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The dark triads' sidekicks: the self-debasing enablers
I remember I had a biology teacher in high school I couldn't stand.
She'd take any chance to brag and social climb... On her own class of teenagers (eye-roll).
Explaining blood markers it was:
I can bring you my own analysis maybe... I have nothing to hide anyway, fit as a fiddle
Social climbing on those who are (supposedly) not as fit, how cool (eye-roll).
(Sharing an actual test result would have actually been useful. But of course, she never brought anything, it was just to brag).
Another day explaining the Bowman capsule she'd take a teacher frame explaining English language:
Climber: You call it "Bauman", "ow"- in English is pronounced Au, wow, you don't even know english?
And while I had barely the time to think "here she goes again, how cheap", a female classmate jumps in loudly:
Social digger: Noooo, professor, we don't know anything (laughing)
The professor LOVED that (and of course went on to further thread expanded on it).
An audience willing to prostrate itself to make her feel even better and smarter by comparison.
The true heaven of the egotistic social climber.
And my classmate loved it too -someone else laughed along, the professor she wanted to gratify was vibing with her (but truly just taking), and it seemed a win-win on the surface.
A match made in heaven: the climber meets the social peg that willingly sacrifices himself for the climber's glory.
Narcissist's sidekicks: killing your status for social scraps
I've seen similar dynamics several more times in life.
You get a narcissist, social climber or braggart who teams up and sometimes even brings along as a "friend" a social digger sidekick.
They both get something:
The narcissist gets an easy social peg to feed on to feel good, and gain some social points -at least, with the turkeys-.
And the social digger, generally a low status and low self-esteem person, gets to tag along with someone whom they think is higher value than they are.
But the social diggers may not gain much since they will always enter any social group as the tag-along, useless-if-by-himself sidekick.
Exceptions always apply, so there can be a time and place to (jokingly) tag along a narcissistc going straight to the top.
But generally speaking, we recommend to avoid being the narcissist's sidekick and enabler.
Very interesting power dynamics, thank you!
