Grateful you did this-almost no one recognizes what this interaction really is, let alone has the knowledge to illustrate in steps what's really going on for bewildered normal people. Thank you.
Thank you Josh! I never know how these will be received but people tend to enjoy learning about interesting archetypes. Some people are hell bent on seeing the good in others, giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming good faith, and reading text as truth of someone's intent. You and I both know this is naive and end up contacting us for support with their own narcissist-related problems.
That response pattern is so common in internet discourse -- and has been since Usenet -- that it looks normal anymore.
I've learned to walk away from it. I just don't have the energy to effectively parry (assuming it can be done), and nothing's lost by leaving them hanging.
Someone is wrong on the internet? I just don't care anymore.
Good stuff. Having been a woman with male-typical interests on social media for awhile (I had 17,000ish followers on Twitter when I left a few years ago, in an era when that was a LOT for a personal account) I have been through every conceivable method of dealing with this stuff. I've finally settled on defaulting to "probably bad faith" for everyone who isn't a paid subscribers. I don't like this, and I try to be quick to apologize when I get it wrong, but that heuristic is like 80% accurate according to what I can tell. Which is sad.
I have witnessed some of those domination attempts on you and your assertive smack downs. It is sad that we have to stop and wonder if people are bad faith actors rather than having the benefit of assuming everyone is playing nice. I'm reading some of the comments here with the same suspicions.
“You’re a narcissist”** is what the gentleman intended to write. I’m usually not a stickler for grammar, but with those that launch ridiculous attacks…I’m all for it.
He's already having a bad day exposing himself the way he has. He could have planted those mistakes as lures to bait my grammar police (product of the Canadian education system in the 80s). I wasn't going to go there.
Thank you for your work. I tell the kids and I even tell myself that sometimes it’s just typed words and you can’t take them personally. But when those words are directed at us personally, it’s not so easy. Our competitive side takes over. Then we waste our time when we could’ve been doing something that matters. And after that, we waste even more time justifying why we reacted because we feel embarrassed for having stepped in it. Thank you for articulating shared experiences that I forget we’ve all had in common.
Thank you Shawn! Lessons for kids on engaging in battles via text is so important. Mine have learned not to put anything in writing that could be twisted by fake friends, and to speak over the phone instead (better for social skill development anyway).
I have cringed for falling for these tactics in the past and wasted my time and emotional energy. Never again.
I tell them to always write like you’re expecting it to be reposted by someone who doesn’t like you at some point in the future. Thank God they do a better job than I! 🤣
How I handle "Cluster B" behaviors can be summed up in three simple words:
Go
To
Hell
I put everything I write online under my name, or under my Substack's title, which easily comes back to me. If I say something, I'm required to stand by it.
Which means if people don't like what I say, that's their issue. I'll happily engage in reasoned debate, but if I get emotional incontinence in response, I make good use of the "Delete" and "Block" functions.
Believing as Oscar Wilde did, that a gentleman is never unintentionally rude, I like to think my commentary is mostly civil. Accordingly, I take no responsibility for the emotional reactions of others.
Respect means you get courtesy and civility -- right up to the point where you respond with rudeness and ridiculous word salad.
I like your summary Peter. We have a respect deficiency in these Substack halls (and other platforms). I look forward to seeing a 'go to hell' in response to a troll next time I'm scrolling through my feed.
Thankfully, at least in my experience, there is no Substack culture under which blocking someone immediately means that the blocker has somehow "lost" to the blockee. I block up and down, left and right with gusto; it's just good hygiene.
This post is chef’s kiss—a masterclass in decoding online dominance games. You’ve nailed the anatomy of bad-faith engagement, and I love how you expose the predictable script these pseudo-intellectuals follow. It’s like they all took the same “How to Argue Like a Contrarian Genius” course on YouTube and never graduated.
The whole intellectual authority test move? Classic. They don’t actually want an answer; they want to corner you into a debate ring where they’ve already crowned themselves the winner. And the shifting burden of proof tactic? That’s their way of making you dance while they stand smugly on the sidelines, offering nothing of substance.
But my favorite part? The escalation. The moment you don’t engage on their terms, they swap persuasion for personal attacks. The PhD mockery is especially telling—nothing screams “I desperately crave validation” like someone pretending credentials don’t matter… while being obsessed with proving their own superiority.
What’s wild is that they actually believe they’re rational truth-tellers while being completely ruled by their emotions. That “laughing emoji” maneuver? It’s textbook emotional manipulation—a flimsy attempt to belittle you while they’re clearly fuming. It’s giving “I’m not mad, you’re mad” energy.
Your advice is gold: don’t feed the beast. These people thrive on attention. They aren’t looking for a real exchange, just a battle where they can flex their fragile ego. Silence, mockery, or a well-placed “I’ll leave you to your projections” shuts the whole thing down.
Thank you Fahim! This is a great compliment indeed along with your additional analysis. When you can see it, you can see it. These peeps are inspiration for many pieces to come and it's fascinating when others go to defend this behaviour because they can't yet see (what they already do).
This is so brilliant. We have a new archetype and a great checklist to refer to when we are being trolled online, thank you Nathalie!
The online troll is a particular breed because they hide behind their anonymity (even if not anon accounts). The layers of separation in the online sphere make it easier for them to engage like narcissists/sociopaths. Perhaps it brings out a latent darkness? (Or emboldens a not-so-latent darkness!)
I would love to see a print magazine of all your top articles. I would love to have this in a coffee table edition I could pick up when needed :).
Thank you so much Kate! I have a few more archetypes coming out :) Life is full of such inspiration!
I think living behind a screen gives people false courage to say what they really think and feel because there's nothing to lose. This can entice our darker behaviour to come out and play.
Great info. I am learning not to join the debate or provide indepth explanations (or any explanations). Therein lies the grand trap. Fruitless and almost impossible to win or get out of again. For which they thrive. They are masters of manipulation, twisting words, and playing dumb. Gracefully, give only inarguable facts, if necessary, or silence. Starve them, as you said. Thank you for this article.
Thank you Dove! It can be hard to not take the bait especially when it's on a topic you know enough about for a good debate. But these people only want your energy. If everyone starves them, they eventually leave. I dream of a troll-less online world.
You've just described communications I've had with someone I love very much, but have greatly reduced communication with, because this sort of thing happened SO often. I finally said "No more".
Wise move Jaye. Now you can recharge and keep those boundaries firm. Be alert to when they change their tune and attempt to hoover/suck you back in. They will seem reasonable for a bit until you're successfully locked back into the drama. People do not change quickly even if they say they have.
Natalie, I might have missed something, but I don't see that you answered his question, either. I'm asking in good faith, not being sarcastic.
Please be simple and precise in your answer. It is possible that I'm just too obtuse. God knows I have always wanted to understand what is most true, beginning with myself.
But I had an experience where my ex accused me of Narcissism and even claimed to others that our therapist told her that I was and that I "would never change." I didn't believe that a licensed therapist would ever say that a patient would never change, so I called the therapist directly and was told that not only did she never tell my ex that, but that my ex was projecting.
Narcissism is a moral judgement after all, as I hope you will concede, and at this time in our culture, it is a condemnation I read repeatedly. (I'm tempted to use the hackneyed term "weaponized" .)
I don't doubt that NPD is a valid psychopathology, but given its devastating implications and thus the demoralizing effect on anyone accused of it, I wonder if it's overused and carelessly applied.
I was worried enough about the issue that I sought the opinion of a therapist who, after having counseled me for sometime prior for other issues, laughed when I asked him if I was a Narcissist.
Is it a matter of what you owe, or a matter of Grace, that is, what you are willing to give regardless of any sense of obligation? I put a lot of effort into the question I posed to you, and you responded by blowing me off, and of course you had the right to do that.
And I have every right to unfollow you, but I choose not to do so.
You can describe my choice in whatever terms you wish, Nathalie, for that is also your right.
I respond to questions that relate to the content of my article. You are speaking about your experience of being labelled a narcissist and comment on NPD. This piece is not about personality disorders - it's about antisocial behaviours that any of us are capable of exhibiting. When I see these behaviours, it's my cue to not engage.
"I don't see that you answered his question, either."
He didn't actually ask a question. He wasn't asking for information or inviting her to engage in an intellectual discussion.
If he were asking in good faith, he would have said something like, "But do we really know what good and evil are? Maybe they're struggling with the question like the rest of us."
Instead, he kept going with challenges to her intelligence. The underlying assumption of all his comments is "you're a moron and I'm going to wreck you for it."
That's what she correctly detected.
I know it's frustrating to not see what other people are seeing. I sometimes get blindsided by other people's assumptions, and it is no fun at all.
Thank you dicentra for explaining this. This article has received a lot of attention and I'm trying to keep up with the comments. It's relief that you see the games clearly even when the gameplayers and others can't.
I’m not sure her answer to the question is relevant to this post or anything contained therein.
Pointing out clearly openly narcissistic behaviors is not akin to Diagnosing a person with narcissism, and it’s a very helpful framework for saving our precious social energy in a world where most people we interact with are not people whose bad behavior we have an obligation to entertain
Thank you kilye for explaining this so well. You get it. Some people see the word 'narcissism' and go straight to personality disorder instead of reading the article in its entirety so that they can discover other descriptions.
Wow, that part about starving their need for attention hit hard. We call it “going full gray rock”, because sometimes our silence is the only boundary they’ll halfway respect. The worst part is that they never want a conversation, they want a performance, while they sit front row judging our every word. We’re not debating a person, we’re feeding a void. This is such a good reminder. It’s never about winning. It’s about not handing them the script!
Most definitely! That is pure gold, Nathalie. The transition to become a gray rock is really harder than it may seem to implement, but I'm convinced that it's the right approach. I'm living this process in real time as I speak, and guess what, sometimes I get myself missing the narcissist I'm trying to grayrock (which seems to be typical on abuser-abused relations as the abused ones seems to develop a sense of guilt).
I rather practice my english. Practice, that's how one improve, I believe. And love to be corrected and taught.
I'll send you my translation before anything if you wish to, will be my pleasure, the goal is to be as accurate as possible.
But all this links and informations, that is realy all new for me.
I discovered feminsim activism on my way to radical ecology and techno-criticism.
You can tell by who I follow where I stand quite easely.
I would like to say something in french :
J'aime le ton analytique, le décortiquage chirurcal et le ton cynique à la limite du caustique. Je me régale, j'en suis au moment croustillant, mais je me perds dans toutes ces informations.
J'y retourne, merci pour toute cette nourriture cérébrale.
"every once in a while, I post something subtly provocative"
"when in reality it’s just a sentence they interpreted uncharitably"
Some enjoy this process to achieve a dominative stance over people who become "too stupid as they did not get it"
What you describe in your article becomes possible in the opposite way, and I suppose that the concept of "service to self" may be of help to identify & set the red line
Grateful you did this-almost no one recognizes what this interaction really is, let alone has the knowledge to illustrate in steps what's really going on for bewildered normal people. Thank you.
Thank you Josh! I never know how these will be received but people tend to enjoy learning about interesting archetypes. Some people are hell bent on seeing the good in others, giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming good faith, and reading text as truth of someone's intent. You and I both know this is naive and end up contacting us for support with their own narcissist-related problems.
Some of the comments here are...interesting.
I'm one of those niave ones who wants to believe everyone is good and well intentioned, empathic, etc. What a mistake to think that!
That response pattern is so common in internet discourse -- and has been since Usenet -- that it looks normal anymore.
I've learned to walk away from it. I just don't have the energy to effectively parry (assuming it can be done), and nothing's lost by leaving them hanging.
Someone is wrong on the internet? I just don't care anymore.
Not wasting your energy is wise. I tend to take this approach except when I'm in a more playful mood.
Good stuff. Having been a woman with male-typical interests on social media for awhile (I had 17,000ish followers on Twitter when I left a few years ago, in an era when that was a LOT for a personal account) I have been through every conceivable method of dealing with this stuff. I've finally settled on defaulting to "probably bad faith" for everyone who isn't a paid subscribers. I don't like this, and I try to be quick to apologize when I get it wrong, but that heuristic is like 80% accurate according to what I can tell. Which is sad.
I have witnessed some of those domination attempts on you and your assertive smack downs. It is sad that we have to stop and wonder if people are bad faith actors rather than having the benefit of assuming everyone is playing nice. I'm reading some of the comments here with the same suspicions.
“You’re a narcissist”** is what the gentleman intended to write. I’m usually not a stickler for grammar, but with those that launch ridiculous attacks…I’m all for it.
Bad grammar dampens the blow. Badly written insults hurts the insulter more than the insulted.
i noticed that, too… the improper use of “your,” and “someone” as two words.
card-carrying member of the grammar police over here 🙋🏼♀️ i wouldn’t have been able to resist calling him out!
He's already having a bad day exposing himself the way he has. He could have planted those mistakes as lures to bait my grammar police (product of the Canadian education system in the 80s). I wasn't going to go there.
i am learning to disengage... thanks for guiding the way!
Thank you, yessss.
Thank you for your work. I tell the kids and I even tell myself that sometimes it’s just typed words and you can’t take them personally. But when those words are directed at us personally, it’s not so easy. Our competitive side takes over. Then we waste our time when we could’ve been doing something that matters. And after that, we waste even more time justifying why we reacted because we feel embarrassed for having stepped in it. Thank you for articulating shared experiences that I forget we’ve all had in common.
Thank you Shawn! Lessons for kids on engaging in battles via text is so important. Mine have learned not to put anything in writing that could be twisted by fake friends, and to speak over the phone instead (better for social skill development anyway).
I have cringed for falling for these tactics in the past and wasted my time and emotional energy. Never again.
I tell them to always write like you’re expecting it to be reposted by someone who doesn’t like you at some point in the future. Thank God they do a better job than I! 🤣
"Our competitive side takes over. Then we waste our time when we could’ve been doing something that matters." Well said.
Thank you!
How I handle "Cluster B" behaviors can be summed up in three simple words:
Go
To
Hell
I put everything I write online under my name, or under my Substack's title, which easily comes back to me. If I say something, I'm required to stand by it.
Which means if people don't like what I say, that's their issue. I'll happily engage in reasoned debate, but if I get emotional incontinence in response, I make good use of the "Delete" and "Block" functions.
Believing as Oscar Wilde did, that a gentleman is never unintentionally rude, I like to think my commentary is mostly civil. Accordingly, I take no responsibility for the emotional reactions of others.
Respect means you get courtesy and civility -- right up to the point where you respond with rudeness and ridiculous word salad.
I like your summary Peter. We have a respect deficiency in these Substack halls (and other platforms). I look forward to seeing a 'go to hell' in response to a troll next time I'm scrolling through my feed.
Thankfully, at least in my experience, there is no Substack culture under which blocking someone immediately means that the blocker has somehow "lost" to the blockee. I block up and down, left and right with gusto; it's just good hygiene.
Substack hygiene is a great term and practice. Thanks for making it happen @Mancuso!
This post is chef’s kiss—a masterclass in decoding online dominance games. You’ve nailed the anatomy of bad-faith engagement, and I love how you expose the predictable script these pseudo-intellectuals follow. It’s like they all took the same “How to Argue Like a Contrarian Genius” course on YouTube and never graduated.
The whole intellectual authority test move? Classic. They don’t actually want an answer; they want to corner you into a debate ring where they’ve already crowned themselves the winner. And the shifting burden of proof tactic? That’s their way of making you dance while they stand smugly on the sidelines, offering nothing of substance.
But my favorite part? The escalation. The moment you don’t engage on their terms, they swap persuasion for personal attacks. The PhD mockery is especially telling—nothing screams “I desperately crave validation” like someone pretending credentials don’t matter… while being obsessed with proving their own superiority.
What’s wild is that they actually believe they’re rational truth-tellers while being completely ruled by their emotions. That “laughing emoji” maneuver? It’s textbook emotional manipulation—a flimsy attempt to belittle you while they’re clearly fuming. It’s giving “I’m not mad, you’re mad” energy.
Your advice is gold: don’t feed the beast. These people thrive on attention. They aren’t looking for a real exchange, just a battle where they can flex their fragile ego. Silence, mockery, or a well-placed “I’ll leave you to your projections” shuts the whole thing down.
Thank you Fahim! This is a great compliment indeed along with your additional analysis. When you can see it, you can see it. These peeps are inspiration for many pieces to come and it's fascinating when others go to defend this behaviour because they can't yet see (what they already do).
This is so brilliant. We have a new archetype and a great checklist to refer to when we are being trolled online, thank you Nathalie!
The online troll is a particular breed because they hide behind their anonymity (even if not anon accounts). The layers of separation in the online sphere make it easier for them to engage like narcissists/sociopaths. Perhaps it brings out a latent darkness? (Or emboldens a not-so-latent darkness!)
I would love to see a print magazine of all your top articles. I would love to have this in a coffee table edition I could pick up when needed :).
Thank you so much Kate! I have a few more archetypes coming out :) Life is full of such inspiration!
I think living behind a screen gives people false courage to say what they really think and feel because there's nothing to lose. This can entice our darker behaviour to come out and play.
A coffee table book? I like your thinking.
Some people are just emotinally unhinged.
Why rage?
A textbook gamma response, as I've learned from Vox Day.
Great info. I am learning not to join the debate or provide indepth explanations (or any explanations). Therein lies the grand trap. Fruitless and almost impossible to win or get out of again. For which they thrive. They are masters of manipulation, twisting words, and playing dumb. Gracefully, give only inarguable facts, if necessary, or silence. Starve them, as you said. Thank you for this article.
Thank you Dove! It can be hard to not take the bait especially when it's on a topic you know enough about for a good debate. But these people only want your energy. If everyone starves them, they eventually leave. I dream of a troll-less online world.
You've just described communications I've had with someone I love very much, but have greatly reduced communication with, because this sort of thing happened SO often. I finally said "No more".
Wise move Jaye. Now you can recharge and keep those boundaries firm. Be alert to when they change their tune and attempt to hoover/suck you back in. They will seem reasonable for a bit until you're successfully locked back into the drama. People do not change quickly even if they say they have.
Natalie, I might have missed something, but I don't see that you answered his question, either. I'm asking in good faith, not being sarcastic.
Please be simple and precise in your answer. It is possible that I'm just too obtuse. God knows I have always wanted to understand what is most true, beginning with myself.
But I had an experience where my ex accused me of Narcissism and even claimed to others that our therapist told her that I was and that I "would never change." I didn't believe that a licensed therapist would ever say that a patient would never change, so I called the therapist directly and was told that not only did she never tell my ex that, but that my ex was projecting.
Narcissism is a moral judgement after all, as I hope you will concede, and at this time in our culture, it is a condemnation I read repeatedly. (I'm tempted to use the hackneyed term "weaponized" .)
I don't doubt that NPD is a valid psychopathology, but given its devastating implications and thus the demoralizing effect on anyone accused of it, I wonder if it's overused and carelessly applied.
I was worried enough about the issue that I sought the opinion of a therapist who, after having counseled me for sometime prior for other issues, laughed when I asked him if I was a Narcissist.
Thanks for your insight.
Mike
Here it is Michael: I don't owe anyone an explanation just because I shared some thoughts on the internet.
Is it a matter of what you owe, or a matter of Grace, that is, what you are willing to give regardless of any sense of obligation? I put a lot of effort into the question I posed to you, and you responded by blowing me off, and of course you had the right to do that.
And I have every right to unfollow you, but I choose not to do so.
You can describe my choice in whatever terms you wish, Nathalie, for that is also your right.
I respond to questions that relate to the content of my article. You are speaking about your experience of being labelled a narcissist and comment on NPD. This piece is not about personality disorders - it's about antisocial behaviours that any of us are capable of exhibiting. When I see these behaviours, it's my cue to not engage.
"I don't see that you answered his question, either."
He didn't actually ask a question. He wasn't asking for information or inviting her to engage in an intellectual discussion.
If he were asking in good faith, he would have said something like, "But do we really know what good and evil are? Maybe they're struggling with the question like the rest of us."
Instead, he kept going with challenges to her intelligence. The underlying assumption of all his comments is "you're a moron and I'm going to wreck you for it."
That's what she correctly detected.
I know it's frustrating to not see what other people are seeing. I sometimes get blindsided by other people's assumptions, and it is no fun at all.
Thank you dicentra for explaining this. This article has received a lot of attention and I'm trying to keep up with the comments. It's relief that you see the games clearly even when the gameplayers and others can't.
I’m not sure her answer to the question is relevant to this post or anything contained therein.
Pointing out clearly openly narcissistic behaviors is not akin to Diagnosing a person with narcissism, and it’s a very helpful framework for saving our precious social energy in a world where most people we interact with are not people whose bad behavior we have an obligation to entertain
Thank you kilye for explaining this so well. You get it. Some people see the word 'narcissism' and go straight to personality disorder instead of reading the article in its entirety so that they can discover other descriptions.
Great post! Delete and block works too.
Thank you Kelly!
Wow, that part about starving their need for attention hit hard. We call it “going full gray rock”, because sometimes our silence is the only boundary they’ll halfway respect. The worst part is that they never want a conversation, they want a performance, while they sit front row judging our every word. We’re not debating a person, we’re feeding a void. This is such a good reminder. It’s never about winning. It’s about not handing them the script!
Yes to gray rocking. I wrote all about it here: https://www.hackingnarcissism.com/p/ggg
It does require strong ego management and covert boundary enforcement to walk away without them noticing.
Most definitely! That is pure gold, Nathalie. The transition to become a gray rock is really harder than it may seem to implement, but I'm convinced that it's the right approach. I'm living this process in real time as I speak, and guess what, sometimes I get myself missing the narcissist I'm trying to grayrock (which seems to be typical on abuser-abused relations as the abused ones seems to develop a sense of guilt).
People have to override their guilt reflex from no longer serving the narcissistic person. Hard but doable!
Thanks Jamie for your enthusiasm. Love that you're focusing on exposing all things covert narcissism. There's so much needed to open people's eyes!
Reading this after reading you on others posts, specialy the pick-me kind claiming that patriarchy is dead, is realy troubling me.
I feel king of lost.
You pique my interest and gave me new words to learn.
Thank you for giving ressources tools, tho. Truely gratefull.
Thanks Quentin!
Sorry for all my typos on top of rubbish english. Don't thank me yet, tho. I'm on your last one, starting to translate it in my very best french.
A brand new World opening.
You can write in french. I can speak and understand enough.
I rather practice my english. Practice, that's how one improve, I believe. And love to be corrected and taught.
I'll send you my translation before anything if you wish to, will be my pleasure, the goal is to be as accurate as possible.
But all this links and informations, that is realy all new for me.
I discovered feminsim activism on my way to radical ecology and techno-criticism.
You can tell by who I follow where I stand quite easely.
I would like to say something in french :
J'aime le ton analytique, le décortiquage chirurcal et le ton cynique à la limite du caustique. Je me régale, j'en suis au moment croustillant, mais je me perds dans toutes ces informations.
J'y retourne, merci pour toute cette nourriture cérébrale.
for the record, evil can be narrowed down to psychopathology without loosing the generic scope that the word evil provides
"psychopathology" has that ability to remain generical and at the same time inherently qualifies things precisely
"every once in a while, I post something subtly provocative"
"when in reality it’s just a sentence they interpreted uncharitably"
Some enjoy this process to achieve a dominative stance over people who become "too stupid as they did not get it"
What you describe in your article becomes possible in the opposite way, and I suppose that the concept of "service to self" may be of help to identify & set the red line