It is a testomony of our time that top-of-the-line motion pictures of 2025, HBO’s “The Mountainhead,” has a “Dr. Strangelove” degree of absurdity in its plotting, and but feels virtually understated in its satire of the ridiculousness of our period. (Quick spoiler warning.) It follows 4 tech bros over a day through which the complete world actually falls into chaos and civil warfare, as a result of launch of disinformation-sowing social media instruments, with the implication that thousands and thousands of persons are killed in 24 hours. However our billionaire protagonists — performed by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef — are solely fascinated about leveraging the state of affairs to assemble extra money, energy, and standing for themselves. All through, the characters routinely name-drop philosophers and authors they’ve clearly by no means learn whereas indulging weird fantasies of dwelling eternally and ruling the universe as benevolent dictators. 

Nonetheless, “The Mountainhead” cannot compete with actuality. In any case, an allegedly ketamine-addled Elon Musk callously lower life-saving assist for a whole lot of hundreds of individuals by destroying USAID, all whereas persevering with to assert he is humanity’s savior as a result of he’ll sometime colonize Mars. (He is not going to.) The film works solely as a result of it is ruthless in its portrayal of the ego delusion that fuels a lot of Silicon Valley’s C-suites, because the tech trade enters its snake oil section. Author and director Jesse Armstrong by no means indulges the urge to humanize his narcissistic most important characters by giving them secret delicate sides or limits on their self-regard. At one level, the Musk stand-in character even asks if different persons are actual, and concludes they don’t seem to be. 

They are going to proceed to again Trump for a similar motive that audiences line as much as see Tom Hiddleston play Loki within the motion pictures: The unreality of social media permits them to really feel that actual life is only a enjoyable, if sadistic, fantasy. 

All over the place you look on-line today, persons are speaking about narcissism. TikTok is replete with recommendation, most of it questionable, on easy methods to inform if somebody is a narcissist. The subreddit /raisedbynarcissists has over 1 million members. Social media normally is a spot the place accusations of the dysfunction fly wildly, and infrequently unfairly. However it wasn’t at all times like this. A decade in the past, narcissism was a little-discussed character dysfunction, particularly in comparison with extra stigmatized diagnoses, like sociopathy or borderline character dysfunction. I might say many individuals weren’t even conscious that it’s a psychological situation. Even nonetheless to today, the phrase “narcissist” will get misused to explain people who find themselves merely snobbish or egotistical. Nonetheless, there’s worth in all this discourse. It is raised consciousness that narcissism is an actual psychological dysfunction, and helped lots of people make sense of abuse or different relationship points they’ve handled previously. 

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The instant and apparent impetus for this pattern is Donald Trump dwelling the narcissist’s dream of being an inescapable presence for the previous decade. I’m not a psychologist and can’t diagnose anybody. Nonetheless, there isn’t any denying that, no matter what guidelines of narcissistic traits you pull from no matter medical web site, Trump matches each one to a comical diploma. (That is additionally the case with sociopathy, which regularly comes together with narcissism.) As an illustration, narcissists insist they want the largest or better of all the pieces, and Trump insists he deserves a free non-public jet from Qatar as a result of the one offered by the U.S. authorities is not as “spectacular.” 

Useful guidelines in graphic type. my.clevelandclinic.org/well being/disea…

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— Amanda Marcotte (@amandamarcotte.bsky.social) June 6, 2025 at 1:20 PM

Trump routinely claims to be excellent. “I don’t actually imagine I’ve made any errors,” Trump declared in April. Throughout his first marketing campaign, he claimed he was a Christian, however he has by no means requested for God’s forgiveness. When later requested why not, he clarified that as a result of he believes he would not make errors. He is known as himself a king and a messiah. He regularly brags about his seems to be in a means that’s totally out of contact with actuality, calling his physique “excellent.” His supporters snigger at this, as if he is joking, however in the event you take note of his tone when he says this stuff, it is clear he’s not kidding. 

However it is not simply Trump. The omnipresence of narcissists on the levers of energy in our nation is the direct reason for a lot of our present political distress. Musk’s messianic self-regard just isn’t distinctive to him, however appears to be a top quality binding the tech leaders who’ve taken a tough flip to the appropriate lately, equivalent to Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Liberals are proper to be frightened about this phenomenon as a result of narcissists aren’t simply annoying, they’re harmful, particularly once they have energy and cash. 

And but there may be little doubt that these dudes have sucked thousands and thousands of Individuals into validating their delusion self-regard. Trump’s loyal supporters communicate of him as if he have been a messiah, typically actually claiming God despatched him to avoid wasting them. Musk has a military of blind loyalists on-line, principally younger males who purchase into the parable that he is a super-genius, not seeing that his solely actual talent is being a B.S. artist who takes credit score for different individuals’s work. These males’s energy will depend on persuading thousands and thousands to imagine the narcissist’s view of himself. It is a trick utilized by practically each cult chief. 

YouTube essayist Lindsay Ellis launched an intriguing video in 2021 about why narcissists are sometimes such standard characters in motion pictures and TV exhibits, with examples like Loki within the Marvel motion pictures or Lucille Bluth in “Arrested Growth.” Narcissists are enjoyable to observe in fiction as a result of they act out in ways in which most of us would often love to do, if we weren’t hobbled by considerations like empathy for others or going through accountability for our actions. We get a vicarious thrill from watching the narcissist run roughshod over individuals’s emotions or exploit others with out disgrace. However, as she notes, these characters are virtually at all times villains. If they’ve a face flip in the direction of the great, they get rewritten as individuals who have empathy — not narcissists in any respect, simply individuals with excessive however non-disordered ranges of self-centeredness. 

However the enjoyable that film audiences have with narcissistic villains goes a great distance in the direction of explaining the maintain that males like Musk and Trump have over their followers. That they are evil is why their supporters love them. Their followers benefit from the fantasy of having the ability to deal with individuals with shameless cruelty, with out worry of reprisal. When Musk hops on Twitter to defame individuals with wild accusations, his fanboys thrill. When Trump mocks disabled individuals or victims of violence at his rallies, his audiences lap it up. Extraordinary people cannot deal with individuals like these two, for worry of being fired, sued or shunned. However they get a style of the sadistic fantasy by rooting for the villains. 

Within the face of rising fascism, an web maxim about the appropriate’s incoherent ideology, referred to as Wilhoit’s Legislation, has develop into a cliché: “There have to be in-groups whom the legislation protects however doesn’t bind, alongside out-groups whom the legislation binds however doesn’t shield.” It is the politicized model of narcissism, the place you are at all times the boss and in addition the sufferer, and everybody else is however an viewers or an enemy. 

Social media, sadly, makes the state of affairs worse. It places a gloss of leisure on habits that isn’t fictional. When Musk destroys life-saving packages or Trump deports harmless individuals to place them in international torture prisons, it is mediated for his or her followers by means of their screens and on-line jokes and memes. Lots of them may not discover it so enjoyable to observe an harmless individual be tortured in the event that they needed to see it with their very own eyes. However watching Trump and Musk do it from afar makes it really feel like a TV present. We see this within the growing variety of tales about Trump voters freaking out when relations or associates get deported. It is enjoyable for them once they see it on Twitter, however in actual life, it is tougher to swallow. But they may proceed to again Trump for a similar motive that audiences line as much as see Tom Hiddleston play Loki within the motion pictures: The unreality of social media permits them to really feel that actual life is only a enjoyable, if sadistic, fantasy. 

As for the remainder of us, I feel the fascination with narcissists is not nearly surviving an period the place we’re terrorized by them; it is usually about our egos. The worry of being narcissistic understandably haunts so many people in an period of social media, the place the power to get consideration is handled because the measure of an individual’s value. What number of followers do you could have? What number of views are you able to earn money for our tech overlords by growing the engagement on the free content material you offered on their platform? It creates a really actual fear that we’re turning into so self-obsessed we’re shedding contact with our humanity. 

On one hand, individuals should not fear that they may develop scientific narcissism, which has causes apart from “I spend an excessive amount of time on Instagram.” Then again, one would not must be a narcissist to harm individuals along with your ego. Former president Joe Biden is not a narcissist — he clearly has empathy for different individuals — however he does have an ego so giant it veers into self-delusion. And that unwillingness to see his personal weaknesses precipitated immeasurable hurt, by convincing him to remain far too lengthy in a marketing campaign he couldn’t win. 

Politics in all probability pushed Biden too far within the ego route. For the remainder of us, there’s a actual hazard from the incentives in the direction of egotism on social media. It’s making us extra callous and fewer considerate to others. It permits us to rationalize dishonest and mendacity, which is why extraordinary individuals who haven’t got psychological problems all too typically gleefully share disinformation. Social media was meant to attach individuals to one another, however it’s encouraging individuals to show inward in ways in which hurt them and others. It is in all probability why voting for Trump received simpler for some people after they spent means an excessive amount of time on-line. So yeah, it is good to hate on narcissism. Perhaps it should persuade extra of us to attempt a little bit tougher to be much less self-obsessed.