Realizing The Bean Soup Was Not About Me
Narcissism and Death of the Collective Purpose
At night I find myself scrolling and learning too many internet terms that I’d be better off without. Yet some of these fleeting trends give me some insight into where we’re at in society today. One of these was The Bean Soup Theory.
It all started like this: a woman posted a recipe online for bean soup. The comments were filled with people saying things like, “what if I don’t like beans?” and “I can’t cook beans,” and “can I substitute the beans because I don’t have them,” etc. Why couldn’t people simply refrain from commenting on the video? If they didn’t like beans, they could ignore the recipe. But a shocking amount of people couldn’t help themselves.
The conversation started ballooning into one about narcissism, which is already a hot topic these days. I personally think the term is thrown around too often. But the way that we all obsess and post on social media has certainly changed the entire world, and I think we’re all a lot more self obsessed than we used to me. Individualism has led to Main Character Syndrome, and I worry that we might lose sight of how we each fit into a larger part of society. Do we not feel more fulfilled when we expand our capacity of understanding for each other?
Perhaps this came about because of the popular “For You” and “Explore” options on social media. Even TikTok has users endlessly swiping and receiving videos with the creators telling them, “if you found this video, you were meant to hear this message…” perpetuating the idea that each piece of content is meant for us or is something for us to respond to. With this messaging, it makes sense that eventually the social media users would become almost intolerant to content they don’t personally connect to.
Here’s the thing that scares me these days: many people are posting about the narcissists in their lives, but narcissism is something that should be diagnosed. Therapy speak has also popularized armchair psychologists who are eager to see selfish traits in their family members or peers. But narcissism seems to exist in a much more subtle way these days, an entity that permeates most environments that I find myself in. While I feel like I’m not one of the people perpetuating this, I still scroll online and find myself weighing in on posts that are made to complain, and those posts are socially rewarded with attention and sometimes monetization. Here I was thinking that I was above the mudslinging, and then I find myself telling my husband about every little thing that people are fighting about online. I realized that what is missing for me is my ability to contextualize myself in a larger system.
I’m trying not to be too hard on all of us, because we’ve been placed in this mass social experiment that we call social media where everyone is herded via algorithms, self-branding, and hash-tagging to reach a larger audience. TikTok culture gave us short video content for the tiniest attention spans which gave way to everyone thinking they could become popular online. The therapy speak of “my boundaries” and “speaking my truth” and being on a “healing journey” can be helpful to the individual, but focus on the self almost always seems to draw them away from the rest of the world, of which they are a communal counterpart. At times, I want to ask people to describe how they really feel, even if it’s messy and doesn’t come out perfectly.
I worry for all of us, as there is a global epidemic of anxiety, dissatisfaction, and loneliness. Everyone wants to be the main character, and they want their life to feel like a movie. I have felt like this many times myself, but I’ve never felt more alive and satisfied when I wasn’t so focused on myself.
There have been times when I’ve been shocked to feel a lack of empathy for people due to what I’m seeing online. Thinking back, I was fueled by my own bias, which made me incredibly emotional. The internet and social media accounts give us the impression that we have all the right answers, that we can be the masters of our own destiny, and we can help define and find ourselves along the way. The downside is that we become lone wolves. Everything that happens in life becomes about our character arc. I have gotten so wrapped up in an online world and what I want my persona to be that I’ve lost sight of the rest of my tribe around me, which completes the ensemble of my life.
If you are asking whether a digital fantasy-life is really a problem, then think about this sort of behaviour being transplanted from social media into the real world. Imagine how it would look, and how you would feel if you witnessed it, especially in one you know well.
Phil Reed D.Phil., Psychology Today
I guess what I’m trying to say is, while I wouldn’t comment on the bean soup recipe, I have certainly taken things personally online that were not truly about me. That’s okay! It’s been freeing to identify what can be applied to my life, and what I need to let go of. We all have our strengths, and when managed correctly, social media can be a way that we enrich each other. At the same time, my goal moving forward is to practice empathizing with people who are different than me. We actually need each other much more than we need to feel represented everywhere we look.
There have been so many times in my life where I’ve succumbed to the allure of individualism that social media indulges. I want to one day write about all the positives that can come from finding online communities and being inspired by what we see in content creators. And I’m certainly not bringing a new perspective to the table that social media is bad for us (in fact I’ve written about it before) but I believe that we hear this perspective so much because it can truly be detrimental to mental health. My takeaway from this subject is to remember that romanticizing your life can be really good, and is different than “starring” in your life that you see as a movie/tv show/video game. There is something incredibly nourishing about opening up your perspective to see the wider world around you and realize that we work best when we’re asking questions and learning without defensiveness and judgement.
The other thing I don’t wish to do is minimize exceptionalism. There are people who are wildly talented and should be encouraged to show the world what they can do. There are those who will seek success in doing so, and I feel that they should. But in a world where there is allure to becoming a sensation online, I find myself wondering if it would satisfy my itch to have lots of adoration in that space. Certainly I would like to be as extraordinary in my life as I can be. But I also want to focus on being dependable to the people around me, and most importantly, good to them.