What is almost equally tragic is when a certain man on the Southwest flight live streamed the unfolding terror to his Facebook account. In the photo below you can see the man at the front of the picture shooting the video. If you look to the upper right you will notice someone else doing the same thing, or maybe he or she is taking a selfie. I wonder how many other passengers were posting to their twitter or FB accounts?
This is, to me, is the apotheosis of narcissism. No one on that flight knew if they were going to survive and yet some people had to make a production out of it. And for what? More "likes", more attention? This is more than shameful self-promotion -- this is a mentally deranged people.
I think I agree with you, or at least I like the phrase "apotheosis of narcissism".
ReplyDeleteWhat I wonder though is if, knowing that this is a significant event and one about which they have no way to intercede and help, if perhaps they thought they were performing a service in documenting the events for future investigation. Probably not, but there may possibly have been other less narcissistic motivations.
This is not, however, to take away from your basic point that there is a sense in which social media reduces human beings to "sets of interactions" and thus creates a type of voyeurism that dehumanizes both the observed as well as the observer.