
Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility - biot
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/fashion/bah-humblebrag-the-unfortunate-rise-of-false-humility.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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pg
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.

~~~
tansey
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?

~~~
graeme
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.

~~~
RegEx
I will never let myself consider $30-40k to be poor, at least in Texas. That's
enough money to take care of an average family and still have a very nice
Christmas.

I'm young, in college, and working full time to support my family (which
includes my mother and younger siblings) while my mom goes back to school to
earn a degree and work somewhere she will be happy. I made what you would
consider in the "poor" range this past year and was still able to pay bills in
my apartment, pay all my moms bills for the house she rents, blow money on
Steam sales, buy myself and my girlfriend used cars, make a mortgage payment
for a struggling family member, and a lot more.

I'm not poor. I have been _not rich_ , but not poor.

~~~
13rules
It's all relative. I appreciate your perspective and think that many of us
should pause to reflect on where we stand in this world.

For example, the poverty line in the U.S. is around $11,000 — that's in the
top 13.1% richest people in the world (globalrichlist.com)

~~~
rooshdi
Although we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world in terms of
personal well-being and life expectancy, we are also one of the poorest
nations at consuming the world's resources responsibly. We are currently
ranked 7th to last in this regard and our overall HPI is 105th in the world.
[1]

[1] <http://www.happyplanetindex.org/data/>

------
tokenadult
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.

------
yen223
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.

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

~~~
furyofantares
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
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.

~~~
furyofantares
He'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.

------
Cl4rity
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.

------
Tycho
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.

~~~
Mz
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.

~~~
RegEx
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 :)

~~~
Mz
Most 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.

~~~
RegEx
It's hard to develop a thick skin. I get my feelings legitimately hurt by
people, even online. I don't deal with confrontation well at all. The best I
can do is make sure I don't instigate conflict needlessly, and be sure to hang
around nice people.

~~~
Mz
My skin is pretty thick. That doesn't change the fact that a big enough "fire"
is potentially dangerous, not just for me but also for other people.

I loathe confrontation but I deal with it pretty well. That isn't really the
issue.

------
josscrowcroft
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.

------
jcampbell1
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.

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

------
zainny
"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 ;-)

------
Mz
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...](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lifes-Been-Good-lyrics-
Eagles/F2BAF8E51772CF6E48256860002C2AF3)

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

~~~
endlessvoid94
This is my favorite comment here so far.

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ludicast
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]

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jethroalias97
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.

