NARCISSUS TO INSTAGRAM: The Evolution of Narcissism
It is unusual for humans these days to not be on social media. Every selfie they take needs to be posted onto Instagram with a witty caption they choose from “The 50 Wittiest Captions for your photos”. Every thought that enters their brains needs to be compressed within a 140 characters and a # on twitter.com, and the new song they heard on the radio needs to be added to their YouTube playlist named “Best Road trip Songs”.
With the emergence of social media, people have started basing their self-worth on the number of likes their photos receive, and determine their likability on the number of comments they receive. Our selfish need to feel validated harms us, and social media only heightens it.
But before we dive into the reasons why this happens, let’s go way back in time, to learn about the man who redefined self-love.
I like to believe the Ancient Greeks gave the modern world some great things; Democracy, fair law, olives and more. Ancient Greek tragedies teach us what not to do. But if there is one tale which accurately represents the plight of the modern world, it’s the story of Narcissus. A hunter by profession, he was cursed by the Goddess of Revenge, Nemesis. He fell in love with his own reflection in the water, staring at his own face, day in and day out. So comes the word Narcissistic or Narcissism, a word which rightfully describes the youth of today. Instagram, is our lake, and we are just staring at ourselves. It is interesting how a tool which makes you question yourself, helps you love yourself to an obnoxious amount.
It would also not be incorrect to assume that any person with a decent camera and a phone would have at least fifty photos of only their face. We want to see ourselves laughing, and talking and posing. We hold the phone in front of our faces and smile. Each day, we take so many photos of our own face; our face with makeup, our face without makeup, our face with a dog filter, a cat filter, a pig filter. Once we find a satisfactory photo, we post it on the inter web, sit back and let the compliments flood in.
“You look SO good!”
“Pretty!!!”
“Nice pic!”
With each like and comment, our validation meter reaches full capacity and we go to bed feeling good about ourselves. So we go on, posting Instagram stories every 10 minutes, posting pictures every other day, with a new background, a new filter and a “witty” caption.
But how obnoxious must we be to assume that people want to see our faces everyday? Give a teenager a smartphone with a decent front camera, and you will witness somebody loves their faces more than Narcissus loved himself. What we don’t realise is that we all have a small Narcissus running inside our heads. The curse of Social Media has hit us, and we fall in love with ourselves, our reflections, and crave for people to admire us as well, breaking the “Need for validation and attention” meter.
The curse of social media extends beyond us being narcissistic. It has led us to believe that all eyes are on us. Our hair must be in place, our clothes must be proper and our smile must never waver. While doing any activity where there is a camera present, our first thought is, “Will I look good in the photo?”. We take fake candids, to let us know what we look like when we are caught unaware, when we are talking, eating and dancing. Seeing other people post such photos makes us want to take such photos too, and thus the vicious cycle continues. Our feed is just photos of ourselves looking solemnly at the camera (not smiling, because smiling is not the trend right now), while comments pour in, congratulating us on our faces and ability to take decent pictures. By a majority, Narcissism wins. Again.
We start loving how we look when we put a dog filter on our faces. Our bumps and ridges go away, our eyelashes appear longer and we feel prettier than we do without one. This pseudo-beauty is what brings us short-lived joy, and to prolong that, we post on social media, which lets us cement that photo in internet history, bringing in likes and comments and once again, lifelong narcissism.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with loving yourself. We live in a society which promotes bashing of individuals for being who they are, a society which sweet talks in front of you and when your back is turned, stabs you faster than Brutus stabbed Caesar. In an environment like this, it more important than ever to love yourself. But you shouldn’t love yourself for the wrong reasons. You shouldn’t un-love yourself when you see a bad photo of yourself or when a pimple pops up on your forehead. Real self-love is when you laugh at the bad photo and shake it off, realising that nobody is always perfect ( except maybe Audrey Hepburn ). Real self-love is when you embrace the pimples on your forehead, and give them names and tend to them with care and love, like pets. Real self-love is when you are confident in who you are, dog filter or not.
You must realise that the real reason Narcissus was so self-obsessed was because he was cursed. While the Goddess of Revenge may not be sitting idle in a forest, ready to curse us, the curse of social media and technology has already struck us.
We are so much more than the number of likes we have gotten. We have so much more to contribute to the world than “Mirror selfies”. At the end of the day, your relationships with the people you surround yourself with count more than with the friend you knew in middle school and lost touch with, but still follow on Instagram.
You will always be a beautiful and valuable human being, even if you’re not posting a photo every 5 minutes. Validation of self comes from within, not from the numerical figures of likes and comments we have come to associate it with.
