram at the time of
production. His fan base was entirely built on people’s appreciations of his
selfies.
Bibliography
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http://www.mediavisioninteractive.com/blog/social-media/the-roi-of-selfies/#ixzz30qfRmOGk.
Available:
http://www.mediavisioninteractive.com/blog/social-media/the-roi-of-selfies/.
Last accessed 5th May 2014.
Rutledge, P. (2013). #Selfies: Narcissism or Self-Exploration?.
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http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/positively-media/201304/selfies-narcissism-or-self-exploration.(Last
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Titlow, J. (2013). #Me: Instagram Narcissism And The Scourge Of The
Selfie. Available:
http://readwrite.com/2013/01/31/instagram-selfies-narcissism#awesm=~oDotAEhKa7j5u5.
Last accessed 5th May 2014.
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