The Positive Negative Self

8/11/2019 The Positive Negative Self

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There is an interesting tendency online in which many users post film stills on their

profile as if they are speaking through the character of the still they post. This

tendency most prevalent in blogging sites such as tumblr in which users usually

repost material from other users in their profile. Many, if not the most, of the users

that use this technique to express their self, post film still images that are

negative either self!diminishing, self!sarcastic or expressing a negative emotionabout themselves.

There is the question, why one feels the need to diminish or express their negativity

through film stills. "elow # am using social psychological terms as well as

psychoanalysis to dig into that meme.

What is the Self?

The definition of the self is indeed a very complex sub$ect in social sciences. %ome

believe that the self is rather a complex structure of ever changing processes and

perceptions. &thers think that the self is defined by a sense of belonging of one's

thoughts and emotions. &ne's feeling of happiness for example has a sense of

belonging (my happiness belongs to be). *nother definition is the self!focus

definition, is our conscious focus on a particular thought or emotion we feel, so for

example while walking in the nature even though # may feel happy # might focus my

attention on my walk and my surroundings instead of focusing my attention on my

emotional state. * fourth definition of the self is that of a stable representation + a

pro$ection ! of the self as having some particular qualities (happy person, sad person,

etc) for example the belief that when # am walking # am a happy person. *ll the

above definitions of the self though they can be categori-ed under two basiccategories a. an ongoing sense of self!awareness and b. stable mental

representations, something that the psychologists /illiam 0ames and 1eorge 2erbert

Mead were describing as the #' (as a sub$ect) and the Me (as an ob$ect). %o here the

one is the self!awareness concept in which the self is a conscious being that acts,

and the self!concept that is the self as an ob$ect of specific mental

representational qualities and images that can be described by the physical, social,

psychological and moral properties of the self in accordance to its cultural and social

context. These self!concepts can be described by memory (# remember being this

happy person then) or by semantic representations (# am a happy person).

Meanwhile a third and more abstract definition of the self could be based on personal

concepts of permanence or change such as a belief that # can be again this happyperson, or # will remain sad because that is who # am.

%ocial 3sychologists %edikides and %kowronski in their research about the self, they

borrow the basic definition of the self as # and as Me but they also add a third

category that according to them is part of only human reality and they call symbolic

self. More specifically, according to the same, the sub$ective self could be

described as the capacity to distinguish one's self from the physical and the social

environment while the ob$ectified self is an organisms capacity to become the

ob$ect of his own attention for example when one knows that he knows, or

remembers that he remembers etc.


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/hile the sub$ective self is a fundamental level of understanding that all species have,

and even though the ob$ectified self is a level of self!understanding that fewer

species have (primates, dolphins, elephants), %edikides and %kowronski distinguish a

third kind of self understanding, that is unique to humans. This kind of self is the

human's capacity to mentally represent the self by using abstract, lingual and

symbolic representations that mediate the individual's demographic, physical orbehavioral characteristics to the cultural semantic sphere. That self is called the

symbolic self. The symbolic self has been emerged in the human society as a need

to seek and analy-e information that are useful to the person in order to manipulate

and understand the dynamics and the relationships between the self and the others in

the society as a method of survival within that society. #n their theory about the

symbolic self, they distinguish three different motives that use, search and manipulate

this symbolic information, and as a consequence establish and reestablish the

symbolic self in the society. They are the valuation motives (motives that manage

the value of the self within the society), the learning motives(self!improvement and

self!assessment motives that are used to acquire self!knowledge as well as knowledge

to improve the self) and the homeostatic motives(used as information seekers thatstrive for consistency of the image of the self positive as well as negative).

The positivization of the Negative self value

*s mentioned earlier, the symbolic self is maintained through three basic motives, the

valuation motive, the learning motive and the homeostatic motive. The valuation

motive can be described by two basic tendencies the self!protection and the self!

enhancement tendency.

The self!enhancement tendencyworks as a filter and magnifier of information that is

favorable to the self while the self-protection tendencyis discarding, discrediting or

negates information that are unfavorable to the self. 1enerally, what's being

understood here is that people strive for positivity and avoidance of negativity.

3sychoanalytically negativity is a term that denotes an absence an absence

located in the self!image, which is caused by an invalidation of an aspect of the self!

image by some social other. #nvalidation thus denotes a value in the self that has

been devaluated thus creating an absence. This absence because it threatens the

social value of the symbolic self, it activates the valuation motives (see above) and it

is trying to be filled with new information that would magnify or enhance the self inorder to fill the gap . "ut because the negative self is already part of the self!

perception, an attempt to fix that gap with positive ob$ects would cause an

absence anew in the self, something that the cultural psychologists refer to as a

rupture that feels like losing one's self. #t would be like trying to tell their self that

what their self!image is (a negative self!image) it is actually a positive self image and

thus creating in them an inconsistency that would create an absence, invalidation

within invalidation + what they experience is not what it is.

Meanwhile that same phenomenon corresponds to the homeostatic motives' strive for

self!preservation. "ecause of that the self will use a different method of valuation, that

of ideali-ing the negativity. That ideali-ation of the negativity is what it givesnegativity an essence, an identity a social role that fills the gap without causing


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a rupture. 4outh cultures like the emo or the goth cultures that romantici-e

negativity, pessimism and negative emotions, something that probably has its roots

in # that psychological phenomenon.

#n simpler terms, when the self has a negative connotation by the other it tries on

the one hand to preserve and sustain that negative self!perception in order to avoidrupture from occurring, and on the other hand it tries to ideali-e or romantici-e this

negativity in order acquire social value as a mechanism of social valuation. %o, by

doing that, ultimately the users that use negative film stills in their profiles try to

enhance their self and at the same time preserve their self!image.

#n order to see that mechanism let me refer to extreme cases of feelings of emotional

invalidation such as sufferers of the "orderline 3ersonality 5isorder. %ufferers of

"35 have trouble defining themselves, they constantly describe feelings of

emptiness and they exhibit symptoms of inconsistency in their self!image and

identity. They also often describe that they were emotionally invalidated by their

near social environment by the use of shaming, criticism and punishment. Theseinvalidating practices work as an opposite mechanism from the self!enhancement

motive. "ut because they experience their self as fundamentally bad they learn to

fill the gap mostly by ideali-ing negative, self!punishing behaviors such as

cutting. *s they describe this self!destructive behaviors they often give them a

sense of self, or an identity, or something to feel in order to cope with feelings

of emptiness. This emptiness they describe is in fact a devaluated sense of self

+ a negativity or absence, and because they either feel numb (don't feel their self)

or they perceive their self as fundamentally bad, they try to give their self an identity

(to enhance their self!image), through the positivi-ation of self!destructive

behaviors.

Internet Identity and Film Stills

*s we have seen above, there is a dipole that strives for ideali-ation of the symbolic

self and at the same time striving to preserve that symbolic self in order to prevent

rupture from occurring.

There is an interesting phenomenon on the internet, where the user posts on his

internet profile different film stills from the movies +most of the time with subtitles +

that seem to speak for the user. The user posts specific snapshots that are taken from

free-ing a movie scene, that seen to correspond to certain statements that the user

wants to make + consciously or unconsciously + about him6her self. 7irst of all, wemust acknowledge that these film stills are part of the symbolic self of a person,

because they enclose a cultural, semantic message that is found in the narrative of the

story of the movie, in the role of the character, in his body language or in what he says

and to whom. 1enerally it is assumed that the receiver of the message had seen the

movie, thus he will understand the references.

# think that these references to the movies have to do with the aforementioned

motives for preservation and valuation, and that the film stills are either used to add

value to a considered negative aspect of the symbolic self or to preserve it. .

*s said above, the symbolic self strives on the one hand to become as more

acceptable by society as possible ! something that %edikides and %kowronski describe

as the valuation motive of the symbolic self + and on the other hand is governed by anavoidance of rupture and therefore a tendency to cling onto that self!image because


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they gives him a sense of self. This dipole creates anxiety in the person that is being

solved by the ideali-ation of the negativity of the person. This ideali-ation is achieved

by exalting or romantici-ing their negative emotions in that case, through the use of

the film stills. Therefore, as it happens with the bpd patients, the person will no longer

feel empty when he transforms this emptiness into something, a film still.

Through the identification with a media persona, the user normali-es orpositivi-es his sense of the self. The main characteristic of the media sphere is that

it offers normali-ation or a romantici-ation of sub$ects that are considered

negative.

Through that normali-ation these images give a sense of validity to the

invalidation of the user's behavior # feel bad (negative), but this feeling responds

to the same feeling that this great character in that movie felt, therefore my story is

as great as his story (positive) . #f one would consciously tell us what he is doing by

posting these images would tell us "ecause # feel bad6shameful6re$ected for my

action (invalidation) # show you this image that validates my sense of self by

transforming the negativity # feel into the positive narrative of the story.

#n general what we are doing when we post negative film stills, we are validatingour negative self!image by living through the narrative of the story they represent

through their posts and consequently $ustify, normali-e or exalt their sense of

self.

!amples"

#sed to validate emotions"

The snapshot above from the movie 8eon the professional is portraying a teenager

girl with a sentiment of melancholia in her eyes, looking towards a person that is

supposed to be located opposite of her. "ecause her ga-e doesn't meet us, which give

us the impression that we are apart of the story, that we are invisible somehow, and

consequently that we are not separate persons from the persons of the story. 7or

example, if her ga-e was coming towards the viewer that would create a feeling of

separateness to the viewer (she sees me therefore # am a different person) and thus it

would prevent any identification with the character. That's the reason that in most

movies the character never looks into the camera.

"y doing that, the viewer can easily identify with her and validate his6her negative

emotions through posting that picture on his6her online profile. #t's like he6she lives

through the narrative of the picture and pro$ects his6her self on the ideali-ed image

of the important character of the story, so that this negative emotion is exiled andbecomes an ideali-ation of the self, something that preserves the consistency of the

self on the one hand while on the other hand he enhances the self!image.

There is another tendency in film still posts on the internet, where the user borrows

the character as his persona to say something to provocative. "ecause the self is

sensitive to re$ection and criticism, he uses the film still in order to create value for

the symbolic self thus it is being used as a valuation motive, while at the same time

the image works as a homeostatic motive by sustaining the self!image and its beliefs

(2e doesn't care what they think).

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The Positive Negative Self