With the oversaturated amount of true crime content, pop psychology, and the epidemic of “armchair diagnosing,” it’s likely that you’ve seen an influx of content centering around narcissism flooding your social feeds. Maybe you’ve scrolled through tweets about a “narcissistic ex,” encountered easily-digestible lists about the fourteen types of narcissism, or just heard an offhand remark deeming a rude stranger as a narcissist. This type – and volume – of content has shifted the term into a buzzword that has become part of our cultural lexicon, an all-encompassing umbrella term to describe selfish, rude, or unpleasant behavior. The word “narcissist” has become so liberally used that it has lost its original meaning, both trivializing and vilifying the clinical term.
What is narcissism?
Narcissism is a descriptor for a personality trait, not an actual diagnosis. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD, is a clinical diagnosis defined by the DSM-5 as a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy, with interpersonal entitlement, exploitativeness, arrogance, and envy.” More often than not, the adjective of narcissistic and the clinical diagnosis of NPD are used interchangeably on social media, blending into terminology that basically describes the worst person you know.
“Types” of narcissism (according to social media)
It’s important to note that the DSM-5 does not categorize NPD into different types, but there’s so much content on the internet that does so. Here are some examples of the many “types of narcissism” that you may have heard about online:
- Overt narcissism describes someone with a big ego and who chases power and admiration, with little regard to others
- Covert narcissists are the inverse of overt narcissism, and are said to be insecure, envious, and have a difficult time receiving criticism
- Someone who is categorized as an antagonistic narcissist lacks the charisma often associated with narcissism; instead, they are easily deemed a bad person as they lie, cheat, and gaslight others
- Communal narcissists like to donate to charities and help others, but are motivated by the need to be recognized as a good person
Honorable mentions (less commonly used, but still are defined terms on the internet):
- If someone is super sensitive to perceived slights in tone, body language, or facial expressions, they are a hypervigilant narcissist; they fear rejection and abandonment, and take offense to everything
- Sexual narcissists put their own sexual needs first and feel entitled to sex
- Somatic narcissists are very similar to the namesake of narcissism, Narcissus, in the sense that they are obsessed with their physical appearance
The trouble with all of these micro labels of narcissism isn’t just the fact that they have no clinical basis; they are also very arbitrary and oversimplified ways to classify human beings. The human condition has many complexities. Distilling people down to these acute descriptors erases that humanity, because slapping a label on someone’s bad behavior takes away any additional circumstances or reasons. Indeed, pop psychology labels may be making us less empathetic.
The reality is that behavior is caused by a myriad of factors, and it’s unhelpful to automatically categorize someone with a bad behavior or personality as a narcissist. Maybe the overt narcissist who kept speaking over you at a party was just nervous. Your lying, cheating ex is an asshole, sure, but maybe not an antagonistic narcissist. A hypervigilant narcissist could actually just be someone with social anxiety. And according to the orgasm gap, particularly prevalent in heterosexual relationships, most straight men could be classified as sexual narcissists.
TikTok narcissism
Even without the never-ending categories of narcissism, the urge to pathologize narcissism is prevalent everywhere. Don’t believe us? Take a quick second to search “narcissist” on YouTube and TikTok and look at the amount of views garnered in the results. The popularity of this type of content has opened a gateway for any negative behavior to be diagnosable.
Have you ever wondered what the texting patterns of a narcissist are? Well, watch out – your mom’s one-word “okay” response to your text is a red flag:
Your coworker with awful B.O. might be a narcissist, because apparently you can identify a narcissist by how they smell:
Perhaps the term “narcissist” is being used so loosely by design. After all, there is a usefulness in pathologizing a narcissist into an evil, identifiable character. Relying on simple labels to categorize someone as “good” or “bad” allows us to consider the pain or bad ideas that cause people to manipulate, lie, or gaslight.
Narcissistic abuse
If you pay attention, you’ll notice that most content about narcissism is not directed towards people with NPD themselves; instead, the intended audience is usually the partners, family members, coworkers, or friends of someone that has been mistreating them.
This kind of content can be helpful for victims of abuse, especially if it includes red flags to notice or advice on escaping/healing from an abusive relationship. If you find this kind of content helpful, that’s great. Your experience is valid – all survivors are valid, and have the right to utilize whatever tools that help them.
It can be, however, a double-edged sword. Sensationalism, especially through a pop psychology lens, can be harmful to victims (and everyone being armchair diagnosed as a narcissist). This can direct the focus to categorizing behavior, rather than healing. It’s also important to note that abuse is abuse, and experiencing it isn’t made more valid by slapping the label of “narcissist” on the abuser. No matter what, regardless of any disorder or category, we should shift our focus more on how to handle the actions of the abuser.
Takeaways
The colloquial use of “narcissism”– and even the language that defines NPD — can be harmful for people diagnosed with NPD. In conversations surrounding mental health, narcissism is commonly associated with a lack of reform. The way we speak about narcissism labels NPD as an “evil person disease,” causing those with the diagnosis to feel immense amounts of shame. In addition, describing any negative trait (such as lying, cheating, manipulating) as narcissistic behavior oversimplifies people. The notion of a narcissistic actor who is too broken to act selflessly, which is very popular in online spaces, prohibits us from seeing the people in our lives as people.
Casting people who exhibit bad behaviors into certain archetypes of evilness flattens all possibility for reform. Some people exhibit behaviors classified as narcissistic on bad days, others exhibit similar traits alongside many positive ones. This isn’t to excuse bad behavior; instead, it’s to understand it and all its dimensions, rather than slapping on an arbitrary and non-clinical diagnosis. The narcissist is a convenient idea, yes, but it also erases the complexities of the human condition.
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