Are 2022 and 2023 the Years We Finally Overcame Narcissists
It’s been a good run for the narcissists.
Certain people have done exceptionally well over the past decade thanks to a combination of self-aggrandizement shamelessly and self-confident charm. They have become licensed-merchandise entrepreneurs, venture capital darlings, and licensed-merchandise mavens. Forbes cover models, social media superstars, Oprah Business-conference keynoters, confessors, new money plutocrats and even the president are all examples of confessions. Elon Musk, Sam Bankman-Fried, Ye (né Kanye West), Elizabeth Holmes, Meghan Markle, Donald Trump: All of them used attention as currency and ego as fuel, and were rewarded, for a time, with what they craved. We’re drawn to people who love themselves.
But somewhere between the fifth and sixth hour of “Harry and Meghan,” the new Netflix documentary series produced by the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex and filmed at their California mansion — which suggests that there is no one Love is more fulfilling than you might think. no one Social consciousness is increasing no one more aggrieved — my natural sympathy for the couple started turning to irritation, and it occurred to me that ego has its limits. And it struck me that the overreach that led to the Sussexes’ critically panned mega-series is the same impulse that turned Elon Musk into a terror on Twitter, that prompted Ye to up the ante of outrageous behavior until he crossed the line into blatant antisemitism, that sent Bankman-Fried from the top of the world to a Bahamian jail.
These twists of fate can be more dramatic or more complete than others. When we add up all the losses, it is possible that 2022 was the year that our love affair started to fail. Many of them experienced declines in fortunes, falls from grace, or newfound public suspicion. Many of them seemed to be too comfortable in public view. And if this is the moment when we started to crave boring public figures for a change — well, to a large degree, the egotists did it to themselves. Maybe they couldn’t help it.
“I think right now people are getting sick of it,” said John P. Harden, a political science professor at Ripon College, when I tested my theory of narcissism’s limits to him over the phone. I’d reached out because Harden studies narcissism in politics: For a 2021 paper in International Studies Quarterly, He reviewed the research of president historians and created a narcissism index that would be applicable to all U.S. presidents from the beginning of 2000. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. were near the bottom. Bush and Calvin Coolidge rounded out the bottom. Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson topped the list. Harden’s theory is that ego can drive history: In international conflicts, a narcissistic president is likely to fret about being disrespected, threaten opponents and act unilaterally, ignoring advisers or allies.
Harden said that while narcissism is a clinical diagnosis, it can also be defined as a personality trait by social scientists. It is a spectrum. All people have some level of self-love. This probably explains why we use Instagram and Facebook. But the people Harden calls “grandiose narcissists” — or, at one point in our conversation, “charismatic attention hogs” — stand apart. They believe they’re the absolute best at what they do. They will go to great extents to protect and defend themselves. They are determined to be different and they promote themselves vigorously.
That’s the story, in a nutshell, of Harry and Meghan, who at first seemed uncommonly savvy for the way they’ve managed their public lives: breaking free of British royal misery, then cashing in spectacularly on the drama. In 2020, they signed a development deal worth $100 million with Netflix. Their blockbuster Oprah interview was broadcast in 2021. reported $20 million advance for Harry’s tell-all memoir, Spare.
Their Netflix series has received high ratings and a flurry of media thinkpieces. Part of it is chilling: an up-close look at the British tabloid press, complete with heart-wrenching footage of Harry’s mother, Diana, hounded by paparazzi. However, the real complaints lie between glamour shots like footage of Meghan being fitted for ballgowns, and a large collection of flattering photos, videos, and videos taken during their royal exit. It appears they are prepping for a photogenic tellall. Even sympathetic critics have groused that there’s little new here, beyond the vanity. In The Guardian, Marina Hyde compared the couple to “a pair of ancient mariners with a TV contract, condemned to tell their tale to everyone they meet.”
If the Sussexes’ addiction to the public eye is benign — they seem tiresome, but genuinely well-intentioned — a narcissist’s constant quest for eyeballs and acclaim can get a lot more dangerous. Ye is the one who does it all. need for attention has evolved from outbursts at awards shows to wearing “White Lives Matter” T-shirts and making antisemitic comments on podcasts, social media platforms and TV shows — losing, in the process, a lucrative Adidas contract and what was left of the public’s goodwill.
Other cautionary tales can be found in Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman Fried, who created myths about themselves to win over investors. Young geniuses dressed in signature clothing (she the black turtleneck, he the cargo shorts) are smarter than experts and skeptics. Holmes’ blood-testing company Theranos was set to revolutionize medicine. Bankman-Fried with his cryptocurrency exchange was going upend finance, philanthropy, and even finance itself.
The more adulation The more they fell, the more dramatic. Bankman-Fried seems to have been operating a Ponzi scheme, which was garden-variety. He was indicted this month for fraud and money laundering. Holmes hid the fact that her technology didn’t work from investors and consumers; this year, she was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison. She was a mother of two. sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila pondered why she’d done it: “Was there a loss of moral compass here? Is it hubris? Was it intoxication with the fame?”
Musk is likely to be asked similar questions by investors. recently dethroned The richest man in the entire world. Musk is known for being volatile, but his leadership of SpaceX/Tesla gave him an aura that was hyper-competent. Musk then took over Twitter, firing employees and picking fights as his brand, and businesses, suffered. Twitter is bleeding users. Tesla stock down December saw a staggering 30 percent increase. Musk is now a popular punching bag, having gone from an iconoclastic role-model to a popular punching bag. “It’s amazing,” the British broadcaster Shaun Keaveny tweeted at him after a recent eruption, “how you manage to be, on the one hand, one of the most powerful people in the world, and on the other, a massively needy attention-seeking tool.”
But Harden says the need to constantly up the ante, seeking more attention even if it’s self-destructive, is part of a narcissist’s nature. “These people have this hyperactivity, this constant need to do something … filtered through this inflated self-view,” he says. They get the spotlight, they lose it, and then they try again.
Perhaps that is why it works. The Trump NFTs were a great way to end a not-so-great 2015. It’s been a rough stretch, between the January 6 committee hearings, New York Attorney General’s investigation into his company and the Justice Department’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s midterm elections were the worst for him. His chosen candidates nearly all failed and he lost his claim of being an enduring political kingmaker.
Trump’s allies of convenience have finally reason to ignore him, even if he is no longer invincible. And for Trump, there’s nothing worse than being ignored. The Washington Post Recently reported that he’s so miserable in Florida, without a press corps to summon at will, that an aide asks his friends to call him with affirmations. On Truth Social in December, he promoted a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” that turned out to be a line of Trump-branded NFTs. They look like an artist’s rendering of his ego: Trump riding a blue elephant, surrounded by flying gold bars, wearing a superhero getup with lasers coming out of his eyes.
Even his allies mocked him. On the other side, 45,000 tokens sold out in less than a day — whether out of devotion or curiosity or the sense that they’d be bizarre collector’s items someday. It’s hard to count any narcissist out; it’s not in their nature to give up the stage, even in exile, sometimes from jail. They are creative when they seek attention.
It’s the public that has to decide whether to bite. Harden knows that there are cycles in politics. After the public has had enough of a narcissistic leader, they choose new leaders with more restraint and modesty. Nixon’s resignation gave way to Gerald Ford, then pathologically humble Jimmy Carter. It was the same pattern that appeared in the midterm elections. Trump-endorsed candidates and election denialists — some of them Trump-like media hogs — were largely passed over in favor of less flashy moderates and split-ticket voting.
The story of whether people will stop buying the Sussex book or worship the next business genius is for 2023. There are some signs that our patience is decreasing. Last week, before Christmas, Musk asked Twitter users whether he should step down as CEO, and 57.5 percent voted “yes.” Somebody wants quiet time, at least until the next appealing narcissist comes along.