Document Type
Introduction
Abstract
[First paragraph]
Online, it is all about me. From “GPOYs” (gratuitous pictures of yourself) to the curious acts of self-as-brand promotionalism seemingly enabled by online social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, etc., the mundane trivia of a completely documented digital life (“I just had a muffin...”) coupled with commercializing social interaction through status-enhancement corporate referencing (“...at Starbucks”), the myth of the instant “everyday” celebrity who seems to rise and fall in the rapid cycle of the online attention economy, the leveraging of the non-operationalized concept of “social capital,” the treatment of other subjects as manipulable digital objects in a sort-and-sift network, the conspicuous self-production of exhibiting affluence and class through the posting of vacation photos, and the value attributed to individuals on the purely numerical basis of “likes,” friends, followers, and comments on posts, we are dealing with a digital form of narcissistic behaviour. Aided in part by the customization options that “personalize” the experience and make the user a central node in their social interactive digital space, we might subject the data-flood of selfies and self-promotional utterances to keener analysis through several lenses such as political economy, psychoanalysis, and subdomains of identity construction (if not “production”). This small dossier aims to both open up discussion in this area as well as showcase two significant essays that each take a particular aspect of a much broader social-digital phenomenon. It would not be too premature to set digital narcissism(s) in the constellatory framework of neoliberalism-informationism (to invoke Robert Neubauer’s term) that shores up the values of free market fundamentalism, extreme responsibiization of subjects that adopt risk, entrepreneurialism, the dissolution of collectivist ideals in favour of arch-individualism, and the assumed markers of class in the form of “digitability”: flexibility, mobility, and choice (however illusorily rendered).
Repository Citation
Faucher, Kane. "Introduction: From Digital Narcissism to Triumph of the Id." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 13, no. 3, 2013, pp. 1–23. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol13/iss3/1