Calling Yourself ‘Humbled’ Doesn’t Sound as Humble as It Used To

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/magazine/calling-yourself-humbled-doesnt-sound-as-humble-as-it-used-to.html

by azuajef • 9 years ago

108 98 9 years ago

throwanem2• 9 years ago

Did it ever sound humble? Complimenting oneself publicly on one's supposedly exceptional humility has always seemed an unintentional sarcasm to me.

midgetjones2• 9 years ago

I think there's a difference between saying something was "a humbling experience" and "I am exceptionally humble".

_b8r0• 9 years ago

"The best at being humble. Everyone's talking about how humble I am."

throwanem2• 9 years ago

I agree with the article author that current usage employs the one to imply the other.

open_bear• 9 years ago

There is now even a word for that: humblebragging.

andmarios• 9 years ago

I am humble but it is just one of my numerous merits. :p

linkergames• 9 years ago

With the risk of feeling the power of the ban hammer, here is the obligatory reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzUKcXxbU4U

midgetjones2• 9 years ago

Overuse has killed the actual meaning of a lot of words. Don't even get me started on 'genius'.

TeMPOraL4• 9 years ago

Or 'hacking'.

cmdrfred2• 9 years ago

"Literally" really gets on my nerves.

Chirael• 9 years ago

And all the "gourmet" items to be found in the discount aisle of the grocery store.

rangibaby4• 9 years ago

There's no such thing as gourmet coffee, gourmet rolls or gourmet pizza. Gourmet means one thing: “We're going to charge you more.” The same is true of the word cuisine. The difference between food and cuisine is sixty dollars.

- George Carlin

haberman• 9 years ago

Everything is "artisan" too.

chc2• 9 years ago

I've always seen "gourmet" as a negative. I've never found a decent food that needed to declare itself "gourmet" — only stuff that knows it's crap and feels the need to overcompensate.

For example, the popcorn made with some exotic oil and cheese that you'll get at a high-end movie theater? Never gourmet. The stale popcorn people sell door-to-door to raise money for their school? Pretty likely to be gourmet.

andyjohnson0• 9 years ago

Or 'hero'.

nradov2• 9 years ago

Unbelievable!

digler9992• 9 years ago

"insane"

actually thats my 2nd place nominee. first place is so common even I dont notice it: "key".

paying attention is key to success.

the key to understanding code is to.

being persistent is key.

what it should mean is that without $key, $effect cannot be accomplished. what it really means is $key is important/helpful.

cylinder• 9 years ago

How about obsessed and love? Americans overuse these two.

Kdparker• 9 years ago

My pet peeve is "passion"

lhnz• 9 years ago

Most egregious example are the 'status' updates by young entrepreneurs on how humbled they are to appear within Forbes 30 under 30, etc. Always written as if they are congratulating their peers (the future world leaders).

It's the opposite of being humbled. It's amusing (and a little disturbing) that it can be dressed up the way it is.

freddyc• 9 years ago

The emergence of these '30 Under 30' lists is troubling in and of itself!

babygoat• 9 years ago

Oh come on! The number of people on the list is greater than the number of years any of those people have been alive. Doesn't that amuse you?

w1ntermute• 9 years ago

Look up one of the lists from 10 years ago. How many of the people listed are still relevant?

irpapakons• 9 years ago

Often it's the exact opposite: a way to brag and draw attention to things that people would otherwise not much care about or consider admirable.

Pretending to be humbled is basically lying about the amount of recognition you receive in the hopes that new people will be tricked to really consider you important. Perhaps similar to tagging everything with #blessed on instagram.

"I'm so humbled and honored and surprised to be/serve as X and I want to thank my parents / offer mentoring to the less fortunate of you" often after aggressive pursuit, self-nomination or unacknowledged massive help / connections to get whatever the thing was.

taneq• 9 years ago

It's the real life version of saying you don't expect upvotes.

Frondo• 9 years ago

There's even a word for it, "humblebrag."

JangoSteve• 9 years ago

I had this exact thought once getting an award. I actually opened my acceptance speech with, "This is when I'm supposed to get up here and tell you how humbled I am by this award. But that's the exact opposite of how I feel. According to you, I'm awesome! In fact, I should probably apologize now to my co-workers for how much more difficult I'm going to be to work with after tonight."

EDIT: messed up some grammar... this mistake has humbled me.

amirmc• 9 years ago

I love this! If I'm ever in a position to accept an award I'm going to steal this opening. It's certainly more entertaining than the affected humility we see.

Of course, even this approach will have its own shelf life — meaning that, if used widely, it will also become a parody of itself.

brangalina4eva• 9 years ago

Modesty is my best quality.

lordnacho• 9 years ago

There's nobody more humble than me.

brlewis• 9 years ago

For those of you looking for a tl;dr version, here's a quote that gives you the general tone:

We live in a rabidly anti-elitist society that is also in slack-jawed, slavish thrall to elites, and it’s no joke to try to maintain homeostasis between “Look at me!” and “Who, me?”

I'm trying to remember who it was that once talked about judging a community by two things: its actual behavior, and what it holds up as ideal behavior. I think it's actually a good thing that society started to hold up as an ideal the idea of being humbled by success.

I found the superior, smug tone of the article annoying. Some attempt at sounding more humble would have produced a better article.

mlnhd• 9 years ago

You think you're really righteous? You think you're pure at heart? Well, I know I'm a million times as humble as thou art.

pc86• 9 years ago

Never thought I'd see a Weird Al quote on HN.

TeMPOraL4• 9 years ago

My favourite line from that song is "On my knees day and night scorin' points for the afterlife".

pimlottc3• 9 years ago

Also reminds me of a great classic from The Onion [0] about the winner of the yoga championship:

“I am the serenest!” Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. “No one is serener than Sri Dhananjai Bikram—I am the greatest monk of all time!”

0: http://www.theonion.com/article/monk-gloats-over-yoga-champi...

RodericDay• 9 years ago

Reminds me of that classic article "On Smarm"

http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977

strider12• 9 years ago

When an athlete says they are humbled, it's the most genuine use -- because to perform at a top level, you have to 'go back to your roots' - the lonely/early/late days that got you there. So they say it simply to remind themselves that the basics that got them there, is not forgotten and has to be implemented everyday.

untilHellbanned• 9 years ago

Also physical performance for most sports is objective and earned, whereas most other scenarios it was a subjective process decided by other humans.

rangibaby4• 9 years ago

Until every sport adopts the powerlifting or MMA model where there are drugs and non-drug competitions there is no way of knowing. There's a Lance Armstrong in every sport.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

i'm ever so humble

rejectedstone• 9 years ago

This goes back pretty far: "Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth." Num 12:3 - Written by Moses

hashkb3• 9 years ago

Awesome. Whoever wrote the Bible was setting up today's assholes for a "I'm basically Moses"

rangibaby4• 9 years ago

The Bible and other religious texts have a lot of accumulated wisdom in them. I think of them as the Wikipedias of their time, edited by everyone, partly useful information, partly full of shit, accepted uncritically by the more naive

isaiahg• 9 years ago

To be fair, the book was most likely not written by the actual Moses. Most believe it's a compilation from several priestly writings. But it's definite silly sounding.

nradov2• 9 years ago

Sonia Sotomayor said that she was "very humbled" when President Obama nominated her for the Supreme Court. I'm sure it's really humbling when the President calls you up and tells you that you're the best judge in the country. ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor_Supreme_Court_...

hashkb3• 9 years ago

Yeah but saying it is tacky, even if true. Just BE humble, and SAY "thank you" and then put your money where your mouth is.

Chris20484• 9 years ago

Reminds me of notes labelled "polite note"...

3dk• 9 years ago

A more appropriate word would be "honored".

labster• 9 years ago

I prefer to go with "proud" myself.

hashkb3• 9 years ago

I had a bit when I was 10 or so where I'd go to great lengths to explain the magnitude of my humility. If 10-year-old me was cynical enough to develop a routine about it... how has it ever worked?

Humility, grace, rudeness, attractiveness... these are all judgments that can't be made about yourself, only by/about others.

sametmax3• 9 years ago

One good example of this bullshit is the last years of Bill Gates PR. People "spontaneously" coming to social networks to state how great and humble he is.

E.G this fantastic piece of "interview": http://imgur.com/gallery/DTDsH0P

I still wonder how it can remotely work. But it does. Read the comments below the pictures, it's crazy.

It's like in big announcements when people are jumping around saying they are all "so excited". I usually stop listening after somebody used those 2 worlds, there are people finding this is a demonstration of enthusiasm.

WhitneyLand• 9 years ago

Why do you think he's not humble? Of all the billionaires I've seen talk he appears to be a pretty decent and grounded person.

throwaway729• 9 years ago

Remember the 90's? It got kinda crazy: http://lurkertech.com/bill-the-borg/windoze2495.jpg

(I kinda agree with you -- as far as billionaires go, you could do a lot worse. But maybe sametmax is right and Gates is just that much better at PR than your average billionaire. Who knows.)

aaronchall2• 9 years ago

I look at Microsoft's uncooperative corporate strategy, which he has direct control over.

It really seems to never stop.

He could make a dictum: "Ok, from now on, all we do is create value. Desktop Windows will always be able to do the same as the professional/ultimate/bestest version. And we're going to do our best to cooperate with open source, instead of trying to screw them after making friendly."

But their strategy is just fine for me - I've long ago switched to a desktop OS that's always the professional version and that comes with everything a desktop OS should come with - GNU/Linux (in my case, Ubuntu, but there are others). It just screws all the other people who don't have the ability/nerve to switch to Linux.

sametmax3• 9 years ago

Have you read the same interview ?

It's like you try to get a job and the ask "what's you biggest weakness ?" and you answer "I can't say, but people usually say I'm too invested in my work".

Why do I even have to explain that ?

Gates PR works so well I even have to rewrite the list of all the horrible stuff he's responsible for in the 90's because people keep forgetting. This is terrible, and a reason politicians and big companies manage to get away again and again with bad behavior.

mikeash• 9 years ago

Being the humblest billionaire has to be like being the shortest person on the basketball team.

I agree that Gates seems decent and grounded. But humble? The man is trying to eradicate malaria, and that's just one of many high-profile activities carried out by a foundation with his name on it.

(Note, this isn't a criticism. I don't see any reason he ought to be humble.)

mindcrime• 9 years ago

I am awe-inspiringly great at being humble! Nobody does humble like I do. Call in the next 10 minutes and get my "Awesome Humility in 40 days" starter kit for half off!

rokhayakebe• 9 years ago

Test this, next time someone offers you a compliment answer "I think you are right, Thank You," or "I agree, Thank You."

kj01a• 9 years ago

Somebody's been listening to the Hello Internet podcast.

siculars• 9 years ago

Here's another overused word: passion.

jschwartzi• 9 years ago

Which in a more literal sense means you have amorous feelings toward the thing you're passionate about.

scolfax• 9 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R42mFx3_ss

umberway• 9 years ago

I'm more humble than they are!

warent• 9 years ago

If you're looking for an easy drop-in word, I recommend "privileged"

It's certainly a privilege... I'm privileged to be a part of... etc

It seems to be an effective device for communicating your feelings without coming across as arrogant

pimlottc3• 9 years ago

I generally agree, although the term has started to become somewhat politically overloaded these days - white privilege, check your privilege, etc. Using it in the way you suggest should be rather uncontroversial but I would make sure to consider your audience.

bjacokes• 9 years ago

One phrase that I've noticed (over)used in NFL broadcasts is "give credit". After a win, a star player will often "give credit" to the other team, their defense, lesser-known players, etc. It seems to be a decent way to act humble when you're the center of attention, without saying "humbled".

jogjayr• 9 years ago

I agree. In current usage "humbled" just seems to mean "I'm staying humble despite my achievement" rather than what the word actually means. Even if it's over-used, it shows class to give credit to the people around you. Everyone helped at least a little.

Mikeb85• 9 years ago

Ah, the 'ol humble brag. If you call yourself humble, you're basically saying other people think you're awesome. I don't bother anymore, I just accept compliments, and if people ask me if I think I'm awesome, I say yes, even though I'm aware of my own failures (to be fair, everyone has them, so it doesn't detract from one's awesomeness).

teh_klev• 9 years ago

Heh, the next article I read on HN after this one was:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487175

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/19/army-picks-sig...

Within a few sentences I read:

"We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice," Ron Cohen, chief executive officer of Sig Sauer, said in a statement to Military.com"

woliveirajr• 9 years ago

"We are living in humbling times. People are humbled all over the place. Lately it’s pro forma (...) for politicians, athletes, celebrities and other public figures to be vocally and vigorously humbled by every honor awarded, prize won, job offered, record broken, pound lost, shout-out received, “like” copped and thumb upped.

Everything that becomes a commonplace looses it's strength. Be it "honored", "humble", "didn't expect", "didn't think I would deserve it" and so on.

Calling Yourself ‘Humbled’ Doesn’t Sound as Humble as It Used To

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