Facebook and socially agressive narcissim

March 31, 2012 9:04 AM

Researchers have established a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a "socially disruptive" narcissist....

Vignoles said the correlational nature of the latest study meant it was difficult to be certain whether individual differences in narcissism led to certain patterns of Facebook behaviour, whether patterns of Facebook behaviour led to individual differences in narcissism, or a bit of both.

posted by latkes (79 comments total)

OMG!
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:08 AM on March 31, 2012

This is my surprised face.
posted by hippybear at 9:11 AM on March 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

Shocking, I know.

One thing I'm curious about after reading this is this "grandiose exhibitionism" label. Curious on the specifics of this because it seems that although this is attention seeking type behavior, I'm not sure it's behavior that is harmful or "non-adaptive". Would be curious to hear from someone who knows a bit more about this Narcissistic Personality Inventory because this is obviously very culture-bound stuff and definitions of what kinds of behaviors are desirable are of course very subjective.
posted by latkes at 9:14 AM on March 31, 2012

researchers have also established a link between using diaspora and knowing what the fuck diaspora is
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 9:16 AM on March 31, 2012 [16 favorites]

So basically: narcissists are narcissistic... on Facebook.
posted by Davenhill at 9:16 AM on March 31, 2012 [4 favorites]

The article title, which I couldn't find in that link, is "Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior". It's on Science Direct, but you might be able to google up ungated verions.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 9:17 AM on March 31, 2012

This confirms my long-standing theory that duh.
posted by Legomancer at 9:17 AM on March 31, 2012 [64 favorites]

the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others

???
posted by 3.2.3 at 9:18 AM on March 31, 2012 [9 favorites]

"The way that children are being educated is focussing more and more on the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others. This method of teaching has been imported from the US and is 'all about me'.
-- Carol Craig, social scientist, chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well-being

Is that dry British humor humour? I don't think that ("self esteem" == "how you are seen in the eyes of others"), unless that's a new social science definition I haven't heard of...
posted by Salvor Hardin at 9:20 AM on March 31, 2012 [5 favorites]

Here's the abstract:

A survey (N = 292) was conducted that measured self-promoting Facebook behaviors (e.g. posting status updates and photos of oneself, updating profile information) and several anti-social behaviors (e.g. seeking social support more than one provides it, getting angry when people do not comment on one’s status updates, retaliating against negative comments). The grandiose exhibitionism subscale of the narcissistic personality inventory was hypothesized to predict the self-promoting behaviors. The entitlement/exploitativeness subscale was hypothesized to predict the anti-social behaviors. Results were largely consistent with the hypothesis for the self-promoting behaviors but mixed concerning the anti-social behaviors. Trait self-esteem was also related in the opposite manner as the Narcissism scales to some Facebook behaviors.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:21 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nuts.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 9:21 AM on March 31, 2012

welcome to the future
you're controlled by your computer
and i know when you will be leaving your house
and i also know the reason why you're out
posted by kayalovesme at 9:22 AM on March 31, 2012

I don't think that ("self esteem" == "how you are seen in the eyes of others")

This is what quite a few people base their self esteem on. Take away the adulation from others and you've completely deflated them.
posted by Anima Mundi at 9:29 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

People who score highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their newsfeeds more regularly. -- I update my facebook feed constantly, but I've friended no one, so I bet it evens out.
posted by crunchland at 9:29 AM on March 31, 2012

I can only hope this brings us one step closer to pathologizing the habitual posting of sewing-sampler type aphorisms to your wall. Especially the ones that attribute everything wise ever said to either Gandhi or Einstein. Because I'm no psychologist, but there's got to be something wrong with that.
posted by gompa at 9:30 AM on March 31, 2012 [8 favorites]

This is what quite a few people base their self esteem on. Take away the adulation from others and you've completely deflated them.

Well, pretty much by definition, that's not self-esteem.
posted by hippybear at 9:32 AM on March 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

Do note that they managed to put the "correlational nature" bit in the third to last paragraph.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 9:39 AM on March 31, 2012

So basically: narcissists are narcissistic... on Facebook.

With the added notion that the nature of Facebook encourages, accelerates, inspires more narcissism.

This is what quite a few people base their self esteem on. Take away the adulation from others and you've completely deflated them.

Well, pretty much by definition, that's not self-esteem.

I almost made a similar comment but then I thought about it a bit more and realized that yeah, there are people who A. rate how they feel about themselves very highly and B. can only feel good about themselves when they get affirmation from others.

If anything, the dissonance of the original statement ...

"The way that children are being educated is focussing more and more on the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others.

tells me that the whole notion of self-esteem (and the degree that we culturally put so much emphasis on it) is dissonant from the get-go, and not something to put a huge amount of emphasis on. For me it goes back to the simple idea that it's far more relevant to be judged by your actions than your beliefs. Of course, it's better not to be judged at all, but good luck with that.
posted by philip-random at 9:43 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

So basically: narcissists are narcissistic... on Facebook.

Odd, because according to what I see and read, everything is completely different if it happens on a computer.
posted by bongo_x at 9:45 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is sort of a side discussion, but I actually think the concept of self-esteem as totally distinct from how we are perceived by others is kind of bullshit. I have pretty strong self-confidence, but when I went through a bad breakup followed by a bad experience in school where an important instructor thought I was not competent, I felt really shitty about myself and that didn't go away altogether for years. That time has permanently changed how I view myself. We are such social creatures, acting as though we can have a self-concept totally independent from external input seems dishonest.

The main reason I quit facebook was because I found the dynamic there to worsen my sense of self and to increase my attention-seeking behaviors. You're in an environment where you're putting yourself out there for evaluation: to a degree that there is an actual "like" button where people can explicitly rate each thing you say or contribute. I found this very difficult and it brought out feelings and behaviors in me that I ultimately found destructive. And to me that was specifically about the medium I was dealing with because although I have those tendencies in other forums, they do not come out as much or feel as bad.
posted by latkes at 9:51 AM on March 31, 2012 [23 favorites]

Next, a study of MetaFilter users and their relationship with favorites....
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:53 AM on March 31, 2012 [12 favorites]

All right, so where's the cutoff? This many friends good, this many friends bad?

Yeah, I know that's not what this is about...
posted by limeonaire at 9:53 AM on March 31, 2012

My day isn't complete without checking to see, and, hopefully, seeing another favorite on the Blue...

Ummmm, that's a hint...
posted by Samizdata at 9:55 AM on March 31, 2012 [13 favorites]

I don't know about "socially aggressive narcissism" and so forth, but the sheer number of Facebook friends that some people have has long fascinated me. There are people who I am Facebook friends with who have approximately one Facebook friend per week of their life. That's just utterly incomprehensible to me.
posted by Flunkie at 10:03 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

With the added notion that the nature of Facebook encourages, accelerates, inspires more narcissism.

The same way that comment boxes encourage, accelerate and inspire trollish behavior? Or, for that matter, helpful behavior?

My day isn't complete without checking to see, and, hopefully, seeing another favorite on the Blue...

MeFi blue...or FACEBOOK BLUE?
posted by rhizome at 10:11 AM on March 31, 2012

I don't know about "socially aggressive narcissism" and so forth, but the sheer number of Facebook friends that some people have has long fascinated me.

I've got just under 400. I've friended a sizable percentage of the people at the last three studios I've worked at, plus most of the Community Managers' Group. And then there are the karate people... Many of these people I don't know except on Facebook - I may or may not have ever met them face-to-face. But because we're in the same circles, one way or another, and the norm for those circles is for everyone to friend everyone, I have a lot of "friends." Most of them are not in a group with much if any access, though.

(Don't even get me started on G+. I've posted on it maybe three times and have 384 people following me one way or another.)
posted by restless_nomad at 10:13 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

Researchers at Western Illinois University studied the Facebook habits of 294 students, aged between 18 and 65, and measured two "socially disruptive" elements of narcissism – grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE).

GE includes ''self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies" and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention. They often say shocking things and inappropriately self-disclose because they cannot stand to be ignored or waste a chance of self-promotion.

The EE aspect includes "a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others".

The research revealed that the higher someone scored on aspects of GE, the greater the number of friends they had on Facebook, with some amassing more than 800.

I have way fewer than that! Whew.

Also: The latest study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, also found that narcissists responded more aggressively to derogatory comments made about them on the social networking site's public walls and changed their profile pictures more often.

If you have "friends" who say shitty things about you in public and your response is to be all aggro back - rather than just unfriending them - then yeah, you might want to think about that, because that's definitely An Issue.
posted by rtha at 10:16 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm not even on Facebook - so that must mean I'm well-adjusted as all get-out! ...Right?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:18 AM on March 31, 2012 [5 favorites]

I'm friends with my mother and a bunch of stuffed birds.

What does this say about me?
posted by R. Schlock at 10:18 AM on March 31, 2012 [8 favorites]

With the added notion that the nature of Facebook encourages, accelerates, inspires more narcissism.

The same way that comment boxes encourage, accelerate and inspire trollish behavior? Or, for that matter, helpful behavior?

My guess is that Marshal McLuhan would say, "Yes." Welcome to medium being message (and massage), neither an intrinsically good or bad thing -- but definitely a thing.
posted by philip-random at 10:19 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

So what about signs of narcissism on metafilter?
posted by joost de vries at 10:20 AM on March 31, 2012

the way that children are being educated is focussing more and more on the importance of self esteem – on how you are seen in the eyes of others.

According to William James' Principles of Psychology,

self-esteem = [a person's] (accomplishments / pretensions).

This seems a much better definition. This other thing is what my Intro to Psycho professor called an approbation lust complex. Now I am thinking that was his own jargon as a google search on "approbation lust complex" returns zero hits.

According to Dunbar the maximum number of social relations you can track is at most 150. A friend on facebook is a lexicographical stretch if not an outright misrepresentation of fact if you have got over a hundred and fifty of them.
posted by bukvich at 10:20 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

While I agree that there is a correlation between large numbers of friends and socially aggressive narcissism, I have another couple factors to add.

I think that the younger you are, the more likely you are to have insanely large numbers of friends: 800+, 1000+, etc. This is because of when Facebook became popular. Most of my friends starting using Facebook in the summer between 8th grade and freshman year of high school. First, we added all our friends/acquaintances at our middle school. Then, we arrived at high school and added all our new friends/acquaintances at high school. Now, we're all off at college and have added all our new friends/acquaintances at college, too.

Long story short: If you attend a large high school and/or a large college, you're probably going to have a pretty high friend count.

Plus, there is social stigma associated with denying a friend request. Among people of my generation, I would say that accepting a friend request is not an affirmation of friendship so much as an affirmation that "I know who you are." Whereas denying a friend request is often taken very literally — an actual denial of friendship. Whether or not it should be, it's considered rude, for lack of a better way to put it. Most people my age will accept friend requests from people they're not very interested in staying in contact with because it avoids creating drama.

So that's how young people end up with 800+ friends.
posted by hypotheticole at 10:22 AM on March 31, 2012 [25 favorites]

> So what about signs of narcissism on metafilter?

That would be (# comments favorited by others) / (# comments).

Or maybe it's the inverse of that. Depends on how you define narcissism.
posted by bukvich at 10:24 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have terrible self-esteem, but apparently all I need to do to improve that is friend a bunch of people I don't know and change my profile picture once a week. See how much money I saved on therapy!?
posted by briank at 10:31 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

Considering how self absorbed I am, I've a shockingly low number of Facebook friends then. That can't be right.
posted by zoo at 11:16 AM on March 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

Hang on a sec, I need to dump a bunch of FB friends so I will be perceived as less narcissistic. Not that I care.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 11:17 AM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is very interesting. I hope more research is being done on this.
posted by herbstomp at 11:27 AM on March 31, 2012

Appreciate the explanations in this thread as to how people end up with a seemingly impossible numbers of Facebook "friends". Whenever I see folks with, say, 500+ friends, it always seems odd to me to the degree that if I were to sit down to list every person I know in the entire world I don't know that I could come up with a number that high.

I have a friend (real life, in addition to Facebook) who has over 1000+ Facebook friends and his method seems to be to friend anybody he's ever had any contact with, ever (anyone he's ever played an online game with, for example). So I suppose I could see how you could boost your number, but don't really understand the incentive. I've got enough Facebook friends who tell me every day about the various ways Obama is destroying the country or what precocious thing their kid said that day, why I would need to hear about it from some guy I played Tetris Battle with once I don't get.
posted by The Gooch at 11:28 AM on March 31, 2012

Wouldn't a true narcissists only friend themselves.
posted by Senator at 11:28 AM on March 31, 2012 [4 favorites]

Wouldn't a true narcissists only friend themselves.

Yes, and "like" all of their own posts and pictures...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 11:33 AM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

anyone he's ever played an online game with, for example

It's worth noting that many online games basically require you to have lots of friends playing, and this leads people to friend randoms just to have another member in their Mafia, or whatever. I don't like this dynamic much, and it seems like the API has been changed to allow in-game contacts that aren't actually "friends" (Farmville added this a couple months ago, and there are newer games that were designed like this) but for a while, adding 500 mafia members was the only way to be competitive.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:36 AM on March 31, 2012

adding 500 mafia members was the only way to be competitive.

A lot of people thought that, but it wasn't really true (at least not back when I played Mafia Wars). I did perfectly fine with my mafia of, what, a dozen actual friends who also played. In fact I did far better than any of them, including those who purposely "friended" a billion random people just to boost their mob.
posted by Flunkie at 11:43 AM on March 31, 2012

Well so much for my delusions of narcissism, since I have maybe 40 friends and am generally only ever on FB when I want to alert my geeky friends to some new bit of SCIENCE!!! that's been published. Which makes it a pain when science journalists, don't tell me the name of the study they're writing about so I can actually read it without having to do major database searching. Bah.

One thing I'm curious about after reading this is this "grandiose exhibitionism" label. Curious on the specifics of this because it seems that although this is attention seeking type behavior, I'm not sure it's behavior that is harmful or "non-adaptive".

It's considered maladaptive because, in narcissistic personality disorder situations, the person is using exhibitionism to draw attention to themselves and using that attention to compensate for their poor and fragile self-esteem. It's self-deluding in a way: "They're paying attention to me! That must mean I'm likeable/important/sexy/smart/whatever."

Here's the Narcissistic Personality Inventory itself if anybody's interested in seeing what that looks like (granted, the Wikipedia link tells me it's the 1988 version so it's probably been revised since then). Here's a version published in a 2009 article in USA today. Putting these out there with the ethics-required caveat emptor that I'm not familiar with the NPI so I can't tell you how legit these really are.
posted by clavier at 11:47 AM on March 31, 2012

Did the research say anything about how 278 of your 324 friends are irritated that your news feed is exclusively pictures of and status updates about your child now that you gave birth?
posted by ninjew at 12:23 PM on March 31, 2012 [5 favorites]

This inspired my paper: "Google Plus: Social Networking for Introverts."
posted by drezdn at 12:26 PM on March 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

Until last week, I had close to 2,000 Facebook friends. I had been trying to use Facebook to network professionally, and so had friended a lot of people in my various professions.

But Facebook is terrible for networking, so I went through and weeded them all out. And then, I thought, as long as I'm weeding ... so I unfriended everybody I had friended just because we knew each other in high school, and people I was friends with years ago but have no contact with now, and anybody I don't regularly interact with on Facebook. And I put a note to that effect on Facebook, and told them to feel free to friend me again, if they feel like they were unfriended by mistake (when you delete that many people, sometimes you accidentally delete people you hasn't meant to.)

Now I have 200 Facebook friends. As for the rest, well, if I ever need to, I can track them down again easily, thanks to Facebook. Linkedin works better for networking anyway -- it really tracks how your loose affiliations connect with each other. I have a facebook fan page for my various creative activities, and that's open to anybody. But I want my regular Facebook page to be an exclusive club.

And I sort of thing there's something a bit narcissistic about treating your Facebook page like Studio 54. But I'm okay with that.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:26 PM on March 31, 2012 [2 favorites]

We're talking about a site called Facebook whose main purpose is to allow users a page dedicated to posting pictures of themselves, posting menial details about their daily lives, and convincing everyone that they are interesting and desirable. Narcissistic? No way!

I consider myself narcissistic at times and yet the mental image of a page featuring pictures of myself & friends having fun along with a laundry list of what I did Saturday afternoon makes me feel unclean.
posted by WhitenoisE at 12:26 PM on March 31, 2012

So I'm an iconoclastic solipsist? No wait...
posted by Splunge at 12:29 PM on March 31, 2012

I'm spousing all of you.
posted by zippy at 12:59 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

I am 37 and it's starting to annoy me how every study on media use seems to end with the conclusion that young people suck.
posted by Omnomnom at 1:20 PM on March 31, 2012 [9 favorites]

I have 1160 Facebook friends. I am also a college senior who attended two different high schools and is graduating from a large state university. In short, I have a lot of casual friendships and acquaintances. Some people seem to use Facebook as a way to only keep up with their intermediate friends and family. I don't really use it that way...I use it to stay in touch with the casual friends and acquanintances from the rest of my life (yes, all (or at least a significant portion) 1160 of them). I like it when people post things about there boring, every day life. Melissa just had a baby? Great, I haven't talked to her in about a year, I should probably catch up with her! Steve is running a Marathon in July? Awesome, I love to run, maybe I should ask him about his training. I also like it when people post links to things that are important and/or awesome to them. I've turned a lot of acquaintances into deeper friendships over common interests that only revealed themselves on Facebook. For example, I was able to recently become better friends with someone I first met in high school after commenting on a few links she posted on Facebook. I don't even remember what the initial posts were about, but since then I've gone rock climbing with her, gone out to dinner with her, and gone to a concert with her. Facebook is also great because I have contacts in other cities. No, not professional contacts, but people who I know and like who are interesting and I would trust for advice. For instance, in August I'm moving to a new city and I have a few Facebook friends who live in that city now. Thanks to the power of the internet, I'm able to message them in order to get there opinions on where the most affordable housing is, what the best local credit union is to bank with, and other useful things. I could certainly get this information in other ways (askmetafilter, for one!) but this is one way that I think Facebook is pretty useful.

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say with all this except I love Facebook. There are many different ways to use it and yes, it can sometimes be a huge time suck and yes, it can sometimes be incredibly destructive, and yes, I probably update my status too much. Still, I think it's a lot more useful than people are willing to admit. But maybe that's just me.
posted by lucy.jakobs at 1:54 PM on March 31, 2012 [10 favorites]

Meh. The connection is tenuous, and it gives Facebook a very narrow definition of use.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:15 PM on March 31, 2012 [1 favorite]

We all know people like this, and are probably on their friends list.
posted by delmoi at 2:16 PM on March 31, 2012

What does it say about me that I don't have a Facebook account at all?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:00 PM on March 31, 2012

The same thing it says about me, Chocolate Pickle.
posted by hippybear at 4:07 PM on March 31, 2012

Of course, it's better not to be judged at all, but good luck with that.

I thought the key was to have "good judgment", not "no judgment at all".
(and ya, I'm talking about the judger and you are talking about the judged.. I don't see how that makes any difference to the larger idea though)
posted by Chuckles at 4:10 PM on March 31, 2012

So since I have no friends either on Facebook or in RL does this mean I'm just totally fucking ace? I like to think it does.
posted by Decani at 5:09 PM on March 31, 2012

What does it say about me that I don't have a Facebook account at all?
The same thing it says about me, Chocolate Pickle.

You are both "social" enough - you are here.

But yes....what if you do not have a Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, et la page?

(and what if your Ning and Google + pages don't have your picture)
posted by rough ashlar at 7:03 PM on March 31, 2012

um. this seems about right.

I don't know how to say this politically--- but yeah-- if you have over say, 200 friends, what is it about? Probably you.

I'm a senior database engineer for microsoft. I've been chilling with people since 14.4k. Um, I have 100 friends. Actuallly, I just quit FB because it is clearly narcissitic and delusional. I can pick up the phone and talk to hiring managers at facebook, VMWare, and Intel. The only people on Facebook are delusional kids. This seems obvious to me.

Yeah, I have Chris C's email. Yeah, I can get you 10M is venture cap with a phone call. I have no desire to document this or have some sort of social map represent this. I think most people are catching on

Facebook is for your semi-desperate nephew's late-adolescent-identitiy-ascertaion. Would You like to by some knives? Otherwise? Hmmmm
posted by mrdaneri at 7:40 PM on March 31, 2012

yeah, yeah MTX I can't take back that bad spelling. Neither can I take back my mixed funds investment in tech--namely facebook-- which I am sure, will have us all broke.
posted by mrdaneri at 8:02 PM on March 31, 2012

The only people on Facebook are delusional kids. This seems obvious to me.

Oh, spare me. Facebook didn't fill any needs for you, and you didn't find it useful or fun. That's cool. But a statement like that makes it impossible to take what you say seriously.
posted by rtha at 9:22 PM on March 31, 2012 [3 favorites]

I guess the existence of facebook is confirmation bias?
posted by roboton666 at 10:07 PM on March 31, 2012

Who here remembers that websote that was something like noding.org? That seemed like the pre-cursor to all things social network-y
posted by roboton666 at 10:13 PM on March 31, 2012

What does it say about me that I don't have a Facebook account at all?

The same thing it says about me, Chocolate Pickle.

And me! And Decani! We're old! I don't think I'd ever be a Facebook narcissist... I'm way too lazy, for one thing – all that tagging and updating and liking? Waay too much effort. But if I were a young whippersnapper today, I'm sure I'd be right on there with my eleventy billion friends. I think there are far too many variables to make any blanket statements about what Facebook friends or usage really "means" about the psyche.
posted by taz at 10:14 PM on March 31, 2012

You can totally do facebook the lazy way (I sure do). But there's no reason to if you got no reason to, so there's that!
posted by rtha at 10:37 PM on March 31, 2012

What does it say about me that I don't have a Facebook account at all?

The same thing it says about me, Chocolate Pickle.

And me! And Decani! We're old! I don't think I'd ever be a Facebook narcissist... I'm way too lazy, for one thing

I was old up until about four months ago, too. And lazy. But here's the thing. Facebook's actually made aspects of my life way less complicated. All the people I like but it's kind of a pain (mainly due to transport) to actually see them on a regular basis, so the occasional, I'm-pissed-about-this, or here's-my-baby-throwing-up post suffices, keeps us more or less in each other's loops.

It ain't perfect human connection, but then what is, short of making love?
posted by philip-random at 10:49 PM on March 31, 2012

I'm just thrilled to find Grandiose Exhibitionism is a Thing. I'll hav4e tell my father, The Proselytising Late-Blooming Nudist Boomer about this.
posted by honey-barbara at 1:50 AM on April 1, 2012

Oh, spare me. Facebook didn't fill any needs for you, and you didn't find it useful or fun. That's cool. But a statement like that makes it impossible to take what you say seriously.

In addition to the blatant humble bragging in that comment as well.

My more extroverted friends have around a thousand friends each. It's because they're genuinely friendly and very involved in our community.
People like them aren't that rare -- I think someone would have to be very bitter to just dismiss them as narcissists instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt.
posted by Toothless Willy at 5:29 AM on April 1, 2012

mrdaneri: "Yeah, I have Chris C's email. Yeah, I can get you 10M is venture cap with a phone call. I have no desire to document this"

And yet here we are.
posted by vanar sena at 8:10 AM on April 1, 2012

I inexplicably lost a few distant facebook friends this friday morning past. I mean, they were there on Thursday, actively posting links to songs and interesting news stories, and 24 hours later, they'd disabled their accounts.

Last night, I finally got around to watching "Person of Interest" on Tivo, and there's a line in the dialog that basically implies that the US government spook industry had been wrestling with trying to figure out how to create a database of everyone in the country, showing their personal interconnectedness, their friends, contacts, family, etc. but that it would have been impossible to create with any accuracy. So they created Facebook, and people created it for them, without making a peep about invasions of privacy. And the bonus was, they turned a great profit, too.

I can only imagine that some of my friends watched that episode, and freaked a little bit.
posted by crunchland at 8:17 AM on April 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah there's a pretty long-standing conspiracy theory that Facebook is at least partially CIA-funded, and there's circumstantial evidence of it all over the place.
posted by vanar sena at 8:23 AM on April 1, 2012

there's a line in the dialog that basically implies that the US government spook industry had been wrestling with trying to figure out how to create a database of everyone in the country, showing their personal interconnectedness, their friends, contacts, family, etc. but that it would have been impossible to create with any accuracy. So they created Facebook, and people created it for them, without making a peep about invasions of privacy.

And the thing is, even removing the tinfoil hat paranoia about the spooks getting it created... there it is, and it's being used by the spooks as if they had come up with the idea.
posted by hippybear at 8:26 AM on April 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm just thrilled to find Grandiose Exhibitionism is a Thing. I'll hav4e tell my father, The Proselytising Late-Blooming Nudist Boomer about this.
posted by honey-barbara at 1:50 AM on April 1

I took the Narcissist personality inventory thing as me, and got a 2. I took it as a guy I know (based solely on things he has said over the years, not on me trying to read his mind) and "he" got a 29. And he doesn't have many facebook friends at all. But I bet he wishes he does. But he is that type of narcissist who doesn't really seek attention, he just stews because the world doesn't recognize his brilliance.
posted by gjc at 10:02 AM on April 1, 2012

Especially the ones that attribute everything wise ever said to either Gandhi or Einstein.

When, in fact, it was Oscar Wilde, after all.
posted by y2karl at 12:11 PM on April 1, 2012

Thank god this has been identified. I'm pretty sure there's an SSRI scheduled to go generic in desperate need of a new mental disease to address. Facebook Narcissism is perfect.
posted by vitabellosi at 9:14 AM on April 2, 2012

I'm friends with my mother and a bunch of stuffed birds.

Your mom's a stuffed bird.
posted by maryr at 10:37 AM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Just to reassure you all I acknowledge your existances, I just want to say thanks for all the favorites.
posted by Samizdata at 1:05 AM on April 3, 2012

By the way, "Timeline" sucks so much dogshit it makes me want to cry and commit violence. not necessarily in that order.
posted by Decani at 3:44 PM on April 3, 2012