Everyday is Social Media Day
YOU KNOW those made up events that are scattered across the calendar — National Cauliflower Day, World Chilblain Awareness Week? Well, here is one that seems even more superfluous than the rest — World Social Media Day, coming up at the end of the month. Is it because we don’t already spend enough hours staring at cats on the internet while compulsively doing online quizzes to find out which character we are in Orange Is The New Black? (I got Crazy Eyes.)
If you are aged anywhere between nine and 99 then everyday is social media day. The reason for this is simple — social media is always about our all-time favourite subject — ourselves. Nothing is too trivial to share. Toast for breakfast? Tweet it! Walking the dog? Post it on YouTube. Got some new socks? Instagram it. Feeling a bit bored? Change your Facebook status to ‘feeling a bit bored’.
It used to be that the internet was all about passing a boring day at work by watching clips of dogs playing the piano. But as our online life developed, we have quite literally become the stars of our own show — which has resulted in an entire generation of super-narcissists. In the decade since social media sites and apps have taken over, our interest in famous people has been superseded by interest in ourselves — we are all celebrities now. All you need is an Instagram filter to make a photo of you having a cup of tea look like a fashion shoot.
Excessive uploading and sharing is more than just a reflection of celebrity culture — humans have always had the urge to do this, except previously it was only the rich who could afford to upload oil paintings of themselves onto the walls of their grand houses. Now we all have Facebook walls. Access to mass consumption of yourself by others has broadened immeasurably since the advent of social media, creating a new generation of online superstars — YouTubers, Instagrammers, bloggers etc.
Privacy is no longer a consideration — as celebrity culture shifts to living soap opera, we are fed a constant stream of sex tapes, overdoses, rehab holidays, staged marriages, live births, cosmetic surgeries — all via reality television, gossip blogs, and the celebrities themselves, who use the internet as the ultimate marketing tool.
The result?
Entities such as the Kardashians.
The Kardashians are the ultimate in digital bragging. Theirs is the perfect storm of fame and wealth acquired through non-traditional means — those involving old fashioned ideas like talent — but through media manipulation and online exposure. Sex tape, reality television, relationship with someone more famous? Kim Kardashian ticks all the boxes. Her boyfriend Kanye West is the perfect narcissist — he has declared himself “God’s vessel”. Vanity, entitlement and the urge to show off is what makes a celebrity. Self effacing types tend to run away screaming.
Showing off is what motivates the Rich Kids Of Instagram, who, while not famous, come from loaded families.
Rather than keeping the extent of their inherited wealth to themselves, they instead post their restaurant bills, shopping sprees, helicopters, sports cars, country homes, and art collections online, like a bunch of digital Marie Antoinettes. And like a new age Marie Antoinette, Gwyneth Paltrow, although most likely a well intentioned individual, is out of touch with ordinary peasants to the point of insanity, her entitlement singing off the digital page.
Her Goop blog sells two “mismatched” tea towels for $99 and sweatshirts for $235 — that’s before you ever get to the quinoa rigatoni recipes, or the lifestyle stuff about conscious uncoupling. None of it is even slightly tongue in cheek.
For the rest of us, Facebook provides an ideal bragging space, although one researcher at the University of Texas, Dr James Pennebaker, discovered that the more we use “I” online, the more insecure we really are.
Those who avoid the me-me-me stuff — by not posting about personal bests, perfect partners and children, success and achievements, but instead upload less personal and more group-oriented stuff — are more likely to be more secure. Those who overuse “I” tend to subconsciously view themselves as subservient.
Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is professor of business psychology at University College London and an expert on digital narcissism.
“Clearly, MySpace, Facebook, and Instagram would not have happened if people — particularly Generation Y — were not so self-obsessed,” he says. “At the same time, there is some evidence that excessive usage of such sites exacerbates whatever narcissistic tendencies you already had.
“Most of the popular social media sites are like free crack for narcissists, and once people get hooked on them they need a regular fix or they experience psychological withdrawal.
“The constant need to get others to like your posts and activities, the adrenaline of getting new friends or followers, and the ability to make average pictures look like celebrity shots, all gives people the opportunity to perpetuate their delusional self-views and continue to live in their narcissistic bubble.”
THE INTERNET, he says, is merely the latest conduit for narcissism, which, as we all know, has been around ever since that Greek guy first stared transfixed at himself in a pool of water. In terms of the psychological and evolutionary reasons for narcissism, Dr Tomas says that, “People are social animals and as such we are pre-wired to get approval and recognition from others. Rejection makes us feel sad, and the origin of that healthy degree of social narcissism (seeking to be seen positively by others) is clearly adaptive and beneficial. It is even essential for living with others — if you don’t care, you are antisocial.
“However, when taken to an extreme, it equates to only caring about yourself and the unrealistic pursuit of adulation from others is a barrier for respecting and loving others. Freud saw narcissism as ‘introjected love’: it is when we are unable to love someone other than ourselves that we become the object of our own adulation.
“Narcissism levels have been rising as much as obesity rates in the US. Generation Y are the most narcissistic generation ever and ‘Generation Wi-Fi’ — the next generation — will probably be even more narcissistic. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are not where they are for no reason.”
Perhaps the most extreme form of digital narcissism is embodied in an innocuous yet contradictory phenomenon — the yogi.
Traditionally, a yogi is someone who practices yoga; these days it means a yoga selfie. Yoga, all about the silent meditative union of mind and body, is now all about uploading yourself looking bendy on a beach.
“Yoga is about self-realisation,” says writer and yoga teacher Satu Rommi, who trained directly with the late astanga guru Sri K Pattabhi Jois in Mysore.
“Not about getting a gorgeous body or doing a pretty posture that looks good on camera. A yoga selfie is not in any way a realistic representation of anyone’s normal practice. Yoga selfies are just as photoshopped and retouched and digitally manipulated as any photo in a fashion magazine or an ad.
“Many selfies are ridiculously oversexualised, much like soft porn. What happens inside the person while in the posture is a lot more important than what the posture looks like.
“So while some selfies can be nice to look at, I feel the whole yoga selfie phenomenon has gotten really out of control.”
So there it is.
Never mind those crass rich kids uploading their champagne binges — when digital bragging has gotten as far as infiltrating yoga, you know it’s game over. Just make sure your hair looks good in the shot.
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