I feel like what both "insecurity-as-identity"/imposter syndrome and "toxic confidence" both speak to is the exact same thing: The absence of a life outside of whatever they're doing, whether it's a job, academia, social media, etc. There's nothing beyond what they're doing at that precise moment, they have nothing else going on other than this. All of this performativity is to fill the void where a social life might be.
It's an extremely asocial/antisocial impulse, at the end of the day, just different ways of addressing the same void.
I agree and it's why I think being busy and the "good" stress associated with it is very healthy for us psychologically. Work, family, friends, hobbies, exercise, etc... we should all strive to fill our lives up as much as we can.
This really makes me appreciate the founding text of my own Gen-X culture, Breakfast Club, in which the plot revolves around the five characters building up each other's confidence.
It seems like this is yet another performative-leftist discovery of a way in which some people might not be sufficiently attuned to the merest hint of feelings of discomfort brought on by a particular bit of what was until now called normal behavior. Yay NYT!
"begs you to feel sorry for the people who are busily rewriting culture. The overconfident person at least extends you the basic courtesy of showing their hand. You know what they want, what they think, what they’ll do when threatened"
I really like this.
I was listening to some stuff about "looksmaxing", then there's the macho incel culture that I hear whispers about...the stuff you write about. Maybe each generation doesn't see their own weirdness, how lost they are, but if these phenomenon aren't just interesting stories to tell to grab attention, that's not good. It's a screen covering up things that are real.
I'd add that the term "imposter syndrome" is misused: there's ordinary, what-am-I-even-doing-here self-doubt and then there is genuine pathology, an irrational belief that one's entire record of genuine accomplishment is actually fake, empty, and meaningless. The former is an unexceptional human feeling and the latter is some variant of clinical depression. Grouping all of that together as a "syndrome" is a category error.
I was thinking along those lines. I could have described myself as experiencing imposter syndrome during my first few years at a job that required (for some reason) you to have a degree, because I just couldn't believe that my brain was worth a company paying money to access*. But I figure a lot of people feel that way at that age. It could also just be described as being surprised to find you're being treated as an adult.
(*Had no problem with being paid to stock shelves, though, even though I'm smarter than I am strong. Go figure.)
In spite of being a Millennial myself, I haven't seen a lot of the whole "insecurity-as-identity" thing. Maybe it's because I don't work in academia or media. But I will say that as someone who was actually diagnosed as a teenager with depression and anxiety and who has also felt impostor syndrome every now and then, I find the whole phenomenon insulting.
Anxiety and impostor syndrome suck. It's no fun having them. I don't wear them as a badge of honor or an identity. I want to be rid of them. I've been working hard at it through actual therapy, not through internet memes. And if "insecurity-as-identity" really has been a defining Millennial characteristic, then I'm happy to see it go the way of the dodo.
Loath as I am to descend into social astrology, I'd like to point out sub-cultural precursors such as Beck's song "Loser," the Sub Pop Losers 7-Inch Single Club, and Smashing Pumpkins' Zero T-Shirts are indicators that performative insecurity has deep, deep roots.
“Do you know who you really are parents are?” “Why don’t you try to find your real family?” “Couldn’t your adoptive parents have children of their own?” Questions I’ve been asked all my life, which all can imply that there is something not quite right with me. I don’t take it that way but I know adoptees who do.
The trouble with your comparison is, with possible exception to Smashing Pumpkins (because Billy Corgan has always been a giant fucking weirdo), your examples don't work well because they were meant to be ironic, tongue-in-cheek, goofy. (Loser's lyrics are mostly nonsense!) Here, the performativity is not comic but dramatic, played straight and sincere, sometimes dead serious.
I can't help but feel like part of the worldview underlying the "toxic confidence vs. imposter syndrome" dichotomy is that there is literally no objective correlate to feelings of adequacy; they are literally only feelings, a deterministic function of your psychological state and/or moral character (which are themselves, of course, inscrutable and causeless). Your self-assessment can be socially appropriate but it can't ever be ACCURATE, because you are assumed to have zero epistemological access to how well you're actually doing in real life, how good you actually are at a given task, and so on. The classical virtue of magnanimity would be completely impossible.
"And yet there was one tic that was quite common among them that I found aggravating: they were frequently obsessive about declaring their imposter syndrome. They were, in fact, competitive about it, always wanting to insist they were the ones who felt the very least deserving of their place."
Sounds like passive aggression. And the cases of toxic confidence that I've known were just the flip side of the same dynamic that gives us self-denigration as passive aggression.
It seems very writerly... If you graduate with an accounting degree and three job offers because the demand for accountants is higher than the supply - I'm betting imposter syndrome isn't as much of a thing. To be an academic or a writer is to be in a world where there are 10x as many candidates as jobs and almost everyone feels inadequate.
Maybe. But worked in tech, and every intelligent and self-aware person I met suffered from it at one point or another. Certainly not as an identity, but as a nagging doubt.
Interesting. By "worked in tech" did you mean you worked for a Cleveland based 20 person software company that makes inventory tracking software for the mining industry? Or "tech."
Bay Area software companies with headcounts between 50 and 80,000. IIRC it was the same everywhere. Where do you suspect IP syndrome was more prevalent? My sweet spot was ~250 - ~750 people, where I could make a difference.
"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us
with a certain alienated majesty. " - R. W. Emerson
How is it something so transparent to someone who's had a psychotic break is somehow hidden from writers at NYT? Do the reporters themselves actually believe what they are writing, or do they feel obligated to indulge their readers? Do the readers believe what they are reading?
I read NYT and have trouble believing my own eyes, that there is more make believe in adulthood than childhood. Fox News has it's own brand of the phenomenon, but I find the farce is barely hidden, almost delivered with a knowing wink.
Do we need the lies? Crane said the pathway to truth isn't thickly grown with weeds, but boobytrapped with singular knives, so we seek other roads. Freddie stays the course.
"Do the reporters themselves actually believe what they are writing, or do they feel obligated to indulge their readers?"
A mix of both, plus another factor: There is a deep insularity, enabled especially by social media, among this crowd. "Circling the wagons" is the default behavior for a lot of people in these social circles, partly driven by defeatism, partly by class sentiments that indoctrinate a a highly defensive mindset (as you can't trust anyone around you not to stab you in the back and get ahead of you), partly by a sincere belief (coming explicitly from social media use) that anything you say can and *will* be used against you, with one little thing bringing the whole house down.
I don't think I understand "toxic" in the context of confidence. Is the confidence in question toxic to the individual or others in his/her circle? Or is "toxic" simply being used as a slur, with jealousy as the trigger?
Probably either, depending on who's saying it. See also "toxic masculinity", which probably inspired the latter term. But in the case of the article quoted, I'd say it's intended as a slur, given that it's directed at people the author seems jealous of.
There's a great scene in Thornton Wilder's play _Our Town_. The teenage Emily asks: "Momma, am I _pretty_?" Her mother replies: "Emily, you make me tired. Now stop it. You're pretty enough for all normal purposes."
That's always stuck with me for some reason. A healthy self-doubt asks, "Am a good enough?" And healthy self-confidence answers: "Yeah. You're fine. Not the best, not the worst. Good enough for all normal purposes. Now shut up."
Love "Our Town." I really could have used that feedback rather than hearing how creative I was, only to find out that my creativity was good enough for all normal purposes, and no more.
It really strikes me, in the excerpt from the NYT, that the writer does not even consider the possibility that anyone is ever presenting themselves honestly. Just being as confident or insecure as you actually are is not an option in this worldview: your only choice is over which direction your pretence will go.
It's reminiscent of the way that gay people often suggest that homophobia is just latent homosexuality masked by self-hatred. Pop culture reinforces this too but of course, are all antisemites secretly Jewish? Are all racists secretly black? Prejudice does not require self hatred at all, but it's an easier way to understand it.
Similarly, since the writer herself isn't confident, she can't imagine that these people actually might be.
That notion of homophobia and latent gayness wasn’t just made up. It came from people noticing a pattern of actual behavior. Which I don’t think exists in your other hypotheticals. It’s not taken to be a universal truth. Just a heuristic.
Larry Craig — U.S. Senator (R-ID), voted against gay rights repeatedly; arrested in 2007 for soliciting sex in an airport men’s room.
Ted Haggard — Evangelical pastor and anti-gay activist; resigned in 2006 after a male escort revealed a three-year relationship.
Roy Ashburn — California state senator, consistent anti-gay voting record; came out in 2010 after a DUI arrest leaving a gay bar.
Mark Foley — U.S. Congressman, voted for DOMA; resigned 2006 after sending sexually explicit messages to male congressional pages.
Robert Allen — Florida state legislator, anti-gay votes; arrested 2007 for soliciting an undercover male officer in a park restroom.
Glenn Murphy Jr. — National Young Republicans chair and anti-gay activist; resigned 2007 after a sexual assault allegation involving a man.
George Rekers — Co-founder of Family Research Council, anti-gay activist; photographed in 2010 returning from a trip with a male escort he hired from Rentboy.com.
John Paulk — Ran Exodus International’s ex-gay ministry; photographed at a gay bar in 2000.
I could easily list dozens more examples.
FWIW, Ryan et al. (2012) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found empirical support for the reaction formation hypothesis, that homophobia correlates with suppressed same-sex attraction, particularly in subjects with authoritarian or rejecting parents.
I am aware it occurs but I think this is a minority of insances which people attach more weight to because it's narratively compelling. Antisemitism and racism and misogny indicate that people do not need self-loathing to form prejudicial opinions and hatreds towards an outgroup.
There are 30+ countries in Africa alone where homosexuality is illegal. Do we think they're all just super gay down there, not dealing with it well? Or just prejudiced?
You’re correct that most homophobia worldwide doesn’t require self-loathing as an explanation. I agree with that completely and the Africa example makes the point well. But I think you’re arguing against a claim I didn’t make. The heuristic isn’t “homophobes are secretly gay.” It’s narrower: among individuals who are vocally, perhaps obsessively, anti-gay in contexts where being openly gay is a real option, there’s a documented and statistically supported pattern of suppressed same-sex attraction. That’s not a universal theory of prejudice, it’s a predictive marker for a specific type of person. That’s all. It’s not meant to be a bigger point than that, at least as I understand it.
Your antisemitism/racism analogies don’t map cleanly because the mechanism is identity specific, you can’t have reaction formation against an outgroup you don’t belong to.
The most satisfying response to performative imposter syndrome is: "maybe you're actually an imposter?" So many great facial expressions result in such a short time.
I feel like what both "insecurity-as-identity"/imposter syndrome and "toxic confidence" both speak to is the exact same thing: The absence of a life outside of whatever they're doing, whether it's a job, academia, social media, etc. There's nothing beyond what they're doing at that precise moment, they have nothing else going on other than this. All of this performativity is to fill the void where a social life might be.
It's an extremely asocial/antisocial impulse, at the end of the day, just different ways of addressing the same void.
I agree and it's why I think being busy and the "good" stress associated with it is very healthy for us psychologically. Work, family, friends, hobbies, exercise, etc... we should all strive to fill our lives up as much as we can.
Fill your lives up, but never with just one thing.
This really makes me appreciate the founding text of my own Gen-X culture, Breakfast Club, in which the plot revolves around the five characters building up each other's confidence.
It seems like this is yet another performative-leftist discovery of a way in which some people might not be sufficiently attuned to the merest hint of feelings of discomfort brought on by a particular bit of what was until now called normal behavior. Yay NYT!
"begs you to feel sorry for the people who are busily rewriting culture. The overconfident person at least extends you the basic courtesy of showing their hand. You know what they want, what they think, what they’ll do when threatened"
I really like this.
I was listening to some stuff about "looksmaxing", then there's the macho incel culture that I hear whispers about...the stuff you write about. Maybe each generation doesn't see their own weirdness, how lost they are, but if these phenomenon aren't just interesting stories to tell to grab attention, that's not good. It's a screen covering up things that are real.
I wonder how much of it is on-line culture.
I'd add that the term "imposter syndrome" is misused: there's ordinary, what-am-I-even-doing-here self-doubt and then there is genuine pathology, an irrational belief that one's entire record of genuine accomplishment is actually fake, empty, and meaningless. The former is an unexceptional human feeling and the latter is some variant of clinical depression. Grouping all of that together as a "syndrome" is a category error.
I was thinking along those lines. I could have described myself as experiencing imposter syndrome during my first few years at a job that required (for some reason) you to have a degree, because I just couldn't believe that my brain was worth a company paying money to access*. But I figure a lot of people feel that way at that age. It could also just be described as being surprised to find you're being treated as an adult.
(*Had no problem with being paid to stock shelves, though, even though I'm smarter than I am strong. Go figure.)
In spite of being a Millennial myself, I haven't seen a lot of the whole "insecurity-as-identity" thing. Maybe it's because I don't work in academia or media. But I will say that as someone who was actually diagnosed as a teenager with depression and anxiety and who has also felt impostor syndrome every now and then, I find the whole phenomenon insulting.
Anxiety and impostor syndrome suck. It's no fun having them. I don't wear them as a badge of honor or an identity. I want to be rid of them. I've been working hard at it through actual therapy, not through internet memes. And if "insecurity-as-identity" really has been a defining Millennial characteristic, then I'm happy to see it go the way of the dodo.
Loath as I am to descend into social astrology, I'd like to point out sub-cultural precursors such as Beck's song "Loser," the Sub Pop Losers 7-Inch Single Club, and Smashing Pumpkins' Zero T-Shirts are indicators that performative insecurity has deep, deep roots.
I am adopted for fucks sake, and if anybody’s entitled to feel imposter syndrome, it’s me goddamnit.
Why?
“Do you know who you really are parents are?” “Why don’t you try to find your real family?” “Couldn’t your adoptive parents have children of their own?” Questions I’ve been asked all my life, which all can imply that there is something not quite right with me. I don’t take it that way but I know adoptees who do.
I guess it's different for cats. "You play the cards the dealer gives you" as the bikers say.
The trouble with your comparison is, with possible exception to Smashing Pumpkins (because Billy Corgan has always been a giant fucking weirdo), your examples don't work well because they were meant to be ironic, tongue-in-cheek, goofy. (Loser's lyrics are mostly nonsense!) Here, the performativity is not comic but dramatic, played straight and sincere, sometimes dead serious.
If the Internet has taught me anything it's that, eventually, whole groups will take irony at face value.
I can't help but feel like part of the worldview underlying the "toxic confidence vs. imposter syndrome" dichotomy is that there is literally no objective correlate to feelings of adequacy; they are literally only feelings, a deterministic function of your psychological state and/or moral character (which are themselves, of course, inscrutable and causeless). Your self-assessment can be socially appropriate but it can't ever be ACCURATE, because you are assumed to have zero epistemological access to how well you're actually doing in real life, how good you actually are at a given task, and so on. The classical virtue of magnanimity would be completely impossible.
I've always thought that an ego-to-ability ratio of about 1.1 is probably ideal, though I am more likely to like somebody who is closer to 0.95.
"And yet there was one tic that was quite common among them that I found aggravating: they were frequently obsessive about declaring their imposter syndrome. They were, in fact, competitive about it, always wanting to insist they were the ones who felt the very least deserving of their place."
Sounds like passive aggression. And the cases of toxic confidence that I've known were just the flip side of the same dynamic that gives us self-denigration as passive aggression.
It seems very writerly... If you graduate with an accounting degree and three job offers because the demand for accountants is higher than the supply - I'm betting imposter syndrome isn't as much of a thing. To be an academic or a writer is to be in a world where there are 10x as many candidates as jobs and almost everyone feels inadequate.
Maybe. But worked in tech, and every intelligent and self-aware person I met suffered from it at one point or another. Certainly not as an identity, but as a nagging doubt.
Interesting. By "worked in tech" did you mean you worked for a Cleveland based 20 person software company that makes inventory tracking software for the mining industry? Or "tech."
I think that might be the issue.
Bay Area software companies with headcounts between 50 and 80,000. IIRC it was the same everywhere. Where do you suspect IP syndrome was more prevalent? My sweet spot was ~250 - ~750 people, where I could make a difference.
"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us
with a certain alienated majesty. " - R. W. Emerson
How is it something so transparent to someone who's had a psychotic break is somehow hidden from writers at NYT? Do the reporters themselves actually believe what they are writing, or do they feel obligated to indulge their readers? Do the readers believe what they are reading?
I read NYT and have trouble believing my own eyes, that there is more make believe in adulthood than childhood. Fox News has it's own brand of the phenomenon, but I find the farce is barely hidden, almost delivered with a knowing wink.
Do we need the lies? Crane said the pathway to truth isn't thickly grown with weeds, but boobytrapped with singular knives, so we seek other roads. Freddie stays the course.
"Do the reporters themselves actually believe what they are writing, or do they feel obligated to indulge their readers?"
A mix of both, plus another factor: There is a deep insularity, enabled especially by social media, among this crowd. "Circling the wagons" is the default behavior for a lot of people in these social circles, partly driven by defeatism, partly by class sentiments that indoctrinate a a highly defensive mindset (as you can't trust anyone around you not to stab you in the back and get ahead of you), partly by a sincere belief (coming explicitly from social media use) that anything you say can and *will* be used against you, with one little thing bringing the whole house down.
Secret Alienated Majesty is the name of my new band. Emo-Shoegaze band, that is.
I don't think I understand "toxic" in the context of confidence. Is the confidence in question toxic to the individual or others in his/her circle? Or is "toxic" simply being used as a slur, with jealousy as the trigger?
Probably either, depending on who's saying it. See also "toxic masculinity", which probably inspired the latter term. But in the case of the article quoted, I'd say it's intended as a slur, given that it's directed at people the author seems jealous of.
There's a great scene in Thornton Wilder's play _Our Town_. The teenage Emily asks: "Momma, am I _pretty_?" Her mother replies: "Emily, you make me tired. Now stop it. You're pretty enough for all normal purposes."
That's always stuck with me for some reason. A healthy self-doubt asks, "Am a good enough?" And healthy self-confidence answers: "Yeah. You're fine. Not the best, not the worst. Good enough for all normal purposes. Now shut up."
Love "Our Town." I really could have used that feedback rather than hearing how creative I was, only to find out that my creativity was good enough for all normal purposes, and no more.
It really strikes me, in the excerpt from the NYT, that the writer does not even consider the possibility that anyone is ever presenting themselves honestly. Just being as confident or insecure as you actually are is not an option in this worldview: your only choice is over which direction your pretence will go.
It's reminiscent of the way that gay people often suggest that homophobia is just latent homosexuality masked by self-hatred. Pop culture reinforces this too but of course, are all antisemites secretly Jewish? Are all racists secretly black? Prejudice does not require self hatred at all, but it's an easier way to understand it.
Similarly, since the writer herself isn't confident, she can't imagine that these people actually might be.
It's what a totalizing worldview has to do to avoid cognitive dissonance.
That notion of homophobia and latent gayness wasn’t just made up. It came from people noticing a pattern of actual behavior. Which I don’t think exists in your other hypotheticals. It’s not taken to be a universal truth. Just a heuristic.
Larry Craig — U.S. Senator (R-ID), voted against gay rights repeatedly; arrested in 2007 for soliciting sex in an airport men’s room.
Ted Haggard — Evangelical pastor and anti-gay activist; resigned in 2006 after a male escort revealed a three-year relationship.
Roy Ashburn — California state senator, consistent anti-gay voting record; came out in 2010 after a DUI arrest leaving a gay bar.
Mark Foley — U.S. Congressman, voted for DOMA; resigned 2006 after sending sexually explicit messages to male congressional pages.
Robert Allen — Florida state legislator, anti-gay votes; arrested 2007 for soliciting an undercover male officer in a park restroom.
Glenn Murphy Jr. — National Young Republicans chair and anti-gay activist; resigned 2007 after a sexual assault allegation involving a man.
George Rekers — Co-founder of Family Research Council, anti-gay activist; photographed in 2010 returning from a trip with a male escort he hired from Rentboy.com.
John Paulk — Ran Exodus International’s ex-gay ministry; photographed at a gay bar in 2000.
I could easily list dozens more examples.
FWIW, Ryan et al. (2012) in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found empirical support for the reaction formation hypothesis, that homophobia correlates with suppressed same-sex attraction, particularly in subjects with authoritarian or rejecting parents.
I am aware it occurs but I think this is a minority of insances which people attach more weight to because it's narratively compelling. Antisemitism and racism and misogny indicate that people do not need self-loathing to form prejudicial opinions and hatreds towards an outgroup.
There are 30+ countries in Africa alone where homosexuality is illegal. Do we think they're all just super gay down there, not dealing with it well? Or just prejudiced?
You’re correct that most homophobia worldwide doesn’t require self-loathing as an explanation. I agree with that completely and the Africa example makes the point well. But I think you’re arguing against a claim I didn’t make. The heuristic isn’t “homophobes are secretly gay.” It’s narrower: among individuals who are vocally, perhaps obsessively, anti-gay in contexts where being openly gay is a real option, there’s a documented and statistically supported pattern of suppressed same-sex attraction. That’s not a universal theory of prejudice, it’s a predictive marker for a specific type of person. That’s all. It’s not meant to be a bigger point than that, at least as I understand it.
Your antisemitism/racism analogies don’t map cleanly because the mechanism is identity specific, you can’t have reaction formation against an outgroup you don’t belong to.
Good points all
The most satisfying response to performative imposter syndrome is: "maybe you're actually an imposter?" So many great facial expressions result in such a short time.
Ha! Oh man, I am so trying that.