Popular Culture Shows How Increasingly Narcissistic Our Society Has Become

“Narcissism, research shows, is on the rise…. Nathan DeWall, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, has come to the same conclusion based on quite a different avenue of research. DeWall and his colleagues analyzed the lyrics of songs on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart from 1980 to 2007. They found a statistically significant trend toward narcissism in the music, with the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ gradually replacing ‘we’ and ‘us.’ Recent examples of narcissism in popular songs include Justin Timberlake’s 2006 proclamation, ‘I’m bringing sexy back,’ and Beyoncé’s 2005 line, ‘It’s blazin’, you watch me in amazement.’”