A New Age of Narcissism

I saw Dr. Drew on Carson Daly's show last night. There was some good stuff. Although it isn't totally new for kids to want to grow up and be Britney Spears or whatever teen idol, it has reached epic proportions. "American Idol" and other reality contests and shows are so popular because of that which was already present, yet feeds on it to amplify it.

One major difference in recent times is that we know more and more of the celebs' private lives. So all of the new shows about teen idols from the 70s and 80s and their drup problems and antics are new to most people who saw them when they were stars. These days we usually find out a lot of the worst details that seem to try and destroy careers of the most famous. The problem is that they just linger those careers on much longer after they probably would have been forgotten, replaced by the ever-next best thing.

Dr. Drew was talking about some of the ways current culture promotes this and a shot of twitter was on his computer screen though the name was never mentioned. Perhaps this was a Legal Department recommendation, just in case. However, twitter has obviously plugged into people's desire for others to want to know everything they do down to the slightest detail.

Twitter is not alone in giving voice to the narcissist, as all of the social media sites allow exhibition qualities to go into overdrive. The sites themselves are not to blame for the best or worst uses, though it begs the question whether playing to these desires escalates them.

Dr. Drew tweets his own horn a bit, but he is doing good and helping and trying to help people, and there is a balance with motivation to better oneself. Much unlike such celebs as Ashton Kutcher who use it as a self-controlled paparazzi feeding fans the details they want from tabloids, which he condemns for doing the same thing mainly because he cannot control what they publish and when they might catch a candid, unprepared shot, and he doesn't get profit from it, well not directly as a royalty though it feeds his fans who keep alive their desire to know more about him and keep alive their following him through buying movie tickets and watching advertised shows that he actually does make money from. How much is the performance in a movie or television show worth? The market seems to derive it from what advertisers who waste billions every year are willing to pay, sometimes resulting from what movie-goers are wiling to pay.

All of the social media sites give a venuw for people to share their everyday lives, their passions, their hopes, their boredom. Site allow and are even devoted to home video, some more professionally edited video to showcase ability or lack thereof, to albums of photos for the same purposes or lack of purpose.

The problem is people's addictions and self-delusionment which can lead to serious problems. There is a natural balance to every system known or not yet invented and these things eventually balance themselves out. The problem is that the extreme victims of self will get a balancing blow that they might not survive.