I hadn't been following the saga but my friend got me into it. If you've missed it, here's the play by play.

And here's the (in)famous youtube video he posted:

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Something about this video got me. It gave me a weird feeling and I wanted to break it down.

First Aspect The vibe is Terence Malick, pure wonder, lots of wide big shots upward, a man walking around. So obviously severely narcissistic but also a narcissism that opens out into some vaguely defined bigger space (since this is on youtube, the bigger space is the public, at least in part, but more than anything its the 'spectacle', in the dusty marxist sense, of the big popular scene that everyone's attention is fixed on at the expense of actual power relations, economic relations). Which is exactly where all this is happening so its not totally narcissistic delusion, he is in it but still that level of being in it has got to wreak havoc on any but the most equanimous soul. So thats the first aspect. And it would align aesthetically with say a Nike commercial only theres a twist if that aesthetic is used autobiographically rather than in praise of someone else.

Second Aspect The actual audioclips of conversations he's had with the coach is weird in two ways. One is also narcissistic. He's triangulating conversations so the emotional impact of the heart to heart is closed off in advance. If you're thinking how you can use a conversation in terms of a bigger thing, you're dangerously self-isolating. More on that in aspect 3. But the second effect of the clips goes against the grain of the grand Terence Malick Nike commercial thing and undermines the spectacle aspect by injecting the more grainy invisible conversations and cajolings and coercions that sustain it. He's effectively rejecting the distinction which is in line with the current trend toward veil-lifting and exposing the incompetence, callousness and venality of experts, directors, everyone. This happened with wrestling back with a wrestler who's name I can't remember and led directly to the thing where Vince Mcmahon is a character in WWE.

Third Aspect Psychoanalyzing. based on a tweet he'd posted about how people thrust out from the warmth of community, burn down the community to get that warmth. Based on that and his comment to the coach about wanting to be a raider vs others wanting him to be a raider -he seems like he has deep problems with inclusion, sensing the threat of eventual exclusion, and id guess that maybe his diva shit is less an expression of superiority than testing boundaries. Like analogically: if you're of a certain temperament and you're scared your partner is going to leave you, you (consciously or unconsciously) do things that would cause that to happen. The idea being if they don't leave you, they're trustworthy. if they do leave you, they confirm what you knew, which makes you feel safer for being wise enough to have seen it in advance (even tho you are the one supplying the reason.) only, if you're of that temperament, you will never be fully satisfied, so you'll keep testing. And maybe even be sincerely confused and righteous when you get pushback. Sharing the coach's decontextualized conversations is pretty similar to sending cut-out segments of text convos where you leave out the way you incited, and say 'look what they said, i was right to stand up for myself, right?'

Fourth Aspect If there is a broader cultural current this taps into, it seems to be (1) believing we are legendary individuals deserving the full Malick treatment (2) showing other people how were being betrayed by sinister forces who don't care about us justifying (3) this weird momentum toward an implied climax.... and there's something scary about this.

like if Antonio brown didn't have the talent and publicity and connection he did, is this in essence really that different than how a school shooter thinks? the difference of course is that Elliott Rodger didn't have a patriot deal waiting. However he did make self-aggrandizing videos and explicitly gave everyone one last chance to make it up to him and recognize him.