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Young Narcissists: “Blue Bird Syndrome”

Uploaded 12/14/2024, approx. 12 minute read

In Asia, they call it the Blue Bird Syndrome.

Sounds intriguing.

It's a term derived from Mois Metterling's play by the same name, the Blue Bird.

The Bluebird syndrome is young people who are dissatisfied with their current lives, constantly seeking better opportunities. This is known as job-hopping within a gig economy.

And these young people idealize their potential, which is a very polite way of saying they're grandiose, they overestimate themselves, and so they can't settle down for a variety of reasons which we'll go into right now.

Now this is not limited to 10% of young people, this is actually the norm, the vast majority of young people all over the world in Generation Z behave exactly like this.

It is not the case with Generation X. It is not the case with millennials.

It is a phenomenon which is new and characterizes Generation Z only.

It is so common that their equivalents of in the United States, in Vietnam, in China, in India, their studies, they use different nomenclature, different vocabulary, but they all describe exactly the same phenomenon.

Take for example, Associate Professor Doming Kwong, is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Business Culture at the Vietnam Business Culture Development Association.

And here is what he has to say.

Today's young people do not face the same pressures to support families as previous generations.

Being Vietnamese is a bit polite probably. What he means to say is today's young people are parasites. They're parasitic. They live off their parents and at their parents until they're 35 years old. That's the statistic.

And so he continues, they tend to make decisions based more on emotions.

This group, he says, has strong egos.

Another way of saying they are narcissistic.

They are knowledgeable, confident and dynamic, but sometimes can be overconfident and have unrealistic views of their ability.

I fully concur with one exception, they are not knowledgeable. They're not knowledgeable and in an inordinate number of them are actually functionally illiterate. That's what the studies show.

They are far less knowledgeable than previous generations, by the way.

They do not read books. They are not exposed to knowledge. They are exposed to information. Information is raw material. It's unstructured knowledge.

And so, yes, they are exposed to a lot of information. Most of it, by the way, nonsensical or irrelevant, Tick-Tock style or video game style.

But information has nothing to do with knowledge, and these people are not knowledgeable.

I don't know what dynamic means. If it means itinerant, if it means desultory, if it means not serious, not committed, yeah, they're very dynamic. I agree. They're overconfident. We both agree.


What's the reason for all this?

Why did this phenomenon erupt only lately, only recently, in Z, Alpha Z are too young, in Generation Z. What has happened?

We start with fear of missing out.

Fear of missing out happens when you're exposed to so many options and so many possibilities that are easily accessible. Then no effort is required, you know, swipe left or swipe right or whatever it is. No effort is required.

And when you're confronted with this embarrassment of riches, it creates a choice anxiety. And there is a fear that your selection, including made selection, may be sub-optimal.

You can do a lot better, and you can do a lot better not by bettering yourself, not by studying hard, not by working harder, you can do a lot better by swiping left, it's as easy as that.

And so there's fear of missing out.

But fear of missing out is intimately linked to narcissism because the underlying belief or the underlying assumption in fear of missing out is I deserve only the best. I deserve perfection. I deserve the ideal. Nothing less than that is worthy of me.

Narcissism, grandiosity, a cognitive distortion, an inflated, fantastic view of oneself, a self-concept that is counterfactual, unrealistic, fantastic, divorced from reality.

This kind of grandiosity gives rise to grievances.

Because if you are godlike, if you're perfect, if you are amazing, if you're unprecedented, if you're brilliant, if you're a genius, then you know, you're being mistreated. It's not okay. You're being discriminated against. People are envious of you. You know, they don't appreciate you.

And so this overperception, this overvaluation, this overestimation of one's own capacities leads to aggressive and passive aggressive behaviors.

There's a Dunning Kruger effect. Most of these people are actually too stupid to realize how stupid they are. And yet they consider themselves unmitigated geniuses.

And so grandiosity leads to grievances. There's a sense of entitlement.

If I'm Godlike or if I'm such a supreme being or for I'm so unique, then I deserve special treatment. And I deserve special treatment and accolades and recognition. I deserve my life to be facilitated for me. Just because of who I am.

I don't need to invest anything. I don't need to work hard. I don't need to do anything.

And this leads, of course, to indolence, aka laziness, slackers, but not the ideological slackers of the 60s and 70s and maybe the 80s, not the Big Lebowski. Big Lebowski had a philosophy of life. He would dispute that, but he had a philosophy of life.

These young people are indolent because they think they deserve everything on a silver platter and any difficulty, any obstacle is perceived to be as a form of malice, it's a form of malice, it's malevolent. They should never have to face any hindrances and impediments and challenges. The way to heaven should be paved all along with good intentions.

So indolence and entitlement are again linked to grievances. It's a grievance culture. It's a victimhood culture.

And the escape, when you feel like a victim constantly, when you feel that everyone and everything is conspiring against you, history, institutions, the nation, your boss, your girlfriend or boyfriend, if you have any, in most cases you don't. Everything, everyone is against you.

Then of course it will develop paranoid ideation. And you renounce reality, you give up on reality and you retreat, you withdraw into fantasy. It's a form of avoidance, a form of constriction of life.

You withdraw into fantasy, but fantasy reduces self-efficacy. You cannot be efficacious if you are not minutely and subtly attuned to reality. You cannot be efficient if you don't want anything to do with the world.

So it reduces self-efficacy and exacerbates the situation because these kind of people keep failing. They keep being defeated. It's a form of self-sabotage.

Think about the following. You change jobs on average every 1.7 years. I'm kidding you not. Generation Z changed jobs every 1.7 years compared to four years, four and a half years, with Generation X, for example. And compared to decades in my generation, baby boomers.

So you change jobs every 1.7 years, your resume looks horrible. Prospective employees can't trust you. They won't invest in you anything because you'll be gone.

So it's a form of self-sabotage. This job hopping, trying to optimize, trying to maximize, fear of missing out, actually makes you, causes you to miss out, blocks many options and potentials and possibilities and opportunities, limits your world, not enhances it.

These young people, and these are young people, Generation Z. None of this applies to previous generations. End of story. Never mind how young they. Even Generation X, even millennials, none of it applies to them. And they're not that old.

But these recent entrants, they regard work as a form of adventure. It's like a video game. Everything is a game. Life is a game. Work is a game. Relationships, they gamify. They gamify life. They regard their personal biography as a form of gamification.

So they can tailor it. It's like they are writing a narrative, a script, a movie script. They regard life as a movie. It's all about adventures. It's all about experiences. They emphasize experiences, not value, not values.

And so work is merely a vehicle. And if work doesn't afford you, doesn't provide you with the necessary thrill and excitement and arousal, then you move on.

There's a lot of self-aggrandizement in this. I deserve the best. I deserve the most. I deserve to be entertained. I need to sit back. My employer, my company, my boss should entertain me. My colleagues should cater to my needs, ever changing, ever shifting as they may be.

There's a lot of magical thinking. Get rich quick. The giant within is awakening and other such nonsense which is sold to the young generation by unscrupulous con artists.

The aforementioned Kwong advises young people to clearly define their career goals and build networks within their companies.

He suggests that people should carefully weigh the risks of frequent job changes. And he's right.

He says instead of quitting when faced with challenges, Gen Z should learn to adapt and overcome difficulties.

They're spoiled, as my grandmother would say, and she was not a professor of clinical psychology. They're spoiled rotten. They need a wake-up call. They need hardship and I hope it's coming for their own sake.

Once you have the skills and prove your worth, says Professor Kwong, you will succeed wherever you are rather than chasing unrealistic dreams.

And this is a Vietnamese, not an American capitalist.

Others suggest that companies should also improve the workplace environment, fair salaries, benefit policies, etc., encouraging, learning, skill development, career progression paths, etc.

I agree with all that. Of course, the workplace should be something you look forward to attending or participating in.

But actually, this characterizes quite a few companies nowadays, even in high tech.

So I don't think that's a problem. I think regardless of the profile of the workplace, regardless how cosseting and spoiling and pampering and pedestalizing and idealizing the workplace is, how it caters to Gen Z and grovels and begs them to participate, they won't.

They will not participate because, rationally, they have much easier options.

Stay at home with mom and dad, sponge off them, live off them parasitically, play video games all day, and occasionally once a year, screw someone from a dating app.

What's wrong with this lifestyle? It leads nowhere? Who wants to go anywhere? I'm good where I am.

There's no narrative here. I don't need a narrative. I am the narrative.

There's no horizon, no future, no expectations, no direction, no meaning, no sense.

What's new?

And of course, Gen Z is never to blame. They're never to blame. There is the financial crisis and there is COVID and there is, you know, Donald Trump, if you're inclined that way and you're a woman.

They are never to blame.

I hold them in deep contempt. Deep.

I remember the generations that had to cope with a great depression, with World War II, in my country of Israel with six wars during my lifetime. And we've made something of ourselves. And we have not exploited our parents.

And so I don't buy any of these sorry excuses for inaction, for inertia.

And I just think Gen Z is dumb. Yes, I can generalize that, dumb.

Anyone who has taught previous generations as I have, I've been teaching for the last 50 years or else, would tell you immediately if they are not afraid of being fired, being censored or being cancelled, they would tell you immediately.

The youngest generations are idiots, unmitigated morons.

And it's not because they don't have the infrastructure, the cerebral infrastructure. Their neurology and brains are not different. And many of them are naturally intelligent.

But they refuse to invest in themselves, as much as they refuse to invest in their workplaces or their relationships or their future.

It is this policy of disinvestment, de-cathexis, withdrawing and avoiding that is being glamorized and glorified by them as a form of self-sufficiency and self-containment.

It's nonsense. It's nonsense. They are simply afraid of life. They're terrorized because they know how inadequate they are, how unworthy, and at the base of it? How unlovable.

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