Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility | Hacker News Reader

Bah Humblebrag - The Unfortunate Rise of False Humility

nytimes.com

51 pointsbiot60 comments

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.

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?

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.)

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.

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.

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)

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/

I think one's interpretation of "poor" rests primarily on location. This is for two reasons. First, location determines absolute cost of living, and can effect quality of life. 40k might be above the median, but it barely livable in Manhattan. Location also has a bearing on relative perception of wealth. Someone making 40k in a neighborhood populated with people making 100k will make one feel poor.

Ultimately, the word "poor" is too subjective and is interpreted too idiosyncratically, and I try to avoid using it (along with words like "smart" and "good", etc.)

I think we're just having a semantic disagreement. I'd be fine with calling 30,000-40,000 'not rich'. I don't think I'm poor in the sense of poverty.

I think Paul Graham meant poor in the sense you're using 'not rich', and I commented to clarify that.

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!

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.

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".

If you spend $900 on shoes then the 'klutz' bit clearly doesn't refer to tripping over the laces but on your ability to spend your money wisely.

You can't tell me this is an unwise choice: http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/prada-studded-oxford/3334607?ori...

Yes I can. But likely you forgot the sarcasm tags ;)

You're totally right!

The second sentence is both more useful and more funny: it contains a warning for people buying $900 Prada... They should consider buying shorter shoelaces.

It's also funnier because you'd expect $900 Prada to have well-thought-of shoelaces that you can't trip on ; )

Generally people wearing $900 Prada shoes have handlers or, in a pinch, some paparazzi to catch them or break their fall, so better-engineered laces is pretty low-down on their list of things to address.

"you'd expect $900 Prada to have well-thought-of shoelaces that you can't trip on"

You're paying for craftsmanship, fashion, and materials, not technology.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

The author advocates "tolerance devoid of condescension"!?

What a magnanymous person ; )

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

1) Respond to genuine compliments with genuine appreciation

2) Ignore the haters

Thank you. Unfortunately, 2 does not work for my goals. Therefore, 1 does not either (I mean in public situations, on the Internet).

For me, a partial answer is that I need to find a means to get attention off me, personally, and onto a body of work. The tricky part is that "leading by example" tends to keep me, personally, under discussion for some things. I am still working on it, but I had a fantastic epiphany from wearing a tweety bird shirt some months ago. It has been slow going and frustrating but I feel I am making progress.

"Unfortunately, 2 does not work for my goals"

Why not?

"For me, a partial answer is that I need to find a means to get attention off me, personally, and onto a body of work."

I'd suggest focusing more on your body of work, and less on the personal aspects that draw people away from it. From seeing some of your posts, I admit that the confessional nature of many can be distracting and you'd do better to avoid giving persons more information than is necessary.

Attempting to answer your stated question would likely fall under the "confessional nature" of posts which you have made it clear you view negatively. So I think it unlikely to be a productive conversation, for either of us. Which is unfortunate.

Well, you have viewed the responses to them negatively. My point is that you're providing an anchor for others to detach you from whatever professional goals you're attempting to reach here. Sometimes it's useful to discuss where you came from as a starting place, but it's not often necessary. Just focus on the specifics of where you're going and it'll be easier to be productive without concern for what internet people think of you ~personally~.

I hope I'm conveying that properly.

You honestly sound a bit dramatic here. Make sure you don't make the issue bigger than what it is.

You likely are missing context. I am not "being dramatic".

"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.

I don't understand your point. Are you saying it is not possible to say something nice publically and mean it? I don't think that's true. I just know it does not work for me to publically thank such a person because it draws ugliness from other people. That doesn't suggest to me that the individual who said something nice was being insincere.

I'm saying that if it's impossible to publicly thank someone for a sincere kindness without retribution that perhaps a better solution is revamping your social/professional circle?

That approach, which I do use, is only partially helpful. I am clear about what is going on. I am also reasonably clear what needs to happen to resolve it. But knowing that information doesn't happen to instantaneously cause it to occur. "Rome wasn't built in a day."

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.

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.

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

"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 ;-)

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.

This is my favorite comment here so far.

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]

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.

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

Reply on news.ycombinator.com