Narcissus Online: The Echo-Chamber of Endless Reflection
Words: Mahika Dhar
Make it stand out
I have never looked at my face more than during the peak months of the pandemic. University classes were online, and during every Zoom meeting half of my attention would be on the tiny box in the lower right corner. As the months passed, I found that the version of myself staring back at me was twisted and strange — I could feel that the behaviour of the real self versus the mimicry of the online self was different, but I could not see it — and then I spiralled.
According to an article published in the NIH (America's National Institutes of Health), mirror-gazing, staring at your reflection for a sustained period in low lighting, "produces the apparition of strange faces". These hallucinations may involve seeing monsters, deceased bodies, melting skin, and relatives.
For a long time, this was believed to be a myth, but recent research shows that it occurs with most people under the right conditions (dark room, dim lamp or candle). So then, what happens when we stare at our faces in the online space, and how does the online entity become its own haunting distortion?
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With several social media platforms to keep track of, all of which demand some self-investment, we are staring at our reflection more than ever. Crucially, unlike before, we are now entirely capable of refining, editing, and categorising it at will. This cultural moment has resulted in a new aspect of Caravaggio's Narcissus, and my anecdote will prove it: Every few months, my friend returns to town, and while sitting on her sofa — knees up, huddled — we play our favourite game. It involves going through one another's Instagram profiles and trying to understand how we present ourselves to strangers.
At its centre, it's a game of voyeurism with the subject as the self. We ask each other to imagine the world these girls (us) live in, from their likes to their behaviour. The act of scrolling through your feed isn't just for the sake of vanity. Rather, it's to understand exactly who we are projecting ourselves to be, and how we can do it better. In other words, we are no longer in love with our reflection; we are only the reflection. So then, when we step away from the screen, we cannot look at ourselves without seeing the online persona attached to it — like a parasite or pesky ghost, thinking that the scene would be much prettier with a filter obscuring your pores.
As the Internet has aged, the online avatar is now categorisable and purchasable. Cottagecore, Goblincore, Russian Classic Coquette Core. Your identity is now, at its core, a walking signal of an aesthetic, built for mass consumption at the low price of stuffing variety into a narrow path to make the algorithm's job easier. But the origins of aesthetics' and cores were tender — it was a way for people to build a like-minded community — almost like a nostalgic reclamation of the early-internet forums that fostered genuine and lasting interactions. And for a while, having such a clear identity was fun! We were all revelling in the joy of it, play-acting like children. But while imaginary friends and I parted, the online persona stayed with me, tsk-ing at actions that differed from the way my online self would behave.
“With several social media platforms to keep track of, all of which demand some self-investment, we are staring at our reflection more than ever. Crucially, unlike before, we are now entirely capable of refining, editing, and categorising it at will.”
To walk barefoot in the grass and bake fresh cinnamon rolls evokes a life of simple tasks and nostalgia, of the freedom of being far from the online world to reconnect with nature. In other words, it's cottagecore. Yet soon after cottagecore started to gain mainstream popularity, a flood of articles listing all the different brands to shop in order to nail the aesthetic began to pop up. It became shallower, and with the language or "core-ing" came an exclusive stereotype rich with material lore to be purchased and showcased.
This was troubling because not only was the act of unnecessary purchases the antithesis of cottagecore, but the content around how to "become" cottagecore overtook the original ideas. This development, coupled with the obsession with making your grid look perfect, resulted in the death of a community and the rise of an aesthetic.
Between brand deals and influencers, the small community focus of the original idea became a new means of churning out content. The material lore — items bought to enhance the identity — grew. At the same time, the concept behind it shrank. The online identity now overpowers the offline self. The very real fact is that most people are dependent on their online presence. It serves as currency that helps you find work, share your art, and meet new people.
From my experience working in a publishing house, I saw firsthand how much easier it was to get a book commissioned when you have a significant social following, especially for debut authors. For those with private accounts, and a core-less existence, it's an extra hurdle for the acquisition and marketing teams, meaning that your work either never gets out, and if it does, getting it in the hands of readers proves challenging. It is by no means exclusive to publishing, we are living in a world where the online identity creates vital opportunities for people – particularly those who wouldn't otherwise have access to them.
By most means, the avatar is more real, influential, and accessible than the person who created it, which is at the very least, an incredibly weird reality. To have your identity so clearly divided and to no longer understand what is intention or repetition is a peculiar, funny feeling. But it's not like we had much of a choice. Now, we are all Narcissus reincarnate, always linked to the mirror — dependent on, and dictated by it. And so, we mirror-gaze. We see what we've created and try our best to mimic it.