The narcissism problem
Memes, people pleasing and Facebook boomers.
This is another collaborative post with Nicola Muthurangu-Hall of The Exposition, read her take on the narcissism epidemic in her piece titled: “How to hurt a narcissist.”
The widespread nature of social media has made it the perfect breeding ground for mental health conversations. In some ways, it’s filled the gap that health services couldn’t reach, giving people the opportunity to explore their own brains without the need for clinical conversations (or paying for healthcare, in some countries).
And, although no one is asking me, I am okay with this. Self-diagnosis, in general, is valid. Many of you reading this will be on a neurodivergence journey, for example, learning that you might have ADHD or be autistic.
But in bringing these conversations online, we’ve lost some nuance. You can’t ethically discuss complex mental health issues on platforms that rely on quick wins, short attention spans, and, perhaps most sinisterly, generating revenue for companies.
Neurodivergence is about the way your brain is built, although it is likely you have inherited some of these behaviours or even entire diagnoses from previous generations. I guess, we could say that’s your nature… but where does nurture come in?
Alongside reels about everyday ADHD experiences and jokes about the worst spoon for an autistic person to use, you’ve probably also seen some similarly humoured posts with a darker twist, specifically about living with how we were raised. Yep, we’re going to talk about intergenerational trauma. Strap in.
Memes like this are commonplace on Instagram. I wonder if millennials and Gen Z have just been through so much shit at this point that they’ve just decided everything is a laughing matter. I know I have. In fact, I wrote about the memeification of trauma back in 2021 (!), but this has entered a whole new stratosphere in recent years, and memes about narcissists are surely one of the fastest-growing.
We’ve got to talk about narcissists
Narcissism is a personality trait of selfishness, self-centeredness, and, typically, a lack of empathy. Not to be confused with narcissistic personality disorder, which is a medical diagnosis that incorporates these traits but in a more severe way.
In some ways, narcissists boast traits we all wish we had… confidence, self-assuredness, and a lack of care about what others think. But they’re much more extreme than this. These people see themselves as above the rest of us mortals and, as a result, we are often trampled in their wake.
When I say narcissist, someone in your life probably comes to mind. We all know at least one person with narcissistic tendencies. You’re thinking of someone right now.
But, like autism and ADHD, is narcissism more widespread than we ever realised? Are we only now spotting those we grew up with? For example, because we are A. seeing these memes on social media and B. living with the impact.
It’s point B that brings us to my hypothesis that narcissists are creating people pleasers. If you’ve been raised by a suspected narcissist, or perhaps alongside one as a sibling, then you know what I mean.
Growing up with a narcissistic person in your house is emotionally exhausting. You become hyperaware of their moods and triggers, and change your behaviours accordingly. For children, in particular, this damage cannot be understated, as they are shaped in an environment of walking on eggshells, forever waiting for the next explosion.
The narcissism epidemic
Last weekend, I went to see Fontaines DC at Exhibition Park. Despite all the mental hoops I must jump through to get there, I still love going to gigs. I’m pretty good at blocking out all the bullshit going on around me and focusing on the band I’ve paid to enjoy.
But the last few concerts I’ve been to have left me with a similar bad feeling in my gut. People aren’t really there to enjoy the music anymore (not everyone, just a significant subset). They are there to record the entire set on their wobbly iPhones or to take selfies with their backs to the band. I’m not adverse to taking a few photos and short videos to remember the gig, but do we really need to capture every single moment of our lives to share online for the clout?
Last week,
read my mind with this piece about social proof, and while I’m definitely not inferring that everyone who takes a selfie at a gig is a narcissist, there is still an element of needing to be seen somewhere as the highest order of social currency.
Social media is breeding narcissism
What’s actually happening here is that social media has become the perfect breeding ground for narcissistic behaviour. This 2020 study on Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) and narcissism posits that:
“[S]ocial media context offers an ideal communicative environment to satisfy narcissistic needs… [N]arcissists might become addicted to the unique communicative environment offered by social media because it is conducive the fulfilment of their self-enhancement needs.”
What’s particularly interesting about this study is that one platform reigns supreme for the problematic behaviour, and it’s not Instagram.
It’s Facebook.
Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the place where the active user base is significantly older now, a popular hangout spot for the boomer generation. This brings us full circle back to the generation that raised us and how they’re likely addicted to a platform that lacks fact-checkers to satisfy their narcissistic tendencies…
I guess I’ll leave it there for now, but I’d love to know your thoughts on the following:
Do you relate to the rise in memes about narcissism?
Are you a recovering people pleaser raised by a narcissist?
Do you think social media is making narcissism more prevalent, or is it just easier for them to reach us via our phones?
What people said about the newsletter this week:
On last week’s piece about family…
“Wowza, massively relate to this.”
“Thanks so much for writing this, Ellen. It was a lovely one to read.”
“Joke's on you, Boyle. I intended to cry today.”
In this section, I summarise topics dominating the online discourse this week.
Genocide continues in Gaza as Israel claims the murder of children in a queue for water is a ‘technical error.’
Trump is under pressure to release the Epstein files, but has yet to give in. I wonder why.
Conor McGregor sent nudes to X tyrant Azealia Banks, and she shared them with the world. This is a chronically online sentence if I ever did write one.
Things I’ve enjoyed this week:
📚 Cold Fish Soup by Adam Farrer - Memoir in essays largely set in Withernea, East Yorkshire.
📺 Such Brave Girls (Season 2 - BBC iPlayer)
That’s all from me,
Ellen x
💌 About this email
I’m Ellen, and I write about mental health for the chronically online. I am a freelance copywriter, strategist and web designer, and I work from home with my husband, Craig, at Content By The Sea. We have two rescue greyhounds, Potter and Harmony, and a toddler.
I started this newsletter in March 2020 and have sent over 200(!) emails; currently, I have over 1,300 subscribers. I write about a wide variety of topics, including diet culture, my love of running, jealousy, my life falling apart, mam guilt, and this dystopian world we all live in.
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Thanks for the shout out! This is definitely something I’ve been thinking about too. You know me, I always have a book recommendation. If you wanna read more in depth about this, I highly recommend reading Selfie by Will Storr which looks at our obsession with social proof, self documentation, and the normalization of self obsession in the age of social media.