Abrasion evasion
I think just about everyone is aware that someone who's full of themself is unpleasant to talk to (we've all met the guy who thinks he's the smartest person in the room and will let you know it). But I think it's fairly easy to stumble into certain fallacies that orbit this basic principle.
I absolutely hate Poe's law. In the manner that variations on it (intentional or not) tend to be applied (i.e. as an admonition of the author rather than the one who was duped), it's a lazy excuse to denounce or avoid closely reading subversive works of any kind. It's a blight on discourse. It induces a gag response anytime I hear it referenced. However, I will grant that it's short-sighted to pretend that satire cannot lead the author flirt with the genuine beliefs that it engages with, particularly those that the author has extended "relationships" with. Often, satire is even directed at the author's own inclinations and flaws (this could even be considered the basic formula for situational comedy).
We commonly trick ourselves into thinking that self-awareness of this sort naturally leads to working out the flaws that we've identified internally, but obviously this isn't the case. I mean, did R. Crumb or Louis CK let their self-awareness get in the way of predatory behavior? In a similar (though less actively harmful) way, I used to believe that putting on a show of acting exaggeratedly self-absorbed precluded me from actually believing anything of that nature. But I think subconsciously I did still have a tendency to think of myself as apart from (not necessarily above) other people and to act (in subtler ways) accordingly. So there was this ironic distance that I had adopted from my own ego, which I believed represented a real reduction of my ego, which was how I explained it to people who seemed put off by the behavior (if they were the sort of person I didn't want to put off).
I would imagine this charade of playing a character whom you're afraid of becoming is probably not something that I alone experienced, though I expect it's not especially common either. I think the psychology is also a bit different from the sort of person who acts in an exaggeratedly abrasive manner because they actually view themselves in that way and so choose to be anti-social. On that note:
There's also the sort of person who seems to believe that one can only be "full of themself" in the context of qualities that are generally considered to be positive. But I think it's even easier to become full of yourself in the sense of being somehow "weird" (there's also inferiority complexes, of course, but I want to focus on things which set people "apart" rather than "below"). I have no issue with people choosing to be weird, but I find it irritating when someone seems to have an inflated view of their own weirdness, particularly when their idea of "weird" primarily concerns the composition of their media diet (as you know, I would usually avoid this phrasing, but I think it accurately reflects the mentality here). I've also encountered people who seem to believe that being considerate to others is one of those social norms that they're obligated to ignore in their weirdness; by all means, don't allow anyone to stop you from letting your freak flag fly, but that doesn't mean you get a pass to fuck with your neighbors unprovoked—and in any case, maybe you can make some space for normalcy in the middle of being unapologetically yourself, just as you'd appreciate "normal" people making gestures towards accepting your eccentricities? There's no virtue in burning bridges before you've tried to cross them. ~∓~