10 Ways Covert Narcissists Use Social Media to Control, Manipulate, and Punish You

I’m sad to say that I’m a survivor of narcissistic abuse three times over. I’m also a prolific user of social media for both professional and personal purposes, and I know extremely well how it can be used for good and for evil. Through my experiences with covert narcissists, ongoing therapy as part of my recovery, and just being an outside observer of hundreds of women with similar experiences, I’ve noticed that there is a very strong correlation between covert narcissists and their use of social media to abuse their victims, usually without them even realizing that they’re being abused.

Social media is a huge playground for narcissist of all kinds to get their needs met for attention and admiration. But it’s particularly useful for covert narcissists, who operate under the radar and use subtle and passive aggressive tactics to control and manipulate their victims. Let’s take a deeper look into who they are and why they do this.

[For the record, I use male pronouns in this article just from personal perspective. Covert narcissists can be any gender.]

What is a covert narcissist?

The term narcissist gets thrown around too easily these days, and many people interpret it as somebody who is merely self-centered and arrogant. However, the true meaning goes far deeper than that. There are several different types of narcissists, but they do have a few things in common, including a sense of entitlement, grandiosity, and a complete lack of empathy. Due to a variety of factors that include childhood trauma, narcissists never developed a sense of self and were stunted emotionally at a very young age. They have no way to derive self esteem from within, so they rely completely on the attention and validation of others to survive. This is what’s known as narcissistic supply, and their entire lives revolve around getting this from other people. All narcissists are incapable of feeling or demonstrating real love or empathy, and they view people as objects to be used to serve their needs. They also all have a layer just under the surface of anger that can turn into narcissistic rage when crossed.

Overt narcissists are what some people might automatically link with that word. People who are loud, pushy, boastful, and arrogant. But covert narcissists present very differently, which makes them extremely dangerous. They are also known as vulnerable narcissists and come across as nice, shy, humble, and charming. What really throws you off is how self deprecating they are. They will put themselves down in order to seek compliments and validation from other people. CNs are deeply insecure, highly sensitive to real or perceived criticism, refuse accountability for their actions (it’s always someone else’s fault), and believe the world is out to get them (victim complex). They created a false self, also known as a mask, a long time ago so that people will like them. When you interact with a CN, this is who you get, and who you fall in love with. It’s an illusion, it’s not who they really are.

Their primary motivator is the need for power and control, and they rely on passive aggressive tactics to manipulate their victims. Their methods of control, manipulation, and abuse are so subtle that no one outside the relationship would be able to pinpoint them, and the abuse can make you feel like you’re going crazy. The worst part is that no one would believe you if you told them about the abuse because CNs are generally very popular and well liked. Their relationships with other people are all surface level, so no one can imagine they would be such a monster behind closed doors.

What is a relationship with a covert narcissist like?

Being involved romantically with a covert narcissist is a special brand of hell I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Every single relationship with a CN follows exactly the same pattern, although the timelines might look a little different depending on the person.

Love bombing. This happens at the very beginning of the relationship where the CN will shower you with attention, affection, gifts, and praise. They will study you and they will mirror you to become a person that seems like they were custom-made for you. Remember that a CN doesn’t have a true sense of self, so they are chameleons in that they can become whoever their partner wants them to be. You will fall very quickly and get addicted to the dopamine rush they provide. You will feel like no one has ever understood you as well as this person, you will feel very intensely connected, like they are your soulmate. It’s important to understand that none of this is real, and it is all a mask designed to hook you.

Devaluation. Once the CN has you hooked, something undefinable will happen where they start to withdraw. They get bored or you do something to reveal yourself as a normal flawed human being, and they start to assert control and a sense of superiority over you. Jealousy is a hallmark of covert narcissism, but not for the reasons you think. They will start hating everything about you that they loved in the beginning. They are jealous of all your amazing attributes because they can never be those things. This is why they devalue. They will stop liking your social media posts. They will stop texting or calling as much. Texts will be short and dismissive. They will stop taking you out on dates, limit and control the amount of time you spend together. They may withdraw sex and affection altogether. Anything they know that you want or need from them, they will intentionally withhold because they know it hurts you. They will breadcrumb you and give you just enough attention to keep you hanging on, but then go long periods of time ignoring you or treating you like garbage. They will minimize your successes, won’t celebrate your achievements, won’t be there for you if you get sick or need them for help.

Discard. This is when the CN finally gets rid of you, or engages in something called a reverse discard. This is when they push you to break up with them so they don’t look like the bad guy. The discard can be extremely cold, brutal, and may come out of nowhere. It usually happens because the CN no longer has use for you, can no longer derive any supply from you, has a new supply (he was likely grooming her to be your replacement while you were still together), or you have inflicted narcissistic injury. This is when you cause some sort of offense, whether intentional or not, that deeply bruises their ego. However, just when you think it’s over and the CN is done with you, they will do something called a hoover, which is named after the vacuum as their preferred method for sucking you back in to their orbit. It’s basically the love bombing stage all over again. If you resist the hoover and decline to engage with the CN after a discard, they are likely to get extremely angry and express some sort of narcissistic rage. This can take the form of a smear campaign, verbal or physical abuse, gaslighting, and/or stalking.

How do covert narcissists use social media? Every CN is different and their level of narcissism exists on a scale. Overts are more likely to be the ones bragging on social media about their lives and accomplishments. However, because CNs tend to be introverted and withdrawn, they may not post very frequently, and may be lurkers who mostly scroll through everybody else’s posts. Regardless of their level of social media activity, they are master manipulators, and if you use social media frequently, they will know exactly how to use it to their advantage when it comes to you. Here’s how and why they do it.

1. To love bomb you. One of the first things a CN will do when you get involved is to connect with you on social media. They’ll react to almost all of your posts and leave comments. It’s very low effort and an easy way to give you those dopamine hits and make you feel good about yourself. You’ll find yourself paying them a lot of attention on social media as well. If they have a business, you’ll follow it. If they’re in a band or part of an organization, you’ll follow it. As a heads up, whenever he does post something on social media, unbeknownst to you, your likes will be right alongside those from several of his exes and female fans he flirts with regularly.
2. To get your attention. A CN needs regular supply to survive, and he can’t have his current supply just wandering off somewhere. He may post something that makes him look good, either a great photo of him, doing a good deed or something charitable, a post that makes him look like a great pet owner or father, a humble brag about an achievement. Because CNs are highly self deprecating in order to solicit compliments and also because they have a victim complex, they may post about something bad that happened to them in order to garner sympathy from you (and many others).
3. To make you feel insecure. CNs use something called intermittent reinforcement to get you addicted to them. This is when their attention and affection comes in spurts that are very unpredictable, the typical hot and cold behavior of a CN. They may like a few of your posts here and there, then go for dry spells without interacting with you at all on social media. You’ll find yourself posting more things specifically to get their attention, then find yourself disappointed and hurt when they don’t like your posts. Your anxiety will spike after every post, and you’ll find yourself checking your notifications several times a day to see if they’ve liked something. They'll like their friends’ and exes’ posts, but not yours. You know they’re pulling away, so you desperately try harder to gain their attention again. They know that withholding their interactions is having this effect on you; it’s intentional. They want you to feel insecure because it makes you easier to control and manipulate.
4. To make you jealous. CNs may post a lot or may post very little on social media. Regardless of their frequency, if they have an opportunity to make you jealous, they will take it. Regardless if they are in a relationship with you or if they are your ex, appearing in photos with other women to trigger you is a common thing. This can be photos they post themselves, or post that you see in your feed from mutual friends. The woman could be new supply, side supply, an attractive platonic friend, or just a random woman in a crowd. It’s a bonus for them (and likely intentional) if they are in a location the two of you used to frequent, a place you have always wanted them to take you, or wearing an item of clothing you gave them. They will love their exes’ and side supply’s posts (spoiler alert, you are never the only source of supply), and possibly those of scantily clad women they follow on Instagram, but again, not yours.
5. To devalue you. Once the love bombing stage has ended and the honeymoon phase is over, the devaluation process will begin. This is how the CN starts to make you feel insecure, bad about yourself, confused, possibly clingy, and just overall unsure about where you stand with him. There are several ways he can use a social media to accomplish this. He may go from reacting to all of your posts to completely withholding all likes and comments. Adding insult to injury, he will like or comment on plenty of other mutual friends’ posts — just not yours. He may even be liking and commenting on bikini/lingerie models' posts while you’re in a relationship. He may flake on plans with you, then post photos of himself out with friends. He may post a flirty comment on a mutual female friend’s post where he’ll know you’ll see it. If you tag him in a post, he won’t post it on his timeline because he always needs to appear single. If you post a photo of the two of you with a caption that implies you might be a couple, he may ask you to change the caption or remove the photo.
6. To Hoover you. Social media is often the first place CNs go to when it’s time to suck a target back into their web when they start going astray after a breakup. After weeks or months of not interacting with your social media at all (and assuming you didn’t unfriend or block them after the break up), they will start liking or loving all your posts, even backtracking and reacting to posts several days or several weeks old. They’ll start commenting on your posts when they’ve never done that before. Even if you have them blocked in some places, like Facebook and Instagram, they’ll start liking your posts on other platforms like LinkedIn for the first time if you’re connected there.
7. To stay relevant. This is a tactic I like to call harem maintenance. CNs will always have any number of women on deck to provide them with different levels of supply. Usually these will be exes or current/former friends with benefits or flings who never figured out what he is and still keep in touch with him. Again, this may be extremely hard to hear, but you are never the only source of supply for a CN. They will like each other’s social media posts regularly, and if he’s in need of supply, he will upgrade from a like to a love post reaction, and maybe throw in a comment or two to get a reply. He knows at least a few of them are going to see his name pop up in their notifications or in their comments, which provides him with supply. If you have a CN ex blocked, they may start liking photos or videos of you posted by mutual friends they rarely interact with, knowing that those friends will likely tell you about it. In photos or videos of them that they believe you will see, they may make a specific gesture that only you would recognize. If you confront them about this, they will likely deny it means anything and just say they’re being supportive of those mutual friends. They know by doing these things, it keeps them on your mind and they can deny any manipulative intent. CNs might also love bomb anybody and everybody through social media if they desperately need supply and want to stay relevant, especially in the wake of a narcissistic injury. In this context, they may start liking everybody’s status, regardless of if they actually like them, and even if they’ve never interacted with them before.
8. To bait you. CNs constantly need supply, and sometimes negative attention is more satisfying than positive attention. If you are in no contact with them or otherwise ignoring them, CNs love to do passive aggressive things to provoke you, make you angry, get some sort of reaction out of you. Social media is the perfect place to do this, and blocking is a favorite tactic. They know it hurts, they know it’s like a slap in the face, and they will often do it out of nowhere if you’re just going about your business and merely existing. They want you to reach out to them to ask them why they blocked you, or even admonish them for it. By getting that rise out of you, they know they still have control over your emotions and actions. If you do get angry, it’s called reactive abuse, and now the CN can blame you and call you abusive.
9. To punish you. Sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly what will trigger a CN, but if you have somehow caused a narcissistic injury, I can almost guarantee that social media will be one of the many ways they will try to punish you for it. They may stop interacting with your posts altogether, they may unfriend you, they may block you. They may post backhanded compliments or passive aggressive comments. Some CNs may get extremely childish and petty, and unlike posts and delete comments going back weeks, months, or in some cases even years. If you own a business, they might leave negative reviews under a fake name.
10. To stalk you. Even after they’ve discarded you, CNs still want to know what you’re up to. And on the off chance that you discarded them first, they are BIG mad and feel entitled to know what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. If you’ve spent a decent amount of time with a CN, many of them feel that they own you forever and are entitled to your exclusive attention. That’s why if they block you to punish you, they may block you only on one platform so they have access to your life on another platform. If you have them blocked on everything, they may create fake accounts so they can see any of your public posts.

The hardest thing to deal with when it comes to these social media tactics by CNs is the fact that they are very difficult to pinpoint, especially by people who don’t know him the way you do. They are extremely subtle and often passive aggressive, and even your closest friends may tell you that you’re reading too much into it, that you’re exaggerating, and that you’re seeing things that aren’t there. The CN absolutely knows this, and plausible deniability is the name of the game.

What you should do if a covert narcissist is using social media to hurt you

The easiest thing to do is to block block block on absolutely everything, and everywhere. This includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, WhatsApp, your phone, money payment apps (yes, narcissists have even used Venmo and to reach out to victims). On Facebook, if you have a business page, make sure you block them through that as well. If they have a business page, block it because they can still use that login to see you if you’ve only blocked their personal account. On Instagram, make sure you choose the option to block any future accounts they might create.

Don’t give them access just so they can see you living your best life

It’s extremely important for you to understand something, as difficult as it might be to hear. The CN doesn’t care about you. They never cared about you, they never loved you. They only viewed you as an object, as a toy, as something to help fill their insatiable need for supply. it’s true they don’t like knowing that you are happy and thriving without them. However, in the CN’s mind, you still miss them and you still want them no matter how good you look on social media. They will use whatever amount of access you give them in order to creep back into your life and control you.

Be prepared for the repercussions of blocking them

The benefit of blocking a CN on all social media is the peace you get from cutting them out of your life. The downside is that CNs do not respond well to getting blocked and no longer having access to you. This causes narcissistic injury and frequently leads to narcissistic rage. Narcissists are black and white thinkers, meaning that the people in their lives are either all good or all bad. Once you cause narcissistic injury, you move into the “all bad” category, and their hatred and resentment of you that they’ve been keeping underneath the surface all this time comes out in full force. If they don’t think they can get any more supply out of you, or if you’ve seen the mask drop and they think you have figured out who they really are, they may very well just leave you alone and never speak to you again. But if they still need to control you and punish you, they may launch a smear campaign against you, get verbally or physically abusive, send their enablers to harass you, or stalk you.

All this taken into account, just remember that you are NOT crazy. You are not making this up. You are not reading too much into anything. You are not seeing things. The hallmark of covert narcissism is how insidious the tactics are, how subtle and undefinable they are. Social media is the perfect place for CNs to engage in all sorts of emotional and psychological abuse, so hopefully this article helps you to spot those tactics and remove yourself from their orbit.