The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to his extension of himself and had become a closed system.
Marshall McLuhan, chapter 4 of Understanding Media (1964), “The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis.
Provenance
In 2012, Jared The Jew launched the mobile phone app Mashup, a social network.
Distributed exclusively on iTunes from 2012-2016, Mashup appeared to be a typical novelty app, however, it was a trap.
When unsuspecting narcissists downloaded the app they were presented with a series of instructions that coached them to produce their own mashup portraits that were unsuspectingly shared over the network.
Waiting for their freshly minted selfies was Jared The Jew.
Narcissus As Narcosis is the resulting collection of JTJ’s self portraits.
When unsuspecting narcissists downloaded the app they were presented with a series of instructions that coached them to produce their own mashup portraits that were unsuspectingly shared over the network.
Waiting for their freshly minted selfies was Jared The Jew.
Narcissus As Narcosis is the resulting collection of JTJ’s self portraits.