Perception is reality?

I Tivo'ed a Dr. Phil episode called "Attention Seekers" recently and finally watched it last night. I was wowed by these people's levels of self-absorption and knew immediately that I had to post about it! There were a mom and dad who are stunt doubles and actually set their kids on fire in a stunt in order to gain notoriety and hopefully bag their own reality show. They just want the fame. (We don't believe in imposing a misguided need for perfection, vanity, or fame on kids, just for the record!)

Then there were two women interviewed on the show who want nothing more than to be famous and will do anything to get there. One of them has life-size posters of herself hanging all over her home that you see from the minute you walk in! She got one line on a TV drama and threw herself a party with 500 guests, told everyone she was in the whole episode, and led everyone to believe she was a major role, only for them to be very confused when her only line had come and gone. The other one reminded me of all those American Idol auditioners who truly think their singing voice is amazing when they actually can't even carry a tune (and she didn't sing well), and then they just get this annoying attitude when someone tells them they're not cut out for it and start insulting everyone. She maintains that she has something of substance to offer, that she doesn't just want to be famous for fame's sake, yet she never really states what that is...

Finally, they featured a girl who admits she's addicted to Facebook because of the attention she receives and updates her status to reflect every single little mundane thing she does throughout the day. She wakes up, she posts that she's awake. She dries her hair, she posts that she's drying her hair. She posts what she eats. She posts when she's getting in the shower. She's convinced that people actually care about all these things. Come on, who really wants to read all that stuff?! I'd be willing to bet that most of her 699 "friends" have her updates hidden.

You can read more about the episode here: http://drphil.com/shows/show/1398/

We think Dr. Phil has some pretty good and balanced advice in the "uncensored" video at the bottom of the show page...and since we definitely fall under the "fun" category, I think the closet narcissist is safe. ;)


Then this morning on the radio, I heard about this guy named Arthur Kade. Wow. This guy is unreal. He refers to himself in third person. He also refers to himself as "a rising celeb" or "The Brand." HAHA! He has his own scale of what he thinks makes a woman beautiful and says that anyone who scores below a 6 is "not worth listing or discussing. Not even friend or date worthy." The guy isn't even handsome, but he sure thinks he is! Perusing through his site, I can't help but wonder if the whole thing's just a ruse, just something to put his name in lights because it's extreme and shocking.

Oh, all these silly people...all we closet narcissists know that we actually DO have something to offer and that our amazingness is based on actual, rather than perceived, amazingness. ;) We also know that if we get shot down by someone who obviously can't recognize amazingness when they see it, we don't have a need to cry and beg for them to change their minds, nor do we need to get defensive and insulting to them. This is because we know we have something special without having to prove it or make excuses for it. I believe the people who can't take the heat don't really have the level of self-love they portray, or else they'd just suck it up and move on to the next challenge, knowing that there's really no such thing as failure, only life experience or simply being pushed in a new direction that suits you better.

So the question we pose to you is: what is that fine line between believing in yourself/believing you deserve to have recognition for something and just being an ass?

Also, what kinds of things do YOU do where you're already acting as if you're a celeb? They say you gotta fake it to make it sometimes, right?!