Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/fashion/bah-humblebrag-the-unfortunate-rise-of-false-humility.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

by biot • 14 years ago

51 60 14 years ago

nytimes.com

ollysb• 14 years ago

They're normally called first world problems, not humility...

zainny• 14 years 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• 14 years ago

I seem to have interpreted many, if not the majority of those tweets as delivered with humorous intent, if not straight up jokes.

furyofantares2• 14 years ago

Same. 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• 14 years ago

I 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.

illuminate8• 14 years ago

Ken Jennings actually ~is~ a humble guy who's done interesting things, I wouldn't imagine that he fits the mold.

k-mcgrady• 14 years ago

Me too. I think the one by Dane Cook (a comedian) was very clearly meant to be a joke.

illuminate8• 14 years ago

Humblebrags are the very definition of "Ha ha only serious".

pg2• 14 years ago

He 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.

jacquesm3• 14 years ago

I 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• 14 years ago

I'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• 14 years ago

There'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".

tansey• 14 years ago

Interesting. Honest question: when were you poor, Paul?

According to Wikipedia, you graduated from Cornell in 1986. You defended your PhD in 1990 and had sold Viaweb by 1995. Grad school life is certainly not luxurious, but I certainly would not refer to myself as being poor right now. Are you referring to the few years (91-94) before Viaweb was acquired? Or did you grow up poor at some point?

Also, have you noticed any correlation-- positive or negative-- between founders who come from more humble beginnings?

graeme2• 14 years ago

I suspect your using poor in a different sense than he is. Paul probably meant poor in the loose sense of the word.

Is your income less than $30,000? I think that's typical for grad students. That may not be 'poor' according to official statistics, but it's well below the aspirational income levels for college grads.

I earned somewhere between 30,000-40,000 dollars this year. That's above the median income in Canada. But if and when I hit my goals of earning much more than that, I'll look back on this as being 'poor'.

I still have to think about day to day purchases. Paul doesn't. That difference is more meaningful than any official definition of the word poor.

pg2• 14 years ago

I meant grad student poor, not living on the street poor.

(Incidentally, we didn't sell Viaweb in 1995. That was when we started it. But from that point I didn't feel pinched anymore because I had a regular salary.)

j45• 14 years ago

Clumsy is a great explanation. I hope people can tell the difference between someone insecure enough to name and fact drop, vs someone genuinely trying to share an experience they found strange, for whatever reason.

Another thing I've heard about is not being able to accept a compliment and it being taken as wanting people to heap on more praise.

Instead, the person might just be wanting to maintain that they're not special and just worked hard, or applied themselves like anyone could, and anyone could learn to do what they did.

redcircle• 14 years ago

Self abasement is still a humblebrag, and thus can't remedy arrogance.

I don't understand this application of self-abasement to the case of rich people talking about the days when they were poor. If it is self abasement, then that implies that being poor is some type of wrong. But it clearly isn't, particularly when at the start of a journey.

illuminate8• 14 years ago

Yeah, false stories of humble origins and "bootstrapping" that selectively leave out privileges aren't humblebragging.

Mz9• 14 years ago

HN 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-lyric...

So maybe wealthy/famous/successful people are still, first and foremost, people.

endlessvoid94• 14 years ago

This is my favorite comment here so far.

Tycho• 14 years ago

One 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.

Mz9• 14 years ago

I 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.

RegEx4• 14 years ago

Wow, 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 :)

illuminate8• 14 years ago

"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."

That's a strange definition of sincerity.

dalke• 14 years ago

I played piano when I was a kid. At a recital, I knew all of the mistakes I made when I was up on stage. People came up to me afterwards and complimented me for how well I did. They said nothing of the mistakes. Either they were not good enough to hear the problems and giving compliments because that's what one does in these sorts of things, or they were being polite and not talking about the obvious problems.

I've since learned better than that.

But back then, if you complimented me without given a decent critique, either you were in the first category, in which case I would dismiss the praise because you were unqualified to give it; or in the second category, in which case I would dismiss you for telling me white lies.

dcminter• 14 years ago

Stephen Fry has an interesting anecdote about receiving compliments here: http://www.stephenfry.com/2007/09/27/let-fame/single-page/

josscrowcroft• 14 years ago

It'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• 14 years ago

A 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• 14 years ago

The 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• 14 years ago

It'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• 14 years ago

It 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• 14 years ago

I 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.

douglee650• 14 years ago

the only thing which surpasses my greatness ... is my humility

ludicast• 14 years ago

Cool article. FYI - a HN reader is mentioned (Tobias Lutke): 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]

Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility

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