Sasha and Malia Obama

I’ve often felt that the key to managing narcissism (without being a dick about it) is to be aware that you’re afflicted with the disorder, and be conscious of when you should keep those self-centered tendencies in check (a first date, or when someone is confiding in you about their emotional problems, their cat dying, etc.) and knowing when to release them like the Kraken. The image presented by the narcissist is almost always a house of cards, built with a keen eye for a magician’s illusion. So? Nearly all forms of advertising are tainted with bullshit to one degree or another. Energy bracelets, organic food, bottled water, the Nestea plunge, movie DVD covers that tacitly promise ample nudity when there turns out to be none, those “€œI love disco and I hear it’s making a comeback”€ infomercials from the early “€™90s… all full of shit. Yet people are buying in droves.

I’m not sure it’s good for the country to have a narcissistic president who’s painfully unaware of his condition, but until people stop buying into the facade and offering up that emotional Bitcoin as a reward … that’s what we”€™re going to get. Obama has frequently been referred to as “€œthe selfie president,”€ and he was reelected with relative ease. Young millennial lefties decry corporate greed while dreaming of starting their own Silicon Valley empires, or at the very least sharing in the excesses of existing ones (ever see the inside of Facebook’s headquarters? No expense appears to have been spared). Narcissism is an underrated element in today’s world, at least when it comes to achieving what’s currently viewed as success. Like telemarketing and junk mail, it sucks, but we can”€™t seem to get enough of it. The marketplace of humanity eats it up like birdy num num.