The Digital Ego and Flexing Online
We Are Not Talking Muscles
You see, “flexing” is just another word for bragging about your lifestyle, car, house, money, and even your body — usually the things that people attach their ego to. It’s one thing to spend your hard-earned money to buy luxury goods to show off your status. It’s another thing to vocally show the world what you got.
Through the rise of social media, we share everything that we do anyway. But why is there a need to also share all of our material possessions? It all started with funny cat videos and sharing the location of your birthday party, to now organizing political movements, cancelling people, and bragging about your wealth. One of the first ones to do it was Dan Bilzerian, with his lavish lifestyle that includes guns, models, drinks, luxury parties, and everything else that a 12-year-old boy dreams of. After him, rappers caught on to the trend and, now we have kids flexing on us online.
As obnoxious as it may seem, a lot of research points to very simple biology and behaviour. The ones we put out since we were cavemen (and women).
The Signaling Theory
Since the beginning of time, we’ve had to have some kind of signal to show that special someone that making babies with you is actually a really good idea. The peacock has his big and colourful feathers — but do they really need to be THAT BIG? A lot of people make the same connection with women’s makeup and the connotation that it makes them look more vibrant and fertile. As history goes, that is how we selected ripe apples and fruit from the bad ones (vibrance in colour).
Now that everyone is online (even more with the pandemic going on) we had to find a new way to signal that we are free and just freaky enough to live with. But with depression and anxiety rates rising between young people there is no way that somebody is going to approach anyone in public or online (even though the buffer makes it a little easier). The only way to gain interest from someone you fancy is through social media, flexing, attractive posts and sliding into those DMs. And that just makes us feel more alone, trying to create the perfect image of ourselves. All that so we can appeal to the large audience that we are attractive and single.
But you see it’s not just young people finding someone to love. There’s also a whole lot of good old-fashioned narcissism.
Youtube Flexing And Children
We all have some content creators that we have followed from their humble beginnings. In some cases, those creators become very successful. Now, in some cases, content creators get their ego blown out of proportion. They feel the need to flex to the exact audience that made them successful. And the weird effect is that kids feel proud and included. They love seeing their favourite Youtuber flex with all the things they are now able to have. All this because of their audience. Kids find that redeeming as if you helped a grandpa across the street.
Now more than ever, people have been called out and praised for flexing. It’s only getting weirder and weirder. Some people point back to the fact that we like to be liked by other people (sometimes even the people that we don’t respect), and the time we used small pieces of cloth to cover our genitals — yes, we are going back to the tribes.
Tribe Mentality
Since the first cook-off in the caves we used to live in, people have lived in tribes. One of the most important things that we cared about was the opinion of other members inside the tribe about ourselves. The trend lives on even now but has been amplified to unbearable decibels through social media. Now we require acceptance from everyone on the Internet. And a great ‘sticks and stones quote’ does not really apply when you have thousands of people telling you that you indeed are the worst thing that happened to this planet since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.
Not to get emotional, folks also love to get their ego stroked. That is why it feels so good to flex online, doing so from a safe online place where nobody can really hurt you.
Never Be Perfect
And how do we fight it, how to not fall into the rabbit hole that is flexing and seeking acceptance from anonymous people online?
Well, allow me to give you a list:
- Never compare yourself to anyone except who you were yesterday.
- Remember that the people mostly care only about themselves (and remember most things that include them).
- If it doesn’t do someone any good, don’t share it.
- Would you be comfortable with your sweet grandma seeing what you’re posting?
- Never be perfect!
