In this conversational video, Speaker A (a male content creator) and Lauren discuss how the term “narcissist” has become a catch‑all label on platforms like TikTok and Facebook. Speaker A notes that the word is overused by men describing ex‑female partners and explains that true Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a clinical diagnosis requiring specific criteria, implying that most people called “narcissists” are simply “assholes.” Lauren agrees the label is overused and suggests focusing on narcissistic behaviors rather than naming people. They then critique the “University of TikTok,” a women‑only echo chamber that began as empowerment but now often avoids accountability, citing a viral trend that frames a request for a 50/50 split on a date as a sign of hatred. The dialogue moves to the “vocal minority” phenomenon, where a small number of negative comments dominate perception despite overwhelming positive engagement. Both speakers share personal coping strategies—ignoring toxic content, disengaging from political or feminist outrage, and limiting exposure to harmful online narratives—to preserve mental wellbeing.
Chapters
Phil says, what are your thoughts on women studying at the University of TikTok? I like it. And self-labeling their partner as a, quote, narcissist in order to avoid accountability for their role in damaging the relationship. Well, Mr. Phil, let me just say this in, in the, uh, to be fair, um, I run a Facebook page, TikTok, and so forth directed mostly to men. And so I get most of my comments are from men, and I hear the narcissist thing from men all day, every day about about their ex-female partner. So this isn't limited to the women, trust me, buddy. Um, I hear it all the time. The phrase narcissist, it got out in the lexicon. I don't— I mean, it's always been there, it's been there forever, but for some reason in popular culture it's out in the zeitgeist, as they say, and I hear it all the freaking time. I don't know where that came from, I don't know why it took off so much, but it's out there. And yes, it's a way overused term. Everyone has narcissistic tendencies to some degree, like on a scale 1 to 10, you may be a 1, it's barely noticeable, you're fine. Who doesn't have, you know, 1 to 3? Maybe when it gets to like a 5 and above, then you got a problem. Now, as far as a, a real diagnosed narcissist, there's a personality disorder called narcissistic personality disorder. It's part of the Cluster B segment of personality disorders, and you have to meet certain criteria to qualify.. And no, I would presume that 99% of the people that the TikTok nation are calling narcissists are in fact not narcissists. They're just assholes. You don't have to be, um, a full-blown narcissist to be an asshole, but it's just a term that took off. And now, as far as they're avoiding their own accountability, and there may be something to that, I'm sure, or is this just a trend? I don't know, beyond just a little simple popular trend that's taking off and people are just overusing the term. I, I don't know. What do you think, Lauren?
Uh, I will say I agree that narcissist can be pretty overused. I think a better way of doing it is, um, similar to my— how my mom would say to me and my sibling, you can't call each other stupid, but you can tell each other that what you're doing is stupid. And I was like, okay, that's fair, I can— I accept this. So it's like, maybe don't call everybody a narcissist, but you can absolutely point out when what they're doing is a narcissistic behavior. Absolutely. I think that's a fair middle ground. As far as the University of TikTok goes, that is so valid. That's a thing that the— it's these— the— these women empowering women groups have truly turned into women enabling women groups, and it's become these female-only echo chambers where it started off really well-intentioned. I even enjoyed many of these spaces throughout my life, but it develops to these points of where, yeah, accountability is just removed and it becomes these Olympics of like, how can we just blame men and the patriarchy on everything so that we don't actually have to face the inappropriate behaviors that we are literally enabling each other? And some of the things that I hear in these spaces are so severely unhinged. Let me know if you've heard of this one yet. The new one that us girlies are teaching each other, which is overall going to do so much more harm than good, especially in an economy where 7 out of 10 wives make as much or more than their husbands. The new thing is, if he asks you to pay 50/50, he hates you.
Okay. Little—
little extreme.
Yeah.
But it's— if you Google it, you'll see it's unironic. This is not like something they're saying to troll or be facetious.
So a first date, I assume, first date?
No, like ever.
Ever? Oh, okay. Well, all right.
No, yeah, it's the belief is like, you know, but here's the thing.
There's so many little instances like that where I can go online and men send me videos all the time. Can you believe this woman said this? 'Can you believe this?' And I'm like, 'This is Candace, the 20-year-old from Idaho, posted some video on TikTok saying da da da da da, and sure, 30,000 women, you know, commented and they agree.' But so the eff what? You know, there are lunatics everywhere, there are assholes everywhere. I don't associate with these kind of people. If I ever for some reason stumble upon them in my life, I just go, 'Nice to meet you,' and I move on to something else. I don't Yeah, I try not to get so hung up on all this stuff, otherwise you go nuts, as you know, trying to, you know, every little negative thing you see. And we talked about this before, the vocal minority, you know, it's, you'll post a video and you'll get 100,000 likes, but you'll get 300 negative comments, and we tend to focus on those 300 negative comments and go, oh man, maybe they got a point, maybe I am really bad at this, maybe I did make a stupid— you don't realize you have 100,000 people that just clicked like and they went about their way. The vocal minority is the one that sticks out. And unfortunately, the vocal minority also has a dumb phone with a camera on it, and they can record whatever the hell they want. And sometimes those things take off, and everyone says, see, all women are this. See, all women— no, there's just— I don't know. It's kind of like I hear a lot of men come to me with, how come you don't have more anti-feminism stuff? I was like, because I don't give a shit. I just don't. I don't. It's just not in my purview. It's not my world. I don't I don't associate with, you know, this militant feminist types that all men are bad and all men should die and yada yada. So stop sending me the videos. I don't care. I'm sure there's lots of those whack jobs out there, but it's so funny, the more— when you just finally go, I don't, I don't care, I don't see that stuff anymore, it just ceases to exist. It just doesn't come into your world anymore. It's kind of like politics. I stopped following that years ago. Did you see what Governor so-and-so said? No, I don't care. It doesn't— has no impact on me whatsoever. I don't give a shit. And, uh, and my life is that much better for it. So just food for thought.
Um, those are the chronically online women. There's— and there's a big difference.
