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Written by Loh Huilin & Nur Rashidah
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Page 2 of 2
Yes, plastic surgery is the first thing that would come to mind when one thinks of the narcissistic measures anyone could take. As mentioned, pride is almost an obsession with oneself. Well, obsession itself is a dangerous thing. Fetishes are an obsession, and if we look at the example of a shoe fetish, it is extremely unhealthy (not to mention expensive).
"To me shoes are like pizza: There is no bad shoe."
Kelly Ripa
Yes, celebs do have tons of shoes. To be exact, they have shoe fetishes. But if you think this only plagues the Western celebrities, I would be more than happy to prove you wrong. Meet Imelda Marcos, a former Philippine First Lady.
Apparently, she has set up a museum to showcase her gargantuan collection of shoes, which run up to the hundreds.
According to the BBC Asia-Pacific News website, Mrs Marcos was known to have travelled all around the world to purchase her vast collection.
Now what is narcissistic about this is that she bought this at a time when "millions of Filipinos were living in extreme poverty," according to the BBC website. And Corazon Aquino, President Marcos' successor even had her "shoes to be put on display as a demonstration of extravagance".
Proud, much?
Nevertheless, whatever the reason for her indulgence, it is irrefutably true that self love leads to over-the-top expenditure.
 But before you dismiss the previous two examples as way above our (meagre) allowance, how about the social online networking sites us students frequent?
This is perhaps the most narcissistic tool of them all - the social networking site. This would commonly be used to categorise sites such as Friendster, MySpace as well as the currently popular Facebook.
Friendster has over 40 million users, and the numbers are growing. Facebook, meanwhile has 25 million users registered and also, the numbers are set to soar.
In an article published in the Straits Times Life! Section the previous year, two sisters, Celeste and Nicole Chen were reported to have over "16,000 friends" among them on their Friendster accounts. With pictures of themselves in skimpy clothing and in various provocative shots, it is little wonder then that these girls are popular.
Online sites like these serve to feed our pride with a statistical measure of how popular we are through the number of friends we have. Admit it, some of you do get a sense of adrenaline rush to discover that you have a higher number of ‘friends' than any of your friends.
And the higher number of hits, the more our pride swells. It's narcissistic, but it feels so good. This measurement of popularity leads us to harbour a sense of pride in knowing that we are loved and accepted.
So ladies and gents, pride is a sin that is extremely unlikely to fade anytime soon. With plastic surgery procedures becoming more common, fetishes to make one feel good and online social sites to determine one's popularity, I say that pride is here to stay.
But in the end, do keep in mind not to let pride get in the way. Once in a while, do remember: No one ever choked to death swallowing his pride (from thinkexist.com). hooked
Images courtesy of:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/abr1377l.jpg
http://www.petersblog.org/images/SelfLove.jpg
http://www.celebritycosmeticsurgery.blogspot.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1173911.stm
http://pacexam.com
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