In a world obsessed with public image and attention-seeking, learn about the cultural forces propelling society to become more narcissistic – and how this influences us to be in a constant state of self-scrutiny.
The idea that our culture is becoming more narcissistic and self-centered is not new.
Historian and social critic Christopher Lasch’s book The Culture of Narcissism was first published in 1979. By that time, the 1970s were already dubbed the “Me-generation.” Americans were increasingly shifting focus to concepts like “self-liberation,” “self-expression,” and “self-actualization,” while untethering themselves from past traditions and social responsibilities.
Interestingly, Lasch traces the narcissistic roots in America back way further, starting with the early days of the Protestant work ethic and its singular focus on labor, money, and wealth-building, including the old “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mantra.
This early thread of American hyper-individualism continues into the New Age movement at the turn of the 20th century with its focus on personal happiness and spiritual fulfillment, as well as the popularity of Ayn Rand’s “virtue of selfishness,” and the rise of celebrity-worship and fame-seeking that still characterizes much of American life today whether it be in politics, sports, art, or entertainment.
Things appear to be getting worse. The book was written over 40 years ago, but a lot of the observations in it seem strangely prophetic when looking at the world today. Lasch accurately describes how narcissistic trends have evolved on a societal and cultural level, and you can perfectly extend his theories to explain our modern culture.
Before you continue reading, remember this is a cultural analysis of narcissistic tendencies and it isn’t focused on clinical or psychological definitions of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
Many people act more narcissistic because that’s what our society rewards and that’s how people think they need to act to get ahead in today’s world.
One can even look at certain narcissistic tendencies as a survival strategy in an otherwise competitive, atomized, isolated – “every man for himself” – world.
Now let’s dive into how our modern culture amplifies and rewards narcissism.
The narcissist craves an audience
First, the most defining characteristic of a narcissist is that they depend on the attention and validation of others to feel good about themselves.
Contrary to the popular myth that the narcissist suffers from excessive self-love, the truth is they are deeply insecure and lack true confidence and self-esteem. The main reason they brag, show off, or puff-up-their-chests is only to appear strong when deep down they feel weak.
As a result the narcissist is obsessed with their image and appearance. They feel they need to “win people over” to be accepted and liked by others, and this requires a carefully manufactured persona they create for the public.
This deeply rooted “need for attention” plays a central theme in Lasch’s analysis:
- “Narcissism represents a psychological dimension of dependence. Notwithstanding his occasional illusions of omnipotence, the narcissist depends on others to validate his self-esteem. He cannot live without an admiring audience. His apparent freedom from family ties and institutional constraints does not free him to stand alone or to glory in his individuality. On the contrary, it contributes to his insecurity, which he can overcome only by seeing his ‘grandiose self’ reflected in the attention of others, or by attaching himself to those who radiate celebrity, power, and charisma.”
Without an audience to appreciate them, the narcissist struggles to find their self-worth. They don’t believe in themselves – they need “proof” they are a good or important person through the eyes of others.
To the narcissist, any attention is better than none at all; even negative attention like gossip, drama, and criticism feeds into their egos by letting them know they are still front and center.
In a society that rewards attention for the sake of attention (including fame and notoriety), the narcissist grows and thrives. Who knows, that next scandal with a famous celebrity may be their big breakthrough – whatever gets them into the limelight!
Image-centrism: The society of the spectacle
One major contributor to the rise of narcissistic tendencies is that our culture is becoming more image-centric.
Popular ideas on what true “happiness,” “success,” “fame,” “beauty,” and “achievement” look like are based on outward images and appearances increasingly fed into our culture through photographs, movies, television, and advertising:
- “[One] influence is the mechanical reproduction of culture, the proliferation of visual and audial images in the ‘society of the spectacle.’ We live in a swirl of images and echoes that arrest experience and play it back in slow motion. Cameras and recording machines not only transcribe experience but alter its quality, giving to much of modern life the character of an enormous echo chamber, a hall of mirrors. Life presents itself as a succession of images or electronic signals, of impressions recorded and reproduced by means of photography, motion pictures, television, and sophisticated recording devices.”
This book was written before the internet and social media which have only increased our “image-centrism” tenfold. Selfies, avatars, memes, filters, photoshop, and AI have all continued to add more layers to this hyper-reality between manipulated images and how we choose to present ourselves.
This constant barrage of cultural images shapes our beliefs and map of reality. It subconsciously puts ideas in our heads about what “happiness,” “success,” and “beauty” are supposed to look like.
Once these social images are set in our minds, we naturally feel the desire to live up to them.
Narcissists can often be the most sensitive to these social images because they fear their true self isn’t good enough, so they take society’s picture of “success” and try to mirror that image back to others.
On the surface, the narcissist is a crowd-pleaser. They don’t trust their own judgement, so if society says this is what “happiness” or “success” looks like, then they will try to mimic it the best they can.
Everyone has an audience now
Technology, internet, social media, cameras, and recording devices have created a world where everyone feels like they have an audience all-the-time.
Family photo albums and home videos were early stages in turning “private moments” into “public consumption,” but now we have people over-sharing every meal, date, and shopping spree on their social media feeds.
Lasch correctly identifies this trend back in the 1960s-70s, including a mention of the popular show Candid Camera, which was one of the first “hidden camera” TV shows:
- “Modern life is so thoroughly mediated by electronic images that we cannot help responding to others as if their actions – and our own – were being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience or stored up for close scrutiny at some later time. ‘Smile you’re on candid camera!’ The intrusion into everyday life of this all-seeing eye no longer takes us by surprise or catches us with our defenses down. We need no reminder to smile, a smile is permanently graven on our features, and we already know from which of several angles it photographs to best advantage.”
Life is recorded and shared now more than ever before. Today everyone has an audience and many people can’t help but see themselves as the “main character” of their own carefully edited movie.
Unfortunately, we have this audience whether we like it or not. Every time we are out in public, someone may whip out their phones, capture an embarrassing moment, and upload it to the internet for millions to watch. You never know when you may go “viral” for the wrong reasons. The rise of online shaming, doxing, and harassment puts people in a perpetual state of high alert.
That’s a stressful thought, but it perfectly represents this state of hyper-surveillance we are all in, where there’s always a potential audience and you feel constant pressure to showcase the “best version of yourself” in every waking moment, because you never know who is watching.
Self-image and excessive self-monitoring
In a world that rewards people solely based on the “image” they present, we naturally become more self-conscious of the image we are projecting to others.
This leads to a state of endless self-monitoring and self-surveillance. We see ourselves through the eyes of others and try to fit their image of what we are supposed to be. No matter what we choose to do with our lives, the most pressing questions become, “How will this make me look?” or “What will people think of me?”
While people naturally want to present themselves in the best way possible and form strong first impressions, an excessive degree of self-filtering and self-management can cause us to lose our sense of identity for the sake of superficial acceptance, internet fame, or corporate climbing.
At worst, we increasingly depend on this these manufactured images to understand ourselves and reality:
- “The proliferation of recorded images undermines our sense of reality. As Susan Sontag observes in her study of photography, ‘Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras.’ We distrust our perceptions until the camera verifies them. Photographic images provide us with the proof of our existence, without which we would find it difficult even to reconstruct a personal history…
Among the ‘many narcissistic uses’ that Sontag attributes to the camera, ‘’self-surveillance’ ranks among the most important, not only because it provides the technical means of ceaseless self-scrutiny but because it renders the sense of selfhood dependent on the consumption of images of the self, at the same time calling into question the reality of the external world.”
If you didn’t share your meal on social media, did you really eat it? If you didn’t update your relationship status online, are you really dating someone?
For many people, the internet world has become “more real” than the real world. People don’t go out and do adventurous things to live their lives, but to “create content” for their following.
Who looks like their living their best life? Who is experiencing the most FOMO on the internet? In a narcissistic world, we start seeing our “digital self” in competition with everyone else – and the only thing that matters is that it looks like we are having a good time.
More and more, we consume and understand ourselves through these technologies and images. We depend on photo galleries, reel clips, and social media posts to chronicle our life story and present the best version of ourselves to the world. If the internet didn’t exist, then neither would we.
In the sci-fi movie The Final Cut people have their entire lives recorded through their eyes; then after they die, their happy memories are spliced together to give a “final edit” of the person’s life. Many of us are perpetually scrutinizing and editing this “final cut” of our own lives.
The invention of new insecurities
Everything is being observed, recorded, and measured, so we have more tools than ever to compare ourselves against others.
This leads to the invention of all types of new insecurities. We are more aware of the ways we’re different from others, whether it’s our jobs, homes, relationships, health, appearances, or lifestyles. We can always find new ways we don’t “measure up” to the ideal.
New technologies create new ways to compare. Before you know it, you have people in heated competitions over who can do the most steps on their Fitbit, or consume the least amount of calories in a week, or receives the most likes on their gym posts. The internet becomes a never-ending competition.
Of course, measuring your progress can be a valuable tool for motivation and reaching goals. The problem is when we use these numbers to measure up against others vs. measure up against our past self. Always remember that everyone is on a completely different path.
It’s well-known that social comparison is one of the ultimate traps when it comes to happiness and well-being. You’ll always be able to find someone who has it better than you in some area of life, and with the internet that’s usually an easy search.
These endless comparisons touch on all aspects of life and heighten self-scrutiny and self-criticism. Finding and dwelling on even “minor differences” can spiral into a cycle of self-pity and self-hate. If we don’t remove ourselves from these comparisons, then we have no choice but to try to live up to them and beat ourselves up when we fail.
Conclusion
The goal of this article was to describe some of the key forces that are making society more narcissistic and self-centered.
Different cultural beliefs and attitudes incentive certain personality traits over others. Our current world seems to continue moving down a more narcissistic path, especially with the increased focus on “image” (or “personal brand”) that we build for ourselves through the internet and social media.
Most of the ideas in this article are based on the book The Culture of Narcissism which, despite being written over 40 years, is an insightful look into how these social forces continue to grow and evolve.
Do you feel like our current society is getting more narcissistic? How have these social forces influenced the way you live?
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Steven Handel
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