Narcissism - The Western Epidemic

[Mariposa Electrique]

We live in a world where a new generation of people have been told anything is possible, and yes anything is possible but that does not mean it's probable. A lot of people don't want to face the face the fact that there are different roles in society that are ideal for the type of person they are either physically, mentally, or socially. Everyone, even old people want to be a Beyonce, Katy Perry, or Kim Kardashian, regardless of how unsuitable they are for the title of cute and sexy girl; take the auti-troons featured here, including CWC. People under the age of say 35-40 don't realize that not everyone can be famous, beautiful, or popular. I love the quote "Keep reaching for the stars because you will never be one" just because it defines the lol in everyone on facebook taking photos with duck lips or sharing every single detail of their terrible lives in the hopes someone will notice and tell them they look beautiful.
There are also too many asspaters (direct or indirect) acting as a narcissistic supply. If you see an obese woman or a fat man in drag, and they ask you if they look beautiful, you should either be honest with them or walk away. Not being honest with people or encouraging delusion is part of why we are faced with an unprecedented amount of narcissism everywhere we turn. Narcissism and delusions of grandeur are just energy wasted that could be going to the betterment of society.

 

[Brandobaris]

 

[feedtheoctopus]

>Narcissism epidemic started with millennials
lol no

Adam Curtis is awesome. Century Of The Self is one of the most terrifying things I've ever watched

 

[H3LLH4MM3R666]

The Last Psychiatrist had some fantastic essays on narcissism, operating from the theory that most of entertainment is catered to and fueling narcissism- including our news outlets

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/10/the_story_of_narcissus.html

The popular notion of narcissism is one of grandiosity, people who think that they're genius perfect demigods and celebrities. Which is wrong, grandiosity is just one possible symptom of narcissism, and one that our media has promoted to appeal to narcissistic viewers. The act of pointing is in itself a defense mechanism, there's a great relief in seeing people worse than you. Something to point out and say "Look at that boastful idiot, at least I'm not anything like that!".

And that's why we're all here at the farms

Because even sadbrains and constant self-depricators can be narcissists, so long as they can only focus on themselves.

If it's not grandiosity, then what is narcissism?

Shame over guilt; rage over anger; masturbation over sex; envy over greed; your future over your past but her past over her future...

Imagine what you look like to another person. Now recall what you looked like in the mirror this morning-- that's really what they see. They are making instantaneous judgments about your personality based on that mirror image. They are hearing your voice like it comes form a recording, not as you hear from your mouth. You're the only person who experiences yourself as you do.

The narcissist feels unhappy because he thinks his life isn't as it should be, or things are going wrong; but all of those feelings find origin in frustration, a specific frustration: the inability to love the other person.

He's a man in a glass box, unable to connect. He thinks the problem is people don't like him, or not enough, so he exerts massive energy into the creation and maintenance of an identity: if they think of me as X...

But that attempt is always futile, not because you can't trick the other person-- you can, for an entire lifetime, it's quite easy. But even then, the man in the box is still unsatisfied, still frustrated, because no amount of identity maintenance will break that glass box.

If the other person is also in a glass box, then you have a serious problem. If everyone is in their own glass box, well, then you have America.

Other good articles:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/why_we_love_sociopaths.html
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/02/the_father_that_shot_his_daugh.html

And in regards to a mother that forced her son to hide his gender for 5 years:
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/01/couple_reveals_childs_gender_f.html

Here's where things stop being hilarious:

"When Sasha turned five and headed to school, Laxton was forced to make her son's sex public... "

This is an extremely revealing sentence, because it shows the hierarchy of power in this woman's mind: she doesn't believe in God, she can overrule biology; but the school system is inviolable. The school system! What next, a pet store? A pumpkin?

She could have home schooled him; she could have refused to tell the school. But instead, she acquiesced to their demand. There's a very specific reason she did this: she is afraid to break society's rules. That's why she got someone else to be transgressive for her.

She wants to be (thought of as) a progressive, to (appear to) challenge society's rules, but being a coward she instead forces her kid to bear all of the negative consequences of this challenge. Is she wearing a man's suit to work? Has she stopped shaving her legs "to hide her femininity"? Is she willing to risk that someone will punch her in the face at the bus stop? Is she willing to sacrifice her own carefully managed identity "to make people think a bit"?

 

[Tragi-Chan]

Bullseye - the problem with social media is you can tailor it to feed you only what you want to hear, so when you run up against people who don't agree with you, there's a knee-jerk viciousness that this other person is being a bully because you have no idea HOW to deal with disagreement.

It's sad. Even if you think the person disagreeing with you is wrong, you can learn a lot about your own opinion by actually listening to what they have to say. Just asking, "Does this person's argument have any merit? If not, why is mine better?"

We live in a world where a new generation of people have been told anything is possible, and yes anything is possible but that does not mean it's probable.

Before social media, it was reality TV that fuelled this. Suddenly you had "ordinary people" (in reality, as engineered as any fictional character) becoming stars. The result was that you got all these kids who were fed this belief that hard work and training weren't necessary to become a success, you just needed to be wacky enough and you'd be spotted.

 

[Aiōn]

It's reanimation time!

I am currently learning about narcissism. I am particularly interested in narcissistic mirroring because it sounds creepy as fuck.

 

[PeachDream]

Past generations will always complain about future generations. Every single generation has been "generation me".

I never got this line of thinking.
"Every generation before us came to a consensus regarding this point, so that's why it's obviously wrong."
Maybe we really have been getting worse generation after generation for a century or two.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I always think it's funny that millennials are considered vain for social media and all the selfies we take but 300+ years ago people paid artists an arm and a leg and sat for hours on end to have their portrait painted. Past generations will always complain about future generations. Every single generation has been "generation me".

Because that was THE ONLY WAY you or ANYONE had a “photo” of someone.


That said, there was a retarded 1700s trend of painting the clothes very detailed and using the same basic model for the face (even if it looked nothing like the real person) because showing off status symbol clothing was a higher priority.