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There's a fascinating TLP article on this very topic[0]. Here's the most relevant bit: * The reason TV sociopaths are admired is that they are on TV. They h

by mundo 8y ago

There's a fascinating TLP article on this very topic[0]. Here's the most relevant bit: * The reason TV sociopaths are admired is that they are on TV. They have a story. Do you really admire Tony Soprano? Which part? His loveless marriage to a crazy person? A mistress who is even crazier? His gigantic belly and panic attacks? The fact that no one actually likes him? That his daughter was dating a black guy? ("I wouldn't have a problem with that." Yes you would if you were Tony.) What part do you admire? The answer you tell yourself is you admire his power, that he can do whatever he wants. No he can't. The whole show was nothing but repeated examples of how limited his options were. The things you think you admire-- having hot sex with the other crazy woman at his psychiatrist's office, eating microwaved Sysco at Italian restaurants, avoiding his wife-- can be done by anyone, you don't need to be Tony to do it. But when you do it.... it just doesn't feel the same. I know. What people admire about Tony isn't his freedom; that thing you think is freedom is actually the lack of freedom. His story. His identity-- that he has one, an obvious one, a clear one. Tony Soprano is not free, his behavior is completely tethered to what makes sense for his character. He acts exactly like Tony Soprano would act. That's what people want: the limitations of that identity: if I know who I am, I know what I am capable of, I know my strengths and my limits, I know how I'd react to unknown dangers. And I want other people to know this. If other people know who I am, I wouldn't have to keep proving myself. Strike that: I wouldn't have to prove myself in the first place. * Translating to the present topic, what makes Jordan Belfort attractive is not his role as "rich stock trader crook" or the cars and yachts that go with it, it's that he has a role and is confident that that is his role, as opposed to, let's say, oscillating between "Maybe I should start day trading" and "Maybe I should write the great American novel" and "Maybe I should write an indie game" but never doing any of them because that would remove the option of doing the other ones. 0: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/why_we_love_sociopaths.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/04/why_we_love_sociopat...

ForRealsies 8y ago
Not surprising, hell the reason why real life sociopaths/serial killers have admirers is because they were plastered on the news.
majos 8y ago
Nice, relevant excerpt. A while back I got very interested in Lucian Freud, moreso for the relationships he had with his portrait subjects rather than the portraits themselves. Long story short many of these relationships became romantic (many even led to children), but across both the romantic and non-romantic ones the subjects seemed to find Freud's keen (even selfish) interest in portraying them seductive. He could be demanding, cruel, temperamental, etc. but he was fundamentally a talented painter who was very simple to understand: he wanted to paint you, he was very interested in you, and didn't much care about how this affected you. For the reasons you outline, at least a broad subset of people find this kind of singular character (literally) attractive.
watwut 8y ago
Animal Kingdom did not made me feel like crime life is good and murder there felt badly. Similar with American Psycho. Westworld made mass murder by the end feel fine, a bit sad at maximum, while Game of Thrones made them feel disgusting. People don't root for sociopaths or even good guys in Game of Thrones as much. So I think a lot of admiration for sociopaths comes from how they are shown on screen, what kind of music is played etc, and not just from what they technically do. Similarly, I like horror movies a lot. But, it is not nearly the same as video of real person suffering (or realistic portrayal). I don't like those at all. Horrors are made to feel you fake bad and it is similar with most popular movies about sociopaths.
Balgair 8y ago
I noticed this exact thing when Desperate Housewives became popular. Suddenly (it seemed), many of the people around me started to act like the characters on the show; tuning in for more information each Sunday night. I seriously kid you not, some even started to take their kids' Ritalin just like on the show. It was... bizarre. Many people really do take their cues about how to behave/act from the pseudo-Jungian gestalt that is TV/YouTube/Pop-media. I just can't understand it, but I do observe it. Maybe that is more to say something about me than anything.
- FridgeSeal 8y ago
  This is interesting, do you think people do this because the people they see in Desperate Housewives and the examples in the parent comment have a sort of "clearly defined" identity and people watching this media look at how explicitly defined these characters are portrayed and contrast it against their own sense of self, find it lacking (either because it is, because they imagine it to be, or because something like that is inherently truly difficult to pin down because in reality "bright line" definitions of character don't exist?) and then start to model their life on what they see because it gives them something concrete to centre themselves on?
  - Balgair 8y ago
    That's a lot for one sentence. I think the people I know/knew whom are like that are doing it out of boredom mostly. Their lives are fairly comfortable, they have never really seen hunger nor war nor diseases. Most of their lives have been really nice. As such, to give meaning to those lives, they need strife, and the path that the media/gestalt provides is a 'safe' one to introduce struggle, so to speak. They tend to be somewhat religious as well. Having been to those congregations, the pastors/priests/padres stress that you have to really confess your sins a lot, because we all have a lot of sins, so struggle that way. Turns out, almost none of the flock has anything to confess, but 'sin' is at least something to struggle against. There is also an out-sized (though still very small) anti-vax/flat-earther/conspiracy element too, as that also provides some meaning to their otherwise safe and comfortable lives. In essence, those that get their 'plan' from the TV/gestalt just need to volunteer more and travel.

by mundo 8y ago

ForRealsies 8y ago

Not surprising, hell the reason why real life sociopaths/serial killers have admirers is because they were plastered on the news.

majos 8y ago

Nice, relevant excerpt. A while back I got very interested in Lucian Freud, moreso for the relationships he had with his portrait subjects rather than the portraits themselves. Long story short many of these relationships became romantic (many even led to children), but across both the romantic and non-romantic ones the subjects seemed to find Freud's keen (even selfish) interest in portraying them seductive. He could be demanding, cruel, temperamental, etc. but he was fundamentally a talented painter who was very simple to understand: he wanted to paint you, he was very interested in you, and didn't much care about how this affected you. For the reasons you outline, at least a broad subset of people find this kind of singular character (literally) attractive.

watwut 8y ago

Animal Kingdom did not made me feel like crime life is good and murder there felt badly. Similar with American Psycho. Westworld made mass murder by the end feel fine, a bit sad at maximum, while Game of Thrones made them feel disgusting. People don't root for sociopaths or even good guys in Game of Thrones as much. So I think a lot of admiration for sociopaths comes from how they are shown on screen, what kind of music is played etc, and not just from what they technically do. Similarly, I like horror movies a lot. But, it is not nearly the same as video of real person suffering (or realistic portrayal). I don't like those at all. Horrors are made to feel you fake bad and it is similar with most popular movies about sociopaths.

Balgair 8y ago

I noticed this exact thing when Desperate Housewives became popular. Suddenly (it seemed), many of the people around me started to act like the characters on the show; tuning in for more information each Sunday night. I seriously kid you not, some even started to take their kids' Ritalin just like on the show. It was... bizarre. Many people really do take their cues about how to behave/act from the pseudo-Jungian gestalt that is TV/YouTube/Pop-media. I just can't understand it, but I do observe it. Maybe that is more to say something about me than anything.

FridgeSeal 8y ago
This is interesting, do you think people do this because the people they see in Desperate Housewives and the examples in the parent comment have a sort of "clearly defined" identity and people watching this media look at how explicitly defined these characters are portrayed and contrast it against their own sense of self, find it lacking (either because it is, because they imagine it to be, or because something like that is inherently truly difficult to pin down because in reality "bright line" definitions of character don't exist?) and then start to model their life on what they see because it gives them something concrete to centre themselves on?
- Balgair 8y ago
  That's a lot for one sentence. I think the people I know/knew whom are like that are doing it out of boredom mostly. Their lives are fairly comfortable, they have never really seen hunger nor war nor diseases. Most of their lives have been really nice. As such, to give meaning to those lives, they need strife, and the path that the media/gestalt provides is a 'safe' one to introduce struggle, so to speak. They tend to be somewhat religious as well. Having been to those congregations, the pastors/priests/padres stress that you have to really confess your sins a lot, because we all have a lot of sins, so struggle that way. Turns out, almost none of the flock has anything to confess, but 'sin' is at least something to struggle against. There is also an out-sized (though still very small) anti-vax/flat-earther/conspiracy element too, as that also provides some meaning to their otherwise safe and comfortable lives. In essence, those that get their 'plan' from the TV/gestalt just need to volunteer more and travel.