1. opinion /
This article appeared in Contagious issue 37
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2. opinion / consumer behaviour /
Should brands be held accountable for helping to fuel our narcisstic tendencies?
CORPORATE
EMOTIONAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Illustration/PaulBlow/HandsomeFrank
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3. contagious 20 / 21
WILL
SANSOM
I was struck recently by an interview with fashion mogul
Tom Ford in British news magazine The Week, in which he
cited the ‘narcissism found on Instagram’ as a pet hate. At
first I thought it hypocritical for someone with eight differ-
ent fragrances named after him to condemn any strain of
egotism in his fellow man, before quickly realising that this
in itself could be an indicator of how serious things have
become. Put simply, if one of the most powerful people in
an industry built on self-expression thinks we’re becoming
too self-obsessed... well, you get the point.
A quick search on Instagram shows a staggering 150 mil-
lion photos bearing the hashtag #me, with roughly 3 million
new posed pictures being added every week. And yet, despite
the explosion of ‘selfie’ culture being well documented,
more column inches seem to have been dedicated to the
behaviour itself, rather than asking whether it is acceptable
in the first place.
Freudian psychoanalytic theory would argue that
narcissistic tendencies lie dormant within all of us and that
social media platforms simply amplify them, to a greater or
lesser degree. The question is what part do brands have, or
will they continue to play in this? Through the Contagious
Insider consultancy arm, we’ve discussed with clients the
concept of ‘enabling users to create social currency’ – ie,
nuggets of content that are deemed valuable enough for the
user to share on Facebook and the like. But of course the
most valuable content on these platforms is the stuff
that makes you look #smart, #sexy, #likeyouarereally-
goingplaces, etc. So basically, it’s fuel for our narcissism.
#instantpowerpointregret.
Is there a danger of a brand doing something just because
it can, without asking whether it is right? Not only can that
social currency make the person seem vain, but it can also
have a detrimental effect on his or her audience. How many
people do you know who have stopped visiting Facebook
as regularly simply because the constant exposure to all the
great things happening in other peoples’ lives just made them
feel worse about their own?
The University of Michigan recently ran a study over two
weeks, asking 82 people a variety of questions at random
intervals every day. These included, ‘How worried are you
right now?’ and ‘How much have you used Facebook since
the last time we asked?’ The study concluded that the more
participants used Facebook, the more their life satisfaction
levels declined over time.
Do I really need to know that you’ve just completed a
6.2km run and then decided to brag about it via the ‘share
to Facebook’ functionality on your tracking app? If I’ve just
completed a run myself then I may be happy to give you a
virtual high five, but if I am sitting on a busy commuter train at
the end of a long, stressful day, dropping bits of a lukewarm
Big Mac into my lap, then that update will probably just make
me feel miserable. Of course, if these exchanges happened in
person we’d be able to gauge whether some gentle bragging
was appropriate or not, but conducted remotely over social
networks, we lose all such sensitivity or empathy.
‘This really raises questions about how we define and
maintain friendships on digital platforms,’ explains Dr Kate
Sieck, anthropologist and director of research at omnichan-
nel agency Olson, Minneapolis. ‘If friendships are emotional
bonds born from shared experiences, then how do these shift
and alter as our shared experiences become more and more
remote? Going to the same high school hardly makes our
adult lives synchronous. And just because I like you at work
doesn’t mean you should see my personal life.’
‘If narcissism is an excessive love of self, then selfies
are not narcissistic. They are one side of a conversation we
have with our communities – with people who want to know
what we’re up to, and who want to share in that conversation.
Perhaps what we hear in complaints about narcissistic self-
ies are really complaints about the extent of our networks. If
you don’t want to participate in the conversation that a selfie
invites, then why are you friends with that person? What’s in
that friendship for you?’
The implications for marketing or social media brands
could be profound. Will they soon have to consider what
responsibility they have in enabling us to promote our vari-
ous emotional attributes and help us question whether or not
these are appropriate for the specific time, place or network?
So much has been written about the effect that social
media has had on the transparency of brands, that we’ve
almost forgotten how transparent it makes people. Perhaps
the next great challenge for marketers in social is in aligning
these two transparencies and figuring out how the value of
a brand can be directly mapped to what makes us good,
socially constructive people. It’s certainly another way to
interpret that sense of ‘purpose’ that so many marketers
seem to be chasing at present.
Oh, and next time you think about taking a selfie using
Instagram, remember, you’re upsetting Tom Ford.
Will Sansom is director of content and strategy,
Contagious Insider
Perhaps what we hear in complaints about narcissistic
selfies are really complaints about the extent of our
networks. If you don’t want to participate in the conversation
that a selfie invites, why are you friends with that person?
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