Egotistic Actions Disguised as Altrustic: A Social Disaster

Two of the great movers in our world are egotistic and altruistic motives. You choose options that reinforce yourself or you choose options that reinforce your community. Although sometimes these motives are aligned to "right" and "wrong", the confusion between the two is more detrimental than if the action was embraced in its own pure nature (wholly altruistic or egotistic). 

Consider the recent ALS "ice bucket challenge."

While the result of this viral phenomena is a net-good for researching the cure to a costly disease, regular people (outside of the celebrity world, which the challenge is famous for) are artificially inflating their ego by performing a perceived altruistic action. 

The filming, the reaction, the sharing - these are all egotistic events that are disguised as net altruism. And while individually this is not a particularly life-changing event, as a community we are deceiving ourselves. At the end of it all, we felt like we've accomplished something. We raised $100 million dollars, but could we not have done more? Could we have done it without needing our own ego stroked? Individuals now feel accomplished - they will sit back and relax and do no more for too long. 

This was one of the first very viral social media charity successes to pervade our culture. And for decades before this many people have done no charity, and now they will use this passing moment to bathe themselves publicly in altruism, and privately (even subconciously) in their same old egotistical nonchalance. 

Special: Crazy "Crazy" Movie Theorists

Warning: post may need to be read twice, please see closing note. 

Have you ever seen those (very reasonable) arguments that movie plots are the story of insane minds?

They are everywhere, here's just a couple easy ones:
Harry Potter
http://www.tickld.com/x/what-harry-potter-is-actually-about-childhood-ruined
Pokemon (it's a game obviously, but you get the idea)
http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Ash's_Coma

Some even go so far as to embrace the idea in the movie:
Shutter Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_Island_(film)
Sucker Punch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Punch_(2011_film)

These are interesting but you don't have to read them now as they are not the basis for the rest of this post. 

Why is this such a popular and intriguing idea? Well for one, some of these theories are very compelling. But if you take a step back, consider how interesting the Theorists themselves must be.

Consider this... Most people watch movies. They are interested and enraptured in the plot. They are drawn in and are committed to the story. They care what happens to the main characters and how the climax unfolds.

These Theorists however aren't just done when the credits start rolling. They are committed. They go beyond the normal conclusion. They pick it apart and frame it. 

Maybe because that's how the Theorists' brain works in the first place. I posit that this person may have the first signs of a sick mind themselves.

Thoughts? Is this line of logic sound?

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If this post was a little difficult to get on the first read through, please try again with the definition of the new propper noun, Theorists, in mind. 

PS. I haven't been able to find a depository of these types of theories. They can be very interesting and a blog or some type of forum featuring these movie analyses could be successful.