Don't you know who I think I am?

Congratulations on your celebrity status.

There was a time, not so long ago, when that title was reserved for a select few - the talented, the rich, the actually famous.  But in today's modern information age, in which news as important as international peace negotiations is shared in the exact same medium as posts about what we are making for dinner and blogs about our own person rants, we are all entitled to the same spotlight.  

As the self-indulgent Baby Boomer generation and their even more tech-savy offspring move further into the 21st century, we have embraced what history will most assuredly note as our defining characteristic: narcissism.

One needs to look no further than any one of the several social networking tools which we subscribe to in order to find evidence of this cultural phenomenon.  Designed to "keep us connected with friends," these sites are now utilized to feed our ever-growing need for attention.  We post about when we wake up, what we eat, where we are waiting in line - all as if these mundane activities are of interest to some sort of following.  Have our friends become our fan-base?  

Simply put, technology has found a way to supplement the growth of our generation's most prominent characteristic: narcissism.  

We are self-important masses who have been convinced by everything from Sesame Street to car commercials that ours is the most important need, want, opinion, idea etc.  And now, this misconception is being reinforced by our ability to play celebrity - broadcasting our trivial rants to the masses and posting pictures of our everyday lives, acting as a sort of first-person paparazzi.

Don't get me wrong, the irony here is not lost on me - a blog about how narcissistic it is to be blogging.  I am admittedly the proverbial pot and kettle, in this case. 

However, there is some truth to the modern day sentiment of universal celebrity, and we need look no further than the source of most profound and universal truths to find it - cartoons.  In The Incredibles, Dash's mom is scolding him for using his unique powers in school, and telling him to act like everyone else.  "Everyone is special," she tells him, to which he replies under his breath, "Which is another way of saying that no one is."  And so we realize that we are all unique and in that way, we are all the same.  With that in mind, it seems okay to assume that world would care about our thoughts just as much as famous political analysts or that strangers would want to see our baby's pictures just as badly as Tom and Katie's kid.  They're just people too, right?

And so, go on with your blogs and posts and tweets and flickr accounts.  Broadcast yourself to the masses, because you are special, just like everyone else.