Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Selfies outside the Sydney hostage café: we’ve all got narcissistic personality disorder now

Conservatives always say the world is going to the dogs, and we’re usually wrong. But how else do you respond to the news that people are taking selfies outside the hostage situation in Sydney? ‘OMG I’m literally right outside a terrorist attack!’ ‘OMG, that’s terrible. Your boobs look amazing though’

Spare us, Lord. We all like to tell people where we were when something terrible occurred – and if we happen to have been thrillingly close to the horror then all the better. I remember after the 7/7 attacks, we Londoners competed as to who came nearest to being blown up.

It’s narcissism, obviously, this urge to shove ourselves into any real drama. Social media exacerbates it and turns into a kind of mass madness.
With each terror attack now, we learn that people have been LOLing about it live on the internet. We’re all journalists now, yes, and it seems we’ve all got narcissistic personality disorder, too.

Oh well, if it really is end times, at least Generation Selfie will have plenty to say before we all go together: ‘Just got trampled on by four men on horses. #sorude #apocalypse’

Freddy Gray
Written by
Freddy Gray
Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator

This article originally appeared in the UK edition

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