Monday, April 25, 2022

Narcissism In Written Form

I really had to work at reading someone's comment on Facebook recently.  There was no punctuation or paragraphs.  No sentence structure.  Misspellings everywhere.  It took me a few read-throughs to derive the point they were making.

I run into this a lot on social media.  People rant in 100-word sentences to tell you how frustrated they are on this or that issue.

For the longest time, I assumed that these folks were merely uneducated and writing structures were simply not available to them.

I am wondering though if there is more to it than that.

We know that empathy is the ability to truly connect with another person, to understand THEIR perception of an event.

When I write... even a simple post... it will often go through a number of revisions.  I read it over, looking for redundancy, repeated use of a word, and clarity.  If my daughter is around, I will have her give it a proofread.

I want the reader to be clear with what I have written.  I want to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding.  A lot of times, I just want to make sure I am not being an asshole.

However, I don't think the narcissist cares to do any of that.  What they wrote was clear to them... end of story.  Why re-read?  Why check for errors?  Why consider how to make the position more clear?

I understand that poor writing COULD be a matter of education... but given how often I see it pop up with certain personalities... could it not be narcissism in written form?

3 comments:

Ed said...

I rarely get past the opening sentence on Facebook if it is all caps, unpunctuated and has poor grammar. I can forgive many mistakes especially in the age of devises that want to finish your word or thought. But a blatant disregard is hard for me to swallow and time is short so I move on to others who don’t take my time for granted.

Bob said...

I think you answered your own question. You don't want to come across as an asshole. And you don't. But that narcissist you're talking about? He/she delights in it!

Unknown said...

I get comments on my blog and emails from people who use this form to write. Imagine a thousand plus word comment with no punctuation or capitalization. Drives me nuts. If you have a point to make, why not write in a way that people will understand what you are trying to say?

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