Truman Syndrome

And are the fantastic suppositions of some bloggers perhaps milder versions of this psychosis? Link: To some psychiatric patients, life seems like TV - Yahoo! News.

Researchers have begun documenting what they dub the "Truman syndrome," a delusion afflicting people who are convinced that their lives are secretly playing out on a reality TV show. Scientists say the disorder underscores the influence pop culture can have on mental conditions.

"The question is really: Is this just a new twist on an old paranoid or grandiose delusion ... or is there sort of a perfect storm of the culture we're in, in which fame holds such high value?" said Dr. Joel Gold, a psychiatrist affiliated with New York's Bellevue Hospital.

Comments

[Seb]

I'd think it's not that fame holds such high value but the opposite: that anyone can be famous, by accident as much as anything in the age of viral videos & a plethora of websites pandering to every petty vanity. Certainly, with every semi-mythological icon (from Ozzy Osborne to Hulk Hogan) starring in their own show to prove their daily lives are as haphazard & menial as anyone's, the message would seem to be that: if celebrities can be normal workaday schlubs, then it works both ways.

I also think Patrick McGoohan's 1960s series "The Prisoner" is possibly a better fantastic analogy (not far enough removed from reality for comfort) than "The Truman Show". Especially the episode "Free For All" - sure it goes a little off the rails towards the end, but tell me it ain't scarily prescient with regard to this past election cycle.

[John Locker]

Jodi, did you see the article on Zizek in the New Republic?

[Jodi]

John Locker--thanks for the heads up; I had not seen it.