Are you a special person? How self-obsessed are we, as a society? How and why do we compare ourselves to others? What makes us group-ish? Violent? Or community minded? How about narcissistic? And is that getting worse?

This week's guest is the British author Will Storr, who's latest book is Status Game: on social position and how we use it.

After reading one of his previous books - Selfie, How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us - Clare persuaded him to come on Wardrobe Crisis and share his ideas and research about what lies beneath our social media culture, power games, virtue signalling and obsession with getting ahead.

Will is also the author of a book, TED talk and creative writing class called The Science of Storytelling.

In this lively discussion, Will and Clare talk about everything from Ancient Greece to TIME magazine covers; the origins of the self-esteem movement to Instagram; narcissism, perfectionism, mental health and the origins of western individualism.

What do you think? Let us know! We're on Instagram @mrspress and @thewardrobecrisis, and on Twitter @mrspress

Head over to https://thewardrobecrisis.com/podcast/2021/9/7/ep-149-status-self-obsession-mental-health-amp-whats-really-controlling-how-we-act-will-storr to read yours and #bethechange

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