Earth's narcissists — powered and seduced by ingenuity, enterprise, gamesmanship and derangement — rule social media's scopious clout, their primp uploads check in at the speed of thought.
Certain narcissists are famous for being famous, others for muckraking, and some due to their opulent lifestyle while ubiquitous pretenders scramble for a fraction of the fame game.
In person, narcissists assume a facade of sensibility, but in the mountainous Facebook, Instagram and Twitter soapboxes, they assume the twisted singularity of a "fruitcake"; the sardonic term that The Guardian tech columnist John Naughton dumped on Elon Musk — hyper-rich Twitter owner and chief narcissist of the moment.
Malaysia too is rumpled: a self-proclaimed slippery whale who went on the lam after stealing billions of our money under the aegis of a disgraced former prime minister.
Befitting his bloated self-importance, he faked a vain playboy-like persona while cavorting with Hollywood A-listers, until he was exposed of dishing out preposterous hiring fees. What about this unctuously slavish political operative, who posed regularly before the prison where his boss is incarcerated for mega financial fraud? Beat this for transcending the narcissist's playbook: valiantly repressing senior citizenry, this Malaysian grandstands in vigorous workouts to show off his "Olympian" body and stunningly hedonistic escapades with his mistress, leaving at home two estranged wives — and all on Instagram.
The so-called Malaysian "influencers" beautify their over-glorified profiles, wielding extravagant wealth — sports cars, gimcrack apparel, esoteric timepieces, more bling than skin, and even babies, food and pets — as accessories feeding into their narcissism.
In this taxing egocentricity, Malaysian wannabes still envy the Kardashians, famous in America for being "famous for nothing". Psychologists have diagnosed a deranged former American president as a first-rate malignant narcissist. Conversely, local mirrors are close to emulating an old figure who perceives everything as all about him. Perhaps our narcissists anxiously wait for the little opportunity of vainglory that, we hope, will never present itself.
Why the obsessive self-love? The textbook definition is illuminating: "A mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships and a lack of empathy for others."
This mould is baking perhaps most GE15 candidates as they strut in presumption of imminent power and condescending patronage. They suck in all the press while pledging fantastical financial and material handouts, a dodgy stairway to heaven and, for bald stones, a promise to eventually become prime minister.
No previous prime ministers have ever come close to radiating such gasconade prior to becoming chief executive. It's unavoidably human, this narcissistic culture that has attained preternatural apogee. But is the self-absorbed swagger enriching or annoying? It depends on your resilience to the frenzied insufferables, who yearn to dominate our lives.