everything louder than everything else

Logging into my facebook last night, I saw this ad on the homepage.  My god.  People are always talking about how narcissitic our generation is, and it's already such a tired old platitude that most of the time it's annoying to listen to people chuckle over.  But sometimes you find examples of this narcissism so blatant that it's hard not to laugh.

narcissism, commodified and sold to narcissists

So, I concede--to the older generation--that millennials are narcissistic.  However, we millenials are narcisstic for good reason.  Narcissism is not a gene, or a temperament.  It is a behavior.  Which is why i think it is important for people to realize that:

1. Narcissism is not a personality trait.  It is a market survival strategy
• In the 21st century labor market, people sell themselves, their skills and their ideas on the marketplace.  This requires marketing and advertising.  Where it gets complicated is when public and private begin to meld.  What looks like good advertising in public can definitely look like narcissism in private.
2. Baby boomers invented the technology that allowed this explosion of narcissism
• If you give your child a smartphone, a camera, an internet, and about a hundred different platforms for self-broadcasting, what do you expect to happen?
• The irony of posting this on a blog is not lost on me