Reasons the internet is awesome: I just came across this Instagram of a quote from a WSJ review of a book about long-time Vogue and Allure editor Diana Vreeland...

"I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity."

...which lead me to this article from an academic journal about the difference between narcissism and vanity: academia.edu.

You were asking me the other day whether I thought your idea about "selfless narcissism" sounded right — I said it was at the time, but I actually think vanity might be more accurate.

(Skim the first few pages of the journal article; it reads quickly.)

This has much to do with your Medium post this morning, too — the stuff about Tumblr, in particular.

There's really something to the idea of trying to hack together a physical representation of ourselves online. Think about how visceral Tumblr is. ~70% images, many of which are of people and clothes and food and interior design and all sorts of other visually attractive things.

Then read this from the article:

"While vanity can be seen negatively, self-presentational motives involving a concern for one’s personal appearance and the desire to enhance individual attractiveness help persons to form relationships with one another, and appearing pleasant is likely to help this process."

!!!

Interesting insight. I think you're right that the Tumblr use case is vanity – not narcissism - but I think Branch, and publishing, is the latter.

You're not *really* publishing on Tumblr. Almost everything you post is "sharing" something that someone else has created. But for the folks who write blog posts, tweets, etc. The motivation isn't, "Look at who I am!" It's a longing for validation, and spread, of your ideas.