4 ms·

> When I was a kid, a photo was kind of big deal. My kids take and share photos of themselves every single day. It makes me wonder - is it no longer narcissist

> When I was a kid, a photo was kind of big deal. My kids take and share photos of themselves every single day. It makes me wonder - is it no longer narcissistic for people born in an age where camera sensors are ubiquitous to take selfies constantly? Can a behaviour be normalised as a result of cost, the same way listening to music in public would have been considered indulgent and neglectful of the world around you before everyone could afford a personal/portable music player? Personally I lean towards it still being a narcissistic trait. That's not to say the behaviour isn't natural - it's no more artificial than our tendency to gorge ourselves on junk-food because of its cost and availability. But it's something that needs to be controlled.

mcphage 9y ago
> It makes me wonder - is it no longer narcissistic for people born in an age where camera sensors are ubiquitous to take selfies constantly? [...] Personally I lean towards it still being a narcissistic trait. Well, people used to get 8 foot tall oil portraits of themselves done; a few extra digital photos still seems a pretty big step in the right direction.
- icanhackit 9y ago
  I suspect that if commissioning an artist to make portraits of any size was as cheap and easy as taking a selfie or eating junk food, we'd be balls-deep in portraits right now. Cost & effort vs value. The implication being that narcissism is nothing new or changing in prevalence, we just need to discourage its more overt forms so that we have a healthy and thoughtful population.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    > we just need to discourage its more overt forms I think we've done a pretty good job about this, what we're left with is people taking pictures of themselves costing $0, and perhaps posting them on free sites for people who want to view & share such things. That's just about as out-of-your-face as you can get.
    - icanhackit 9y ago
      Overt meaning publishing our narcissism uncensored, rather than acknowledging that we're naturally concerned with our outward appearance and status but see the value in balancing it with some modesty lest life become a silopsist shitshow. You could argue that a painting, while expensive, is less overt in a spatial sense than making images of yourself available to practically any person in any location at any time. It's multi-dimensional vanity repeated ad nauseam because it costs practically nothing. Paintings are limited to specific times and locations in space-time.

mcphage 9y ago

> It makes me wonder - is it no longer narcissistic for people born in an age where camera sensors are ubiquitous to take selfies constantly? [...] Personally I lean towards it still being a narcissistic trait. Well, people used to get 8 foot tall oil portraits of themselves done; a few extra digital photos still seems a pretty big step in the right direction.

icanhackit 9y ago
I suspect that if commissioning an artist to make portraits of any size was as cheap and easy as taking a selfie or eating junk food, we'd be balls-deep in portraits right now. Cost & effort vs value. The implication being that narcissism is nothing new or changing in prevalence, we just need to discourage its more overt forms so that we have a healthy and thoughtful population.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > we just need to discourage its more overt forms I think we've done a pretty good job about this, what we're left with is people taking pictures of themselves costing $0, and perhaps posting them on free sites for people who want to view & share such things. That's just about as out-of-your-face as you can get.
  - icanhackit 9y ago
    Overt meaning publishing our narcissism uncensored, rather than acknowledging that we're naturally concerned with our outward appearance and status but see the value in balancing it with some modesty lest life become a silopsist shitshow. You could argue that a painting, while expensive, is less overt in a spatial sense than making images of yourself available to practically any person in any location at any time. It's multi-dimensional vanity repeated ad nauseam because it costs practically nothing. Paintings are limited to specific times and locations in space-time.