Layman’s definition

The word itself has been overused and abused with the advent of social media, in a similar way to the infamous ADHD epidemic we’ve collectively acquired over the last decade or two. Specialists will tell you that just because you show symptoms of a condition owing to an abnormal exposure to new technologies, does not necessarily mean that you now are an ADHD patient. In a way, Narcissistic tendencies are clearly on the rise with more and more of each of our entourages displaying problematic amounts of it on their socials; but the jury is still out there wheither or not these people can easily be rehabilitated by prescribing them with less tech time.

In a nutshell, my view on narcissism is quite a caricature, with no basis in scientific reality: I imagine a highly self-centered holywood villain archetype as the only possible example of a real narcissist; failing as such to realize how much of the bill I could fit with some introspection. A Narcissist can be a very well intentioned person with a bunch of selfish traits and a manical tendency to put themselves first in every single calculation that matters in their life.

Are we the baddies?

When you listen deeply to the words of a pathological liar and narcissist with Grade School levels of intellect and understanding of the world such as Donald Trump, you start to wonder how on Earth you could shut your brain off as a cult member and still buy into every single lie being spewed in your direction, when the debunking is as simple as a web search. But then you realise that these people are themselves exhibiting similar traits of narcissism and incompetence in their own lives; and therefore Trump had nothing else to do but to exist as a comic book imbecile and sell a reheated brand of insolent populism that provides a show to the masses; even if they themselves may be props instrumentalized and brutalized in the making of this nightmarish geopolitical film.

I have to admit that I myself fell into the french alt-right rabbit hole, which, when viewed as an external party that is not living anywhere near France, could easily pass for a reality and as true a danger for the french as well as the rest of the world as it can get outside of it physically happening in front of my eyes. And that is the true power of socials and YouTube in particular, which more and more populists and governments are understanding and abusing to stir the masses (including impressionable imbeciles such as myself) in directions which fit their agendas. The problem starts when these kinds of manoeuvers are misused and misjudged by their users, going as far as to radicalise a majority of your population in irreperable ways; which leads us to this post-truth world where no matter how much effective journalism you may provably do, all it takes is a single alledged lazy accusation from the right politician or the right russian bot farm for the lie to become gospel, and your actual truth to be discarded out of hand.

Here’s wishing WWIII’s threat gives us a second anime revolution.