How narcissism became everyone's obsession

[marmar]

How narcissism became everyone's obsession
A once-obscure psychological disorder threatens democracy and haunts the internet

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published June 9, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) It's a testament of our time that one of the best movies of 2025, HBO's "The Mountainhead," has a "Dr. Strangelove" level of absurdity in its plotting, and yet feels almost understated in its satire of the ridiculousness of our era. (Short spoiler warning.) It follows four tech bros over a day in which the entire world literally falls into chaos and civil war, due to the release of disinformation-sowing social media tools, with the implication that millions of people are killed in 24 hours. But our billionaire protagonists — played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef — are only interested in leveraging the situation to gather more money, power, and status for themselves. Throughout, the characters routinely name-drop philosophers and authors they've obviously never read while indulging bizarre fantasies of living forever and ruling the universe as benevolent dictators.

Still, "The Mountainhead" can't compete with reality. After all, an allegedly ketamine-addled Elon Musk callously cut life-saving aid for hundreds of thousands of people by destroying USAID, all while continuing to claim he's humanity's savior because he will someday colonize Mars. (He will not.) The movie works only because it's ruthless in its portrayal of the ego delusion that fuels so much of Silicon Valley's C-suites, as the tech industry enters its snake oil phase. Writer and director Jesse Armstrong never indulges the urge to humanize his narcissistic main characters by giving them secret soft sides or limits on their self-regard. At one point, the Musk stand-in character even asks if other people are real, and concludes they are not.

Everywhere you look online these days, people are talking about narcissism. TikTok is replete with advice, most of it questionable, on how to tell if someone is a narcissist. The subreddit /raisedbynarcissists has over 1 million members. Social media in general is a place where accusations of the disorder fly wildly, and often unfairly. But it wasn't always like this. A decade ago, narcissism was a little-discussed personality disorder, especially compared to more stigmatized diagnoses, like sociopathy or borderline personality disorder. I'd say many people weren't even aware that it is a psychological condition. Even still to this day, the word "narcissist" gets misused to describe people who are merely snobbish or egotistical. Still, there's value in all this discourse. It's raised awareness that narcissism is a real psychological disorder, and helped a lot of people make sense of abuse or other relationship issues they've dealt with in the past.

....(snip)....

Trump routinely claims to be perfect. "I don’t really believe I’ve made any mistakes," Trump declared in April. During his first campaign, he claimed he was a Christian, but he has never asked for God's forgiveness. When later asked why not, he clarified that because he believes he doesn't make mistakes. He's called himself a king and a messiah. He frequently brags about his looks in a way that is utterly out of touch with reality, calling his body "perfect." His supporters laugh at this, as if he's joking, but if you pay attention to his tone when he says these things, it's clear he is not kidding. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/09/how-everyone-became-a-narcissist/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. The hierarchical structure of our society enabled this

There weren't so many narcissists back in the 1950s and 60s. They were merely self-centered, or power hungry, or rich recluses. Hughes, Nixon, moguls. Now they're everywhere, TV, sports, business, politics. Seems no reality exists that can reign them in.

[dweller]

2. The Mountainhead

Not to be confused with The Fountainhead ?

🤔



✌🏻

[GreatGazoo]

3. Narcissism became a popular simplistic insult as part of wider trend

of derailing discussions or debates by name calling.

We are rapidly losing the ability to articulate what we believe and why we believe it. That trend is already having consequences as the moderate left has been compared to a "ghost ship."

Marcotte is not interested in the DSM definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which uses dysfunction and delusion as a threshold for clinical diagnosis -- she merely wants to embrace the ad hom and pretend that, like her, "everyone" else is also "obsessed" with narcissism.

In DSM-5-TR, NPD is defined as comprising a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a constant need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by the presence of at least 5 of the following 9 criteria:

1 A grandiose sense of self-importance (eg, the individual exaggerates achievements and talents and expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

2 A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3 A belief that he or she is special and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions

4 A need for excessive admiration

5 A sense of entitlement (ie, unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations)

6 Interpersonally exploitive behavior (ie, the individual takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends)

7 A lack of empathy (unwillingness to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)

8 Envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her

9 A demonstration of arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes

https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1519417-overview