You're not reading into this too much, I totally know what you mean it's absolutely uncanny. They act like they're giving a Ted Talk and when you're like "no I get it you mean so-and-so please just drop it you've been going on nonstop for 10 minutes" they'll be like "no you truly don't understand my brilliance" and then they'll just rehash exactly what you said to them for another 10 minutes and then pause afterwards only so you can tell them how great they are for lecturing you on something you already entirely understand. Nyk definitely has that way of speaking and I didn't even notice why it bothered me so much until you pointed it out.
Yeah. I feel that a lot with Contra's videos. I get that breadtube is mostly just explaining concepts in the most basic terms over and over but with Contra you can tell that it's not that because Contra's videos are almost all really poorly understanding and explaining both psychological, sociological, and economic concepts, most of which seems (by Contra's own admission) to be self-derived rather than coming from a place of studying these things extensively, listening to others, etc. I stopped watching Contra after I think the Justice video (maybe before) because it was just really,
really badly explaining psychology, and I felt that exact "dude you're not as smart as you think you are and we're not as dumb as you think we are"
Oh completely.
For context, I had never heard of these YouTube characters until I was linked contras JRowling vid and went on a covid doom spiral of video watching
My main reason to be on KF is to loathe Olly but despite having a soft spot for contra one thing that I can’t ignore is that contra is CONSTANTLY rationalizing away these self lies. With seemingly zero self awareness. And like you said like…. Other ppl can see it and don’t need these lectures (unless you’re some cluster b fuck up incel who seem to comprise the entirety of the viewership) and ~revelations~
How much of a revelation can you possibly be having when you’ve been documenting your deeply dysfunctional life for over a DECADE online.
I can’t get over how deeply unhappy contra is and these same self sabotage patterns play out again and again and again…. And again. ………… and again.
At some point you have to realize that you’re playing into the problems (if not outright creating them…) right?!?
Despite the impressive number and growth in viewers.
Despite the pretty robust and successful effort into transitioning (most ppl here don’t agree but whatever.)
Like how have you not grown out of this eternal fuck up troubled persona, contra?!?!?
It’s so inflexible and so innate. Years of studying philosophy and critical thinking. Years of completely self indulgent journaling in the form of internet presence. And yet there’s never any understanding of like the core problem - the poor choices and maladaptive behaviours and unwillingness to adjust and change.
It’s BEWILDERING.
Contra goes on these deep meandering self exploratory thought experiments and the result? Absolutely nothing. Nothing changes. If one problem seems to be address?? Ahhh nope one breath later and it’s been replaced with a different bullshit problem.
When I hear these pseudo deep musings about the complicated nature of whatever issue du jour she’s grappling with I want to shake contra and say YOU’RE THE PROBLEM.
From Wikipedia's page on Narcissistic personality disorder:
Environmental and social factors also exert significant influence upon the onset of NPD in a person.
[42] In some people, pathological narcissism may develop from an impaired
emotional attachment to the primary caregivers, usually the parents.
[46] That lack of psychological and emotional attachment to a parental figure can result in the child's perception of themselves as unimportant and unconnected to other people, usually, family, community and society. Typically, the child comes to believe that they have a personality defect that makes them an unvalued and unwanted person;
[47] in that vein, either overindulgent and permissive parenting or insensitive and over-controlling parenting are contributing factors towards the development of NPD in a child.
[7][41]
There are a lot of causes like parents not paying attention, being overly critical or abusive, also parents being too permissive, praising their kids too much, etc. Children will often start to doubt their worth to anyone as a result of abuse, and to protect themselves from the anxiety over their sense of self-doubt and worthlessness they'll construct an internal narrative in which the people who mistreat them simply don't know what they're talking about, that they're too good to worry about such things, that they don't need anyone or to listen to anyone else, etc. (I could be wrong but I think excessive praise from parents causes the child to be unprepared for criticism or the reality that they're not that special, which makes them see normal people's lack of enthusiasm as abusive)
I bring this up because when a person internally chooses from a young age that they
have to be too smart and immune to criticism in order to protect the self, it becomes extremely difficult to get them to see what they're doing wrong because they're trapped in that dismissive mindset. Narcs are incredibly frustrating to deal with (many have BPD which makes it worse) because they go in these circles totally unable to see what's right in front of them. It's easy to feel like you're stuck in a time loop when you're friends with one.
