Is That Narcissus Staring Back At Me?

About a year ago, possibly a bit more, a dear friend shared the Instagram profile of a woman she greatly admired, who she felt was posting incredibly inspiring content. I had come across this person on Instagram before, and something about her always made me feel a little ill at ease, but this was the first time I’d actually clicked on her page, and what I found made me feel deeply uncomfortable. Row after row of the woman's face staring back at me, row after row after row, each image the same, a picture of her face, always looking slightly condescending but also kinda attractive. 

I think what creeped me out the most was that there was a resemblance between us both physically and ideologically, not a particularly strong one, but enough that I could see a version of my younger self in her, and it hit me like the wind leaving my body…. What made me feel so icky about her Instagram was the blatant narcissism and the kind of arrogance that is not a hard-won, beautiful, battle-worn confidence born from life experience, but instead the kind of vim and vitriol entirely underpinned by ego and dripping with loud superiority and of course I realise that was purely what I saw when I looked at her profile and her tens of thousands of followers would vehemenently disagree, but what I saw made me question if it was here on this woman’s page, so glaringly obvious, then was I this too?

In that moment the spell broke, the glamour dissolved and all I could see was the distorted effigy staring back at me, the ripple of distortion over time turned into a wave clearing my delusions and I have to be honest, that woman, in that moment, staring back at me from all those rows and rows of images was the one who broke the spell… I’m certainly grateful to her for that, because it made me ask the question: 

Was I just another narcissist banging my little drum for attention? Trying to find a way to be louder and take up more space. Feeding like a dementor on every scrap of attention and weaving that into a false projected identity with no real substance underneath, always ravenous for more, never sated, never full. 

Honestly, I felt sick to my stomach. 

So I’ve spent the last year or so renegotiating my own relationship with social media, or Instagram in particular, as it’s the only platform I actually ever used. The more I untangled, the more I could see what, how and where I was being sucked back in and for a while, I convinced myself that it wasn’t just a narcissistic echo chamber, that I was actually connecting with people, that I was “making a difference”, that I was part of some kind of community…. That I was being of service in some way. Or that I needed to be there for my work, to connect with clients and share what I offer, after all, it’s the only place to market oneself, especially if the work you do is hella niche. 

Now, I’m not so sure - that page of row after row of the same woman’s face kept popping into my head, something inside me kept asking…what makes you so different?

So I started stepping away, writing more, creating more, working more directly with the actual people who were and are my clients, not some imaginary “client base” of people who had interacted with my Instagram for years but never actually booked a session or even took up any of my free offerings. People who only really “exist” on Instagram and have no intention of ever engaging with me directly in any other way. 

Over the last few months, my question became “what internal itch is that space actually scratching?” Is it that we are longing to be heard or to share in some kind of utopian idea of community, or is it just that we’ve become so convinced of our own importance and that we have something to say that warrants hearing… Honestly, I don’t know, and I still keep asking myself that question... and yes, I get the irony of even writing this article.

Yeah, when I look at my Insta, there’s some good stuff in there, but honestly, most of it makes me cringe right now, and I wonder if I’m finally just seeing Narcissus staring back at me, and I really don’t like what I see. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that we’ve all collectively turned into full-blown narcissists because of social media, but let’s be honest, when you take a step back, it is a little weird, right? If you were to walk around spouting every thought or theory, or sharing what you had for lunch and how clever your latest projects are with random strangers (or even your friends and family unsolicited) you’d either be a little loopy or you’re a 4 year old and it’s cute when 4 year olds do it… But not so much when we 40-year-olds do it, then just maybe, it becomes a bit weird…right? So yes, it might not be narcissistic as such, but it’s not exactly functional behaviour for an adult either, is it? 

What are we actually looking for? 

This is what I’m trying to unpack for myself – why do we feel this need to engage with platforms like Instagram? What value do they add, what itch are they scratching? Because let’s face it, it really is just an exercise of talking to oneself and hoping someone, somewhere, engages with what you’ve blurted out into the metaverse. 

So is it some distorted idea or sense of community that we are looking for? 

Maybe it is... if I’m honest, I have met and I don’t mean in the metaverse, I mean in real life, people through Instagram who have become part of my world in a beautiful and meaningful way, people I most likely wouldn’t have connected with if it weren’t for that platform. For years, I used it like a strange public journal of sorts, sharing, musing, creating, and just playing, but I can see looking back now how, at some point, it truly felt like something was shapeshifting before my eyes. Akin to the experience of having a lover turn on you or a dear friend you thought you knew so well reveal that they weren’t the person you thought them to be at all. At some point, my relationship with that platform began to dissolve, and although the woman mentioned above was the catalyst that broke the spell for me, there was a path to being ready to have the spell broken in the first place, and I am curious what that was and whether anyone else has or is having a similar experience. 

Did I change, grow, mature, and so no longer vibed with the space? 

Or

Did the space actually shapeshift so much that there’s no real benefit in engaging with it anymore? 

Or 

Was I just ready for that woman with her rows and rows of selfies and condescending content to finally break the spell? 

I mean, I get that the influencer corner of social media has and will always be an ever-expanding exercise in narcissism, ravenously canibalising itself…. But was our quiet niche feminist, spiritual corner actually the exact same thing, only much more cleverly veiled? Have we all been lying to ourselves all these years?

I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that I have thought a lot about connection, community, and meaning-making since actively avoiding Instagram and similar platforms, and I've wondered what exactly we are all looking for in those spaces and why we keep going back.

Is it community?

I have sat deeply over the last few months, having stepped away from Instagram and the perhaps false sense of connection and community it provided, and observed within myself what, where and how community is experienced.

For me, at least, I actively experience being deeply held, seen and supported by the community I serve. The more deeply I’ve anchored into being of service to those who are called to the medicine I help unlock within themselves, the more deeply I am held by the community I serve – it is not performative, there are no big gatherings, and I don’t have a “tribe” or “coven” where we include some and exclude others. No conformity is required, and there is no linear, definable structure to this deep sense of community, the only key element is the simple act of service and reciprocity between individuals. 

The point is, community doesn’t always look the way we think it should - not everyone needs a big old circle jerk of conformity and agreement to feel seen and held, some of us need an amorphous, organic, woven structure that spans across many states and lines of being and requires space, quiet and non-conformity. 

I've realised that when I've felt a lack of community, all I needed to do was ask myself, “Where am I being of service, and who am I serving?” Because that’s where I am in community, when I'm being of service, my community is there in service to me. Maybe try asking that of yourself if you're feeling that you lack community and are not quite sure where to find it. As the illusion fell away, Instagram was not the answer to that question.

Now let's face it my community may not look like much from the outside - it is however an experience that is deeply felt, a sense of connection and shared respect in service to one another, not a performance, not a popularity contest, certainly not something I could plaster all over social media for others to witness or envy, but a sense of true connection, of holding and being held, of growing and deepening our medicine together. 

For this, I am deeply grateful, because to me, anyway, that is what true community means and being able to see and acknowledge that has been an important step on my own path.

I've continued, however, to sit with this concept of what we are seeking in social media spaces, and to vacillate, is it community, what the fuck is community even…And as I keep sitting with it, I’ve been led back down the rabbit hole, and the things that ick’ed me have clarified. 

Firstly, yes, it was Narcissus staring back at me, and I did get sucked into those murky mirrored waters, and like all of us, I need to keep an eye on that, because it really is not who I want to be.

Secondly I think maybe I was looking for community but that space like so many others in our current consensus reality conflates conformity and performance with community and rewards those that shout the loudest and fuck me I most certainly am not seeking community in a space where people are rewarded for shouting loudly and incessantly and where we only hold up the mirror to deflect from ourselves never to actually reflect what we’re feeding and being fed on, I value my quiet way too much for that. 

I am not saying that I have stopped engaging with social media entierly - I have deleted instagram and threads off my phone (I’d never really gotten into tiktoc or twitter) and only have substack at the moment, but I delete that at lease once a week as well, or anytime I feel it sucking me in or taking more than I’m willing to give. I will do the utterly ironic thing of sharing this article on Instagram because that’s where this whole rabbit hole began, and I have drastically renegotiated my relationship and entanglement with that platform which, as I mentioned at the beginning of this winding thought thread, was thanks to the woman who gave me the ick’s and broke the spell. 

For now, it's back to the bog I go, back to the quiet, fertile darkness, my always and forever happy place. 

If you feel like you might want to engage gently and spaciously, you can always find me here. I would absolutely love your thoughts and experiences on the musings in this article, as I truly believe that none of us is immune to the impact of social media and performative community. 

With love from your neighbourhood bog witch

Isa