Facebook And Narcissism ....

[J_trustno1]

Okay, so I have this pretty looking male friend who is in good shape and has a good dressing sense. He has over 100 selfiesof him on Facebook and uploads videos of himself every time he's out doing something.


I was having a discussion with some on this topic and said that this guy is self-obsessed and crying for attention but the other person disagreed with me saying that "he enjoys more than them".

Do you consider a lot of self photos and self videos as a trait of narcissism?

Just asking out of curiosity.

 

[SupahFly]

Absolutely. There is a fine line of "hey this is what I'm doing" vs narcissism.

 

[Fadeaway]

Not NPD, but our culture has breed a bit of narcissism in that regard. I don't get the whole selfie thing at all. I say don't blame the person, blame the culture that rewards it.

 

[digger]

I think sometimes it can be the opposite. Self esteem issues. The need for approval etc

Sometimes I think it can just be a self acceptance thing that may have taken a long time and a lot of work to get to.

I'm just thinking through my own facebook friends here and thinking about the ones who post a lot of selfies. Some of those definitely fall in the first category and others in the second and some just like posting selfies, I suspect without any sort of motive or ism, just because they do. I don't see any of it as narcissistic, but then I'm quite choosy about my Facebook friends ;)

 

[J_trustno1]

I feel that he's quite lonely and wants acceptance or belonging. He's good looking without a doubt and he is 24. But I don't get this behavior.

 

[Casey_03]

I'd agree that it's more about low self esteem than anything else. All the people I know who post way too many selfies are lacking in the self esteem department, from what I can tell. I think there is a healthy amount of selfies (if you're photographing a new place, for instance, or if you're traveling, or if there is something else in the photo apart from your face ...) and then there is a selfie addiction, when it's more about getting as many likes as you can to feel better about yourself. I see some girls who will post 20 different photos of their face with only slight changes to each photo (pursing their lips differently, or something stupid like that). To me, that is just sad, because it's an obvious cry for attention. Though I suppose some narcissists may also engage in that sort of behavior.

 

[Ocean5]

Having grown up with a narcissist & psychopath....

Probably just low self-esteem and wanting attention. Just because someone is good looking - doesn't mean they have healthy self-esteem. Some of the most good looking people I know have huge self-esteem problems or traumas I have learned. Some are handsome or beautiful - could be models. Yet as kids taught they were ugly, and didn't deserve any attention. Just my take on it.

As others mentioned modern cultural issue. I don't go on facebook much, except for certain emails. All the political stuff in U.S. drives me nuts. I wish they would post a selfie instead LOL Instead of hating, and judging others. But extended family. So I just do email, and hope their post don't show-up when I login.

 

[Friday]

I think it's dangerous to look at any 1 thing and conflate a personality -or any kind of- disorder from it.

 

[Ronin]

*Friday Said It sign*

Even where personality disorders are concerned? One behavior means vastly different things in different people.
It would sure be nice (as in simplifying jobs of many people) if generalizations like that could be made, but it isn't so.

 

[Friday]

Continuing on with that thought for a moment :

Just as an example... High Self Esteem is a trait of narcissism.

- Does that mean everyone with high self esteem is a narcissist? Not only no, but hell no.
- Does that mean you should try to have low self esteem to not be narcissistic? Same answer.

Well okay... But what about the "negative" aspects of NPD? Selfishness! That's a negative one, right? Not really. It can be, but there are times in your life where the absolute best & healthiest thing to do in that moment, is to be selfish. Both microcosmic (Nope! Don't wanna have sex with you, so I'm not gonna.... Is selfish. It's putting your wants ahead of someone else's wants, which is the definition of selfish), and macro; like a parent putting their own child's needs first (before strangers, other adults, other kids, etc.).

I could do this all day long, with each and every single narcissistic trait. Because disorders? Don't have anything "new" in them. Each and every single symptom, in every single disorder, are things that the entire rest of the population also possesses to greater or lesser degree. ((In fact... If you go look up the diagnostic criteria for NPD? You'll probably find things in that list that you yourself do. Link Removed . The same would be true if I said ADHD, tho. Or Xenophobia. Disorders are very, very, normal things taken to the extreme.)) What makes a disorder is the severity of the symptoms AND the constellation of symptoms all together as a whole AND duration/frequency.

Taking selfies? Isn't even a trait. It's an action. One that could have 100 motivating factors.

Taking Selfies = narcissism
Eating Ice cream = eating disorder

When all you have is a hammer? The whole world starts lookin like nails.

 

[Anarchy]

Spinning off on a tangent here...

IIRC, people like Kernberg consider narcs to be very chaotic, fragile and insecure inside.

In that interpretation the grandiose bullshit, the enormous ammount of posing, and all of the abusive tricks and game playing that we see from narcs, serves one purpose:

to serve and protect (and fatten*) a grandiose self image that the narc tries to believe in - but always has more or less doubts about.

also in that interpretation, the display of rage that a narc comes up with if it's grandiose self is challenged. Kind of suggests that the narc is seriously insecure
If the narc were secure about it's self image, it would be fairly impervious to challenges

instead it has to desperately defend that grandiose fantasy.

So, yeah, I'm not suggesting that the friend with dozens of selfies is necessarily a narc.
but don't assume that actual narcs have the high self esteem that they try to present to the world. they probably don't.

_________________________________
*coffee and donuts?

 

[Anarchy]

Jass,
you might like the second vid I linked to here. the first is a bit dry.
you'll probably get suggestions from youtube for talks by Otto Kernberg, too.
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/narcissistic-personality-some-academic-clinical-info.56465/