It wasn't just my parents. This was a social norm most people adhered to. Persistent attention-seekers were seen as immature, vulgar, weird, a bit mentally lacking. It was best to ignore them, to avoid encouraging them.
Nowadays we've gone to the opposite extreme. Attention-seeking is routine, and thousands of people spend their lives seeking as much attention as possible. Their every move is broadcast on Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social media sites. We know what they had for breakfast, when they last had a pee, the embarrassing pimple on their nose, their sexual disappointments, their ingrowing toenails, their fear of hedgehogs. There's absolutely nothing they keep to themselves.
They'll do virtually anything to get attention, especially politicians. They tell lies, they make wild allegations, they smear their opponents, they pour out vitriolic abuse. So long as it stirs up heated controversies that keep them in the public eye.
I've never succumbed to this new fashion. I have no desire to be the centre of attention. If anything I have a horror of attention, a deep aversion to other people inspecting me too closely, judging me and gossiping about me. I much prefer to be on my own, enjoying my favourite activities without a flock of curious people around me.
It's not that I have anything to hide. I don't have all sorts of sordid secrets I'm desperate to keep under wraps. I'll reveal anything, even the most personal quirks and oddities, but preferably to an audience of one. I just get nervous when too many people are watching my every move.
So I don't think I'll tell you what I had for breakfast.
(PS: Blogging is just fine. I'm happy to reveal all to my cosy little band of blogging friends)
With movement being restricted, even if I want to, I cannot indulge in attention seeking except of course through the social media and my blogs. Not very effective though. Sometimes, just some times, I miss the good old days when I was at it all the time.
ReplyDeleteRamana: You were "at it all the time"? The mind boggles....
DeleteThe tide has definitely turned on this topic. I do wonder if a lot of alternative lifestyles are based more on attention and shock value rather than anything else.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: Definitely. There's a lot of cases of the Emperor's New Clothes out there.
DeleteWhat of people who do not SEEK attention but get it anyway by, say, the impact of their personality, the force of their presence?
ReplyDeleteWhilst I do not agree with your parents that we should hide our light under a bushel (that's false modesty), I do agree with your general gist of today's relentless self promotion. Essentially, what it amounts to is 'look at me, look at me, ain't I great'. Unfortunately, Nick, and you'll appreciate the irony, some of the most modest and self deprecating (not least in blog land) are at great pains to point out just how modest and self deprecating in that grating ain't I great ain't I great whilst blushing at their 'virtue'.
U
Ursula: Fair enough if they get attention anyway. Hopefully they've earned it and they aren't just deranged American presidents.
DeleteIndeed, virtue-signalling is rife as well. "Aren't I such a morally perfect person", dressed up as something quite ordinary and unremarkable.
I suppose there's good attention and self-seeking aggrandizement. Often with big bucks involved (Kardashians, Jenners, et al). Sometimes it's loneliness and isolation.
ReplyDeleteIt's a far deeper issue than you've covered here. As our urges not to show off in younger years also affected our self-confidence ("who does she think she is?")
There will always be the naysayers but my personal observation has been they never do anything with their lives but live to criticize. And wait for others to fail.
XO
WWW
www: Good point about childhood admonitions leading to a later lack of self-confidence. And you're right, in some cases attention-seeking may very well be a response to loneliness.
DeleteThose people who grab attention by forever criticising all and sundry are the worst kind of attention-seekers.
LOL. spot on Nick. the Age of Me! Me! Me!
ReplyDeleteI suppose this 'age' will be like all the others before it. just a blip on the tragic and/or ridiculous course of social human history!
but it's one thing to grow up in part of it and still wind up in the full blown tidal change of another!
I was raised to never brag on oneself nor preen in public. it was called foolish vanity and it was frowned upon. nowadays people LOVE taking their own pictures and they all prance around like movie stars.
LOL! might as well laugh. the gate is open and the pendulum has swung! xoxo
Tammy: Yes, when I was young vanity was often mentioned as something to be avoided at all costs. Now it's absolutely normal.
DeleteI have a relative, niece-in-law, who posts a lot on Facebook about the trips she's taking, the fun she's having. She worked full time while raising three kids, so who am I to begrudge her celebrating? On the other hand, I seldom open the Facebook notices about it because Facebook feels like junk food to me. Not enough information for the time and attention it takes. I'll stick to blogging.
ReplyDeleteJean: Maybe she's not attention-seeking, she's just updating her friends on what she's up to. That's fair enough.
DeleteI don't see Facebook as junk food. I get a lot of interesting information from it. Let's say it's more like a rather small main course.
You can learn an awful lot by being unobtrusive...
ReplyDeleteFly: Very true. I like standing on the sidelines listening to little snippets of conversation.
DeleteAs a child I felt invisible and didn't like it. Now I am happy to mostly be invisible. I never did like being judged so being invisible is preferable.
ReplyDeleteLinda: Me too. I like wandering the streets incognito, with none of the passers-by knowing anything about me.
DeleteI thought most girls felt rather TOO visible and getting a lot of unwanted attention?
Reading other comments made me think about the annual letter usually sent out at Christmas time. You never see one that says, "Tommy failed all his classes this year, Sheila is in drug rehab, and Mary became a mother at age 16."
ReplyDeleteThat made me laugh, Linda. Yes, the days of the Round Robin. A friend of mine started sending them after she and her family moved to Australia. Next time I saw her I made fun of her and her amazingly perfect life and her family. That my name was struck off her mailing list forthwith goes without saying.
DeleteU
Linda: We hardly ever get annual letters, but I can remember some as dubiously positive as you say. A more honest letter along the lines you suggest would actually have been welcome!
DeleteUrsula: People don't like their carefully polished public image to be punctured!
DeleteI am living in a country that elected a buffoon who brags CONSTANTLY (without merit, no less), and I do think that is celebrated n our culture. It's a shame, really. I don't have a problem with people being self-revealing, but I do notice when people are doing the attention whore thing on a platform like facebook. An occasional photo of yourself at some event or new place, absolutely great. Relentless selfies on a daily basis? Not so much.
ReplyDeleteAgent: He not only brags constantly but most of what he says is either a lie or self-deception.
ReplyDeleteYes, relentless daily selfies. What on earth is the point?
That's why I say without merit. He is a pathological liar.
DeleteHe is. And our own homegrown version of Trump, Boris Johnson, is also a pathological liar.
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