About six years ago, I was lucky enough to score a trip around Europe along with 20 or so journalists and major TikTok and Instagram players from all over the world for the purpose of writing a travel story.
As we visited each incredible site – the Colosseum, the Acropolis, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Big Ben – the media pack was asked to wait until a particular influencer got his uninterrupted shot. So we would watch as this bloke put his phone on a tripod – facing himself – and jumped in the air. That’s it. He took no notes, asked no questions. The object was not to capture a wonder of the world, but himself in front of it. He was the main attraction.
One of the first lessons I learnt in journalism was that a reporter should not be part of the story – we are observers, not participants. But I came up through the ranks in what is now referred to as “traditional” media – before Instagram and TikTok influencers. So I sucked up my annoyance at the “jump journalist”, believing it was peak folly. Oh, how wrong I was.
Fast-forward to Taylor Swift’s 2024 concert. It was exciting to see the singer and her spectacular stage show, and I wasn’t surprised most of the audience had their phones out to capture a memory. But when I looked more closely at a large group of young girls in front of me, I realised their cameras were not aimed at the superstar on stage but on themselves, singing along loudly to her songs. They were the main characters of the experience, Taylor a mere background extra.
After my Europe experience, I wasn’t as shocked; I almost expected it. It was just another example of main character syndrome, a term to describe people who see the world as their stage and themselves as the hero of every story. Others are simply their audience, a mirror to their self-importance.
If there was a pictorial definition of this term, it would be singer Katy Perry in outer space looking into a camera lens holding a daisy while the spectacle of the world unfolding through a window behind her goes unnoticed.
I’ve been screamed at in a taxi queue by a gang wielding cameras to record my reaction to their nonsensical gibber.
Most of us have encountered main character syndrome as we go about our everyday lives. I regularly have to stop on a busy pathway while someone poses for a perfect shot. Then checks the camera. Then poses again. It’s as though a public space is theirs alone, and I am polluting it with my presence. And don’t get me started on loud talkers on public transport and other confined spaces. Their conversation is not entertainment, it’s intrusion.
I’ve been at comedy gigs when someone in the audience laughs too loudly, or calls out a one-liner they believe is funnier than anything the comedian could muster. I’ve been screamed at in a taxi queue by a gang wielding cameras to record my reaction to their nonsensical gibber. And I’ve had my dog awkwardly picked up and used as a photo prop without my consent.
I don’t want to be a killjoy here. I was loud and attention-seeking in my younger days, and we’re all allowed to be silly. But these days, it seems too many of us confuse self-esteem with self-entitlement. Which is why I’ve fully embraced a new word that should be drilled into children from birth, a word that encapsulates the essence of being a decent human being in six letters.
This word is “sonder”, describing the feeling one has when realising that every other individual has a life as full and as real as one’s own, that everyone is the central character in their own story, and that others, including oneself, have secondary roles.
It is a simple notion which, along with other traits I long to see re-introduced and re-embraced – humility, modesty, decorum, respect – is sadly lacking in a society saturated in social media.
Sonderism is a salient reminder that you are the centre of your world, not mine. Love yourself but don’t expect everyone else to as well. Let us discover your brilliance on our terms, not yours.
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