A little narcissim never hurt anyone

Photo: New Car Networks

Doesn't everyone love to talk about the "social media" nowadays? The journalists loves it, the politicians loves it, your consumer psychology lecturer loves it, the snotty kids on the train certainly loves it. With the rise of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc, there are more ways than ever to put whatever you want about yourself online whenever you want. People have even started to define our era as the "Mum mum look what I've done era".

You can sit there in your hipster corner and try to convince yourself that you "only" use Facebook to stay in contact with friends (you know all 403 of them) or keep up with news through your Twitter account, but both you and I know it's not true (believe me the sooner you leave that corner the better).

We all use social media platforms to put things about ourselves (to what extent is another a story) out there for people to read, and then hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will acknowledge it or even compliment you. The journalists, politicians, lecturer and the snotty kids on the train however are now questioning our need to put every little detail about ourselves online - everything from what we ate for breakfast to what we think about the new Spiderman trailer (it was so-so). Why do we consciously or unconsciously cry out to the world to see us, to hear us? Most importantly, is the social media fuelling such ego-centric indulgence?

Perhaps, but why does it have to be a bad thing? Of course it would be terribly aggravating (to say at least) to be around people who constantly need to tell everyone what they're doing and thinking, especially if it's meaningless jibberjabber like "I bloomin' love Jaffa cakes". In a culture where narcissism is a big no-no, we've been taught that it's not polite to boast or to be conceited.
But unless you're an altruistic saint, it's only natural to want to tell people what makes you a good, cool or nice person and what your opinions are. Social media is a place for that.

Why is it so bad to have a place to vent all of our narcissistic needs? Why is it so bad to express oneself and hope that someone somewhere might feel the same? Aren't our opinions as valid as anyone else's? Aren't there enough of things we keep suppressed inside us already?

But still you may think there's no need for people to flog who they're dating and not dating or whether they care about Amy Winehouse's death or not, all of which just make them look like desperate attention-whores. Well, let them decide what they're going to put up and how they're going to be perceived according to it. When did you become the useless online info police, huh? No, I didn't think so.