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Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility
- douglee650 14y agothe only thing which surpasses my greatness ... is my humility
- ollysb 14y agoThey're normally called first world problems, not humility...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- zainny 14y ago"The varieties of humblebragging represent a breadth of motive and technique. Most humblebrags are attempts to convey one of three messages: “I have too much work”; “I am an idiot/impostor”; or “I have firsthand knowledge of the gritty gilt to be found inside the gilded cage.”" zainny is a villain ;-)
- icegreentea 14y agoI seem to have interpreted many, if not the majority of those tweets as delivered with humorous intent, if not straight up jokes.
- furyofantares 14y agoSame. The only person listed that I follow is Ken Jennings and I don't think he's ever posted something that isn't a straight up joke. So as I was reading I got the feeling the author was just missing the context of the rest of the twitter feeds, or missing that the entire reason to follow some celebrity on twitter might be to hear about the unusual things that go on in their lives. But then he got to the part about his friend telling what sounds like an amusing story having to pay for an award. And maybe now I'm the one missing all the context, but I don't get it: can't our friends tell us about their success without it being interpreted as an assertion of superiority?
- Gigablah 14y agoI missed it at first as well, but the author clarifies at the end that he was wrong about his friend, and advocates a "tolerance devoid of condescension" towards people who behave in such a manner.
- furyofantares 14y agoHe's still claiming that his friend was "trying to combat their own perceived weakness" by asserting his worth in this manner. And maybe he was, I don't know the guy, but when my friends tell me stories about their successes I don't take it as an assertion of worth, I take it as them sharing a part of their life with me.
- martinced 14y agoThe author advocates "tolerance devoid of condescension"!? What a magnanymous person ; )
- illuminate 14y agoKen Jennings actually ~is~ a humble guy who's done interesting things, I wouldn't imagine that he fits the mold.
- k-mcgrady 14y agoMe too. I think the one by Dane Cook (a comedian) was very clearly meant to be a joke.
- illuminate 14y agoHumblebrags are the very definition of "Ha ha only serious".
- pg 14y agoHe neglects one possible explanation: that some of the apparent braggers are actually trying to abase themselves to prevent themselves from becoming too arrogant, and perhaps just doing a clumsy job of it. I remember reading something once by a guy who was annoyed to hear rich people talk about the days when they were poor. He thought they were bragging. But I find I do this all the time, and mostly not to anyone else. I do it to fight the pull of the hedonic treadmill-- to try to get my old poor self back so that I can appreciate not being poor anymore. Possibly some of the people he thinks are humblebragging are doing something similar.
- jacquesm 14y agoI think what you're doing is pretty good. If you don't remember where you came from you will lose perspective very quickly and you might start to think that you have some kind of innate right to being rich. The rich people that I've known that were easy to get along with and genuinely nice all made a conscious effort to remind themselves they weren't always rich and went out of their way to help others to help themselves. I think your whole incubator trip is something along those lines. Sure it makes you money. But it also enables tons of others and that is far more powerful than the side effects for you. Happy 2013 Paul!
- breckinloggins 14y agoI'm the programmer/computer expert in the family so I often get the "you're so smart" line from family and friends. Most people here can relate. It's much the same with me for intelligence. I do a similar thing on Facebook where I'm much more likely to post about a stupid moment than a smart one. I can see how it might look like a humblebrag, but to me it's more a way of asserting normalcy to my friends, my family, most of all to myself.
- biot 14y agoThere's a big difference between "I tripped on my shoelaces today... what a klutz" and "The shoelaces on these $900 Prada shoes are so long I tripped... what a klutz".
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- Mz 14y agoHN gives my browser indigestion, so my first attempt to reply is now lost in cyberspace. The short version: Some of the quotes remind me of the Joe Walsh song "Life's been good" http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lifes-Been-Good-lyrics-Eagles/F2BAF8E51772CF6E48256860002C2AF3 http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lifes-Been-Good-lyric... So maybe wealthy/famous/successful people are still, first and foremost, people.
- endlessvoid94 14y agoThis is my favorite comment here so far.
- Tycho 14y agoOne thing that bugs me is people who can't take a compliment. I wish they would just say 'thanks' or 'glad you liked' when someone commends their efforts, but instead they dismiss the praise. Real humility can be annoying, too.
- Mz 14y agoI am really bad at taking a compliment. It has nothing to do with humility. It has to do with having been consistently and badly burned over it. Lots of people do not give sincere compliments. Instead, any nice things they say are just a manipulative ploy of some sort. And even if it is sincere, if done publically, someone else is highly likely to kick the shit out of me if I try to say "thanks" instead of ignoring it or downplaying it. YMMV, but I am terrible at this and I don't feel it is merely neurotic.
- RegEx 14y agoWow, sounds like you've hung out with a tough crowd. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your work, and I'm terribly sorry some rude people have tried to take that away from you through such dishonest means. Keep your chin up :)
- Mz 14y agoMost of that has been on the Internet. I was seemingly popular in certain online forums. I found that just trying to be genuine and talk with people and say "thanks" when complimented fueled ugly attacks from folks who weren't fans. The attacks dropped off when I stopped saying things like "thanks" but it also left me in a position where most people seem to not know how to talk to me at all. I am only just now making in roads into getting people to actually talk to me again. It has been very very tough. But it seems to be improving.
- 13rules 14y ago1) Respond to genuine compliments with genuine appreciation 2) Ignore the haters
- josscrowcroft 14y agoIt's a shame that a really good topic (humblebragging drives me nuts AND infects my own writing) is ruined by a terribly-written article.
- yen223 14y agoA lot of content on HN are poorly-disguised humblebrags. I would post some examples, but I am simply too busy building my million-dollar product.
- tokenadult 14y agoThe interesting comments here prompted me to read the article. I wonder how genuinely poor anyone has been who has received a private university education in the United States, to take up an issue in one comment thread. (I fully agree with the idea that remembering my poorest years, which were during and immediately after my pursuit of higher education, is very good for me keeping perspective on my current more well-off life.) Another comment mentioned refusing to accept compliments. That is just annoying in most Western countries, where the expected response to "Great job!" or "You look fabulous in that outfit" is along the lines of replying "Thanks." In some other parts of the world, standard politeness operates differently. In the Chinese-speaking world, it is expected to factually deny a compliment, no matter how actually counterfactual the denial comes out. If I speak Chinese in a Chinese-speaking country with my patently Western appearance, many people will politely say to me, "你的中國話說得很好" ("You speak Chinese very well"). And the only polite response to that would be along the lines of saying, "不敢當. 說得不好." ("I dare not accept your praise. I speak it poorly.") Different cultures have different patterns of politeness. The most extreme example I have seen in real life of the east Asian pattern of politeness was witnessing the husband of one of my classmates in Taiwan (both the husband and wife were Koreans in Taiwan to study Chinese) hear a Westerner say to the husband about our classmate, "Your wife is very beautiful," to which the husband replied, "No, she is quite ugly" IN HER PRESENCE. The statement was conventionally polite, and not at all weird in cultural context, but contrary to fact, as she was actually a beautiful woman.
- jethroalias97 14y agoIt's a shame he doesn't mention his friend's name at the end of the piece, but if anyone has the right to refer to themselves as "beloved" I'd say it's David Rakoff.
- Cl4rity 14y agoIt seems the author either doesn't know what a humblebrag is, or he is very insecure or unhappy with his own life. Many of his examples don't seem like humblebrags at all--like the Dina Manzo example about hot weather. Really?? Secondly, perhaps the reason humblebragging is so frowned upon is because we discourage just straight up bragging. That's fine and all, but for Christ's sake sometimes we work really damn hard for what we have that we should all be allowed to brag a little every now and then. If you busted your ass building a product and you lost so much sleep over it, and the product itself rocks, wouldn't you want to brag a bit? If you bust your ass at the gym and exert enough discipline to stick through a tough diet over the course of a year, wouldn't you be tempted to show off your results? One of the main reasons bragging is a faux pas, in my opinion, is because too many jealous and insecure people become butt hurt. That's the truth. I've never understood why you can't show off once in a while. You hit the gym really hard and diet, but if you post a photo of your results on Facebook--assuming the results are amazing (i.e. you're really ripped and you look great)--you're suddenly vain. You spend countless hours of practice and frustration over an instrument and show your results on Twitter - someone is bound to call you a show-off. The reason I'm so tired of humblebragging is because I feel like people should just own it. Are you talented? Did you work really fucking hard for what you have or what you've accomplished? Did you suffer blood, sweat and tears to get to where you are now? Then show off a little. I encourage it. If you earned everything you have, if you've paid your dues and are now fit/successful/talented, fuck what everyone else thinks and screw all the jealousy. They're haters. While we're at it, I'd like to clear up what a hater is: A hater is someone who is jealous and insecure and probably isn't very good at doing much. However, let's be absolutely clear on this: If your products/efforts/skills/knowledge are piss-poor or not up to snuff, the people who criticize you aren't haters, they're simply telling you the truth and you just can't accept it.
- jcampbell1 14y agoI personally enjoyed the twitter postings more than the article. The article was a bunch of highbrow crap riding on the back of a few funny twitters. That being said, I think we also need a term like "CharityBrag". If I had a nickel for every time I heard something like "When I was building a school in Africa... ", I'd probably have about five dollars.
- ludicast 14y agoCool article. FYI - a HN reader is mentioned (Tobias Lutke): http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xal http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=xal In this one case, Tobi might be more correct than bragging though... [edit - had wrong user account at first]