Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Jabberwocky of the Day : Narcissism

Consider this post at Age of Autism - Brian Deer: Portrait of a Narcissist
... Even worse, there is likely no better example of one man’s online shrine to himself than briandeer.com – a cesspool of self-adulation. Nothing quite sums this up better than a particular webpage that reads “Brian’s pictures” at the bottom of the homepage. You’d think it would be the many different photos of news events from his journalistic exploits, but a click of the mouse shows that it is in fact – literally – all him.
Brian Deer has switched the page labeled "Brian's Pictures" to point somewhere else, but this is what the original page looked like as of Jan 12, 2008.  As AoA pointed out, "Brian's Pictures" is filled not with pictures his work or other pictures he as taken, but rather with pictures of of himself.

Thirty six of them to be exact.

I don't know about you, but assuming that anyone (other than your mother) would want to look at 36 pictures of you is a bit much.  I think it would be safe to say that, at the very least, Brian Deer likes his own picture just a little too much.

But Brian Deer has many faults, such as not respecting the confidentiality of medial records and blaming disabilities on the parents, and narcissism isn't going to make that list worse.  So I filed this AoA post under the "fluff" category and forgot about it.

That is, until I ran across this over at the "Countering..." blog -
Deer placing pictures of himself on a page called Brian Deer's pictures doesn't fit the definition of narcissism. I do begin to see the problem, though. The folks over at AoA must not have access to a dictionary or a good grammar book, either.
Hmmm.

Narcissism (noun) - inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love;vanity.

So if putting 36 pictures of yourself on a semi-professional website under the link "Brian's Pictures" isn't vanity or an inordinate fascination with yourself, I have to wonder what would be.  It seems like a pretty open and shut case to me.

People want to look my 36 pictures of me =  inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love;vanity.

But the real irony here comes from the rest of the KWibbler's post when she takes the time to explain what AoA should be covering instead of posting this fluff.  I don't know what it funnier, the narcissism of presuming to tell another site what they should consider important what you consider important or the irony in complaining about someone else not spending their time properly while in the middle of wasting your own time talking about the presumably non-important subject.

I think the the KWibbler should take her own advice from the prior day -
Everyone needs drama-free days. Everyone has the right to have a day off from the incessant internet autism wars. And every now and then, perhaps folks ought to check themselves to make sure they aren't part of the problem.
Don't feed the fluff monster and, what ever you do, don't feed the KWibbler.

2 comments:

  1. It's ok when she does it, because she is "science and evidence based," even though she ignores any evidence that contradicts her paradigm.

    ReplyDelete