Social Media: A Hotbed of Humble Bragging
We brag, we watch, we feel inadequate. So we brag some more.
My parents knew a few humble braggers in their time. They came around and subtly pointed out how brilliantly their business/child/house renovation was doing.
I vaguely remember them holding up their brandy glasses and criticising their bank for being too small to handle all their money. But as a child, I would just run away when they came too close. No offense was taken (no child was as intelligent/wonderful/emotionally developed as theirs anyway). It was all good.
Yet I noticed how adults would also quickly shuffle away, muttering about the bathroom or a desperate need for more sausage rolls. The couple continued hunting for a fresh ear to bend and eventually left the party smiling smugly. Everybody now knew how brilliant their lives were. Their job for the day was done.
After much mutual complaining, my parents labelled them “dickheads” and avoided them at all costs. But two short decades later, we live in another reality. What was once seen as a social faux pas has taken on a new lease of life. Overt bragging, in its raw and unpolished form, is still frightfully uncouth. But humble bragging — well, that’s an art form we have all come to master.
