Ashlee and Charli are two youtubers who star in a successful cooking channel (CharlisCraftyKitchen). His numbers of followers are very high: they exceed 725,000, and his monthly income is around 140,000 euros. Of course, there are other more famous channels. The amazing thing about her case is that Charli is ten and Ashlee is seven. And they are not the only ones who have reasons to raise their ego at such a tender age: in our country, Arantxa, five years old, has about 350,000 followers with a channel in which she shows how toys work.
The hatching age of youtubers is getting lower and lower. The ego rush comes even before adolescence, an age already considered vulnerable to narcissism. Rubén Doblas (El Rubius) began, for example, at the age of sixteen. And it has taken a decade to reach its climax: it has just surpassed 23 million subscribers and in 2016 it was included in the list that Time has drawn up of the most influential leaders for the new generations of the world. “One of the most famous people you’ve ever heard of,” read a line from the magazine.
Can this fame be assimilated to those ages?
Rubius is already starting to send messages in his videos about these difficulties. Around the time of his appearance on the Time list – in which he also began to reveal his private life -, he said: “I know that maybe I overact too much in some videos and that before it was more natural […], but it’s difficult having the pressure of so many people waiting to be entertained. I hope you understand that there are many, many people subscribed to my channel, more than twenty million, and I cannot satisfy everyone “. PewDiePie, the youtuber with the most subscribers in the world, also seems to be seeing the dark side of narcissistic fame: in November he announced that, overwhelmed by the pressure of his life as a celebrity, he would stop uploading videos for a while.
Internet triggers egotism
Social networks, for example, are designed to raise our ego: in the vast majority there is no option, I do not like it. Not surprisingly, a study by psychologists Laura Buffardi and Keith Campbell of the University of Georgia found that the most narcissistic and egotistical individuals have more friends and get more likes on Facebook. On the Net we receive, above all, the admiration of others, because design is made to make our ego grow. The multiplier effect it exerts on our narcissism is revealed in thousands of essays and scientific research. And many of them see it as a negative development.
The controversial popularizer Adam Curtis, for example, brings together in his latest documentary, entitled Hypernormalisation, arguments about the radical individualism that, according to him, new technologies have devised. The author defends that the internet has created an onanistic world in which my truth becomes the only truth. Paradoxically, the infinite possibilities of choice offered by the Web have limited the world of the human being, because we are overwhelmed and we end up entering only the forums that ratify our opinions using our personal preferences as the only selection criteria.
Curtis claims that a world of hypernarcissism is developing, in which we always believe we are right because we never contact those who would take it away from us. This documentary filmmaker is one of those who are warning about the risks of ego inflation in today’s world.
Welcome to Generation I
In a controversial book, San Diego State University psychologist Jean Twenge in California labeled a large portion of today’s youth as Generation Me. It encompasses, according to Twenge, individuals with high self-esteem, with attitudes that many consider arrogant and who are delighted to know themselves. For Twenge, his egotism comes from a time when the importance of the self was greatly emphasized in education. And, in addition, the internet has multiplied the effect: they have found the showcase for self-promotion in social networks. They know that the important thing on the Internet is to stand out. The how does not matter.
For her part, Madeline Levine, a psychologist at Stanford University, summarizes in her book The Price of Privilege the fundamental criticisms made of this culture of the self. It is, according to these authors, a psychological strategy that prioritizes self-centeredness over effort. The vast majority of today’s celebrities are idols who have contributed nothing more than their self-confidence and self-confidence, and young people learn online that success has nothing to do with talent. This way of understanding life has found a perfect field of action on the Internet. There they can tell about the parties they have had, always crowded, always fun; hang photos in which all the changes in style are reflected in detail, worshiping the image; and show off hookups who live a perpetual happy romance.
The description of the narcissist online that these types of analysts make shows that they classify this factor as something negative. The adjectives they use tend to emphasize that dark side: they speak of “superficial loquacity and charm”; of “tendency to break the rules and commit crimes”; of “lack of self-control”; of “exaggerated self-esteem”; of “arrogance and arrogance”; of “absence of a real empathy”; of “constant need for flattery” …
Deadly selfies
Perhaps the phenomenon that is making us consider most strongly the tremendous potentiating effect of narcissism on the Web is deadly selfies. In 2014, seventeen-year-old Russian Xenia Ignatyeva jumped off a bridge while practicing skywalking, a form of self-portrait that consists of climbing skyscrapers or bridges illegally and without any security measures.
The photo of this teenager, who was electrocuted by the cable she tried to grab during the fall, is one of the most emblematic symbols of the risks of this search for ego reinforcement. It is not the only one: the collections of deadly selfies include photos taken on the roof of a train a second before the person is electrocuted by the catenary, couples falling off cliffs before the terrified gaze of their children, or images taken by a person with a gun to the temple just before it fires.
Again, studies show that this phenomenon is related to the internet fostering narcissism. An investigation also carried out by scientists at the University of Georgia concluded that those who score high on this scale – more often men, who turn out to be more egotistical than women – take many more selfies and post pictures more often of themselves in different places. The level of egotism, according to this study, is mainly related to the tendency to self-portray in very impressive places where few people have done it before. From there to risking life there seems to be only one step …
Comes from afar
All of these investigations suggest that we are dealing with a modern phenomenon. But if we study the historical development of this current narcissism, we will realize that it has been formed through many variables that today we consider fundamental values of our way of life. The psychologist Roy Baumeister, from Florida State University, has done this work and has concluded that the components of narcissism have been added to the baggage of the human being throughout historical times – the birth of Christianity, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement, capitalism, etc. – which have paid for our love for ourselves.
An example of these variables necessary for vanity is self-knowledge. People who love themselves are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. That inner wisdom comes, as Baumeister recalls, from phenomena like the general practice of confession, introduced by Christianity in the 13th century. In addition, those milestones changed the way we define ourselves: from the seventeenth century, identity is no longer associated with family lineage and has more to do with individual successes.
In fact, these milestones change the relationship between the individual and society: romantic rebellion, for example, brought into fashion a type of human being who is in conflict with the world. Indeed, the narcissist knows that those who abide by the rules do not have to have a better life. Capitalism adds one last factor to this modern egocentricity: the need for self-realization, to get as far as possible.
A fact linked to money
It is no coincidence that economic progress is one of the adaptive successes put on the table by those who do not see this fever of narcissism so badly. Believing in your own resources – and showing them off on the internet – is adaptive in today’s competitive world of work.
That would explain, for example, the data found by Joshua Foster, a professor of psychology at the University of South Alabama. This researcher has verified, using data from the NPI (Narcissistic Personality Inventory), that the mean scores on this scale have risen 25% since the early 1990s. That’s the date the internet boom began, Foster began his field studies … and the world economy began to revitalize after a period of recession.
It’s no wonder that experts like Stanford Business School’s Jim Collins recommend selecting CEOs (CEOs) with high scores on the NPI. In fact, according to him, “behind all current great economic success is a narcissistic and self-sufficient person.” The reason for this is given by Edward Roberts, a professor at the Sloan School of Business Administration and Management in Massachusetts: In today’s business world, self-confidence is rewarded because risk pays off. You gain more on a single hit than you lose on many misses.
In such a world, egotists are very effective, because they are not afraid of making mistakes. They are not afraid, for example, of disobeying orders from superiors. In his imagination he is turning his company into the next Google, Amazon or eBay. That is why they approach the selection processes as an opportunity to choose a company – they do not have in mind that the company is testing them. Thanks to that insolence that characterizes them, they continually take risks. And that often makes them wrong, but, in return, they hit specific occasions that make them millionaires. Cases like those of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or Sergey Brin are paradigmatic.
The good side of vanity 3.0
Experts also find, of course, positive potentials from this internet-fostered self-sufficient individualism that go beyond the economic. One example: A study by Sara Konrath, Meng-Han Ho, and Sasha Zarins of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis examined the factors that lead narcissists to engage in prosocial behaviors. In large part, these individuals perform good deeds out of egotism, as they earn them public praise. But the result is optimal: the research showed that narcissists are even more likely than the rest to engage in public ethical behaviors, such as participation in volunteering and associationism.
Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura brings another benefit to this self-love. It is the concept of self-efficacy, which refers to the judgments that people make about their own abilities when they try to achieve certain levels of performance. How do we answer questions like “will I be able to do it”, “am I good for this” or “I have hopes of doing it”? People who score high in self-efficacy respond positively and that allows them to perform better.
The narcissism that the internet fosters is enhancing that factor. Take the example of seduction . Until the emergence of the Web, only a privileged few considered themselves self-effective. Others faced love flirting with insecurities, trauma and, above all, pessimism. Today, the ease of finding our target audience – there is more to choose from – and the fluency in trial and error – not seeing the other person, failures do not hurt – have increased the number of individuals who feel safe in courtship. And that results in a higher success rate: as Bandura reminded us, what a person thinks about their abilities better predicts their performance than their actual ability level.
The psychologist Patricia Wallace, professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of one of the first books on the subject, already highlighted this aspect of democratization of self-esteem offered by the Internet.
The key: believe in yourself
On the internet it is much easier to feel safe and have confidence in our results. Although this can lead in many cases to an excessive ego, in the vast majority of the population it supposes a healthy increase in self-confidence. And that increased self-esteem can also help foster other positive factors. A classic example is empathy: more confident individuals tend to be much more empathetic, because they no longer need to care about themselves. It is not surprising that studies such as the one carried out by the Dutch scientists Helen Vossen and Patti Valkenburg conclude that adolescents increase their level of empathy as they acquire skills in managing social networks, even if they do not become an El Rubius.
From narcissism to philanthropy
It must be remembered that the great myths of the development of the Internet –Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs… – are also well-known philanthropists: the Internet seems to promote narcissism and the need to help others in equal measure.
Craig Malkin, a psychologist at Harvard University, wrote that narcissism 2 is the ability to see ourselves and others through pink glasses. “This researcher, author of the book Rethinking Narcissism , reminds us the need we all have to feel special and expose ourselves to hear praise from others The confidence necessary to take risks in new companies, to tackle difficult tasks or to start relationships comes from internalizing the admiring gaze of those around us.
Let’s do a linguistic exercise: let’s change the words previously used to describe narcissists for others that have much more positive connotations. “Superficial talkativeness and charm” can be substituted for “kindness”; “tendency to break the rules and commit crimes”, for “rebellion”; “lack of self-control”, due to “spontaneity”; “exaggerated self-esteem”, for “self-confidence”; “absence of a real empathy”, for “sincerity”; “arrogance and arrogance”, for “tendency not to let oneself be humiliated”; and “constant need for praise”, for “seeking external feedback .”
If we stop using language as a throwing weapon, we realize that what we call narcissism is actually healthy self-esteem in the vast majority of cases. The percentage of disorders caused by this increase in self-confidence that the Internet enhances is very small. As Oscar Wilde said, perhaps we should not be so scared that people love themselves more, since ultimately that may be the beginning of a romance that will last a lifetime.
