So, this happened: Twitter personality Bameron Nicole Smith (@bameronkaii) was filmed taking a swig of Listerine, spitting it back into the bottle, putting it back on the shelf, then prancing away. (1) Has the world gone completely mad? And, Listerine? Ew!
This on the heels of another recent viral video, in which someone was filmed licking a tub of Blue Bell ice cream and putting it back in the grocery store freezer. (2) What is with this constant need for attention? The type of attention doesn’t seem to matter at all… as long as all eyes are on them.
Just Kidding… see?
Compromising public health, or just giving the appearance of doing so, gets at a deeper level of fear and distrust among the public. Perhaps later the prankster coughs up some receipts to “prove” that it was all staged, but the damage is already done. (3) Situations like these, playing over and over again, erode our trust over time. These people are taking the old cliché ‘There’s no such thing as bad publicity’ to a frightening new level.
And that’s not the only trust issue we’ve got these days. On social media, we can present any persona we want to the world, and on some level, we all know that. It’s easy to find articles about the fake lives we present as real, and the emotional consequences of such an atmosphere. (4)
“Did they really just lick that tub of ice cream and put it back?! “Is that… newly-divorced Susan having the time of her life on Mykonos?” Sometimes we can hardly believe our eyes, and that’s probably good – because our eyes deceive us. Well, something deceives us anyway. Maybe it’s that popular influencer, maybe it’s even us. And probably Susan.
Social media works to undermine whatever trust we have in each other as well as what we see with our own eyes. But it also plays on our need and love for attention like few things do. So we’re at once drawn to it and repelled by it, like the proverbial car wreck.
Trust me… I’m lovely. Honest!
It is unfortunate that people need to stoop to such ridiculous actions in order to feel seen and heard, but it’s quite common too. Did this level of narcissism already exist in our population? Is it made more common and visible, because we can amplify our own message? Or is narcissism on the rise because of the attention we can get?
Put another way: Does our narcissism feed our social media addiction, or does our social media addiction feed our narcissism? It’s a classic chicken and egg conundrum.
When continually bombarded with incredulous things that hit a deeper level of fear within us, it begins to affect our perception of everything around us. Hopefully, the dopamine hits are worth it for these pranksters, because they are coming at the expense of public trust – one lick and swish at a time. That’s a bummer for everyone, the same way a ton of ingredients and alcohol in your mouthwash is. This is just one more reason to cruise right past the Listerine aisle!
