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less_penguinyon Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

Good call, just changed it.

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Definitely not a natural intuitive "people person" though I am outgoing and get great joy and energy from meeting new people.

I was informally diagnosed with Asperger's by teachers at school. Also I didn't really get my social life together until I started doing what I do best — analyzing the crap out of how it all works.

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

cheers :D

So the intention of the article was partially to do exactly this, but I didn't want the tone to be too heavy-handed or self-helpy so I relegated this information to being between the lines. If you take a look at the number of penguins I gave each technique, that roughly correlates to how positively I view each bragging technique. As the website name suggests, the less penguins the better!

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Yes, this is definitely a thing. Very modern too.

Indeed I had a whole section on what people brag about (deals being one of them, as well as "potential" or being c-r-a-z-y). I plan on releasing this stuff soon.

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Caught me red-handed :D

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Depends on where you live. I've been both in the US and in Europe, and I heard it much more often in the states. In fact, it led to some ugly evenings, e.g. if someone finds out someone else is getting paid way more for basically the same job.

I also noticed that freelance stuff gets bragged about more often — how big their last contract was closed for, or what daily rate they got from a client.

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Oh wow that's great! Did you two come up with any ideas or personal epiphanies about bragging and status?

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

~4 penguins :)

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

I don't have a general solution but perhaps a few ideas:

One is to lower your threshold for what you count as being bragging — sometimes people are just sharing and they don't mean any harm. And sometimes they just really need validation. But then again, despite their benign intentions, hearing their status might sting, especially if things aren't going your way lately.

Another option is to poke fun at them, assuming you are on joking terms yadayada. E.g. I caught myself bragging about the achievements of my previous business partner at a party last weekend and the room was having none of it. As soon as I finished my sentence, they erupted into "woopdey doo" or (impersonating me) "I don't mean to brag or anything!!"

So there's that.

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

well spotted. both should be addressed now

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Just cobbled one together – LMK if it works https://www.lesspenguiny.com/feed.rss

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Thanks for the compliment!

The idea behind the pictures isn't so much about them being useful (they mostly aren't — I'm well aware of that). Instead it's about breaking up the wall of text and adding visual variety so as to prevent reader fatigue.

It's a tip I picked up from reading the Star Slate Codex piece on writing: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/

Also: HN readers != average internet readers

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

I'm at a juncture – my last project wound down and I'm considering where to take my career next.

Basically my main two options are:

* start another technical company and go all-in

* freelance half of the time, spend the other half on the LessPenguiny project. Monetization would be nice, but it isn't necessary. I'd sacrifice cash for impact in this area.

As for future pieces, I've analyzing my data (about 2000 observations, already coded) and I've got a lot of material on:

* why some people seem so impossibly warm

* how conversations get started between strangers (not in a pick-up way, but more in a normal day-to-day way)

* why some people are fascinating conversationalists

* compliments — are they good or do they make people uncomfortable?

less_penguinyon The Best Article Ever Written About Bragging

Wow thanks for the praise! The positive response here has been deeply affirming — I'm sitting at my coworking space with the real-time Google Analytics tab open and a grin on my face the width of Texas.

I've got a mailing list: https://www.lesspenguiny.com/email_subscribers/new

Both Twitter and Facebook suspended my newly created accounts for this project – I think they took offense to my entering first name "Less", surname: "Penguiny"

Funny aside: Facebook's tool to un-suspend my account asked me to submit a photo. I uploaded a photo of a penguin, since that's my profile photo, the only one they have of me in their system.

"Sorry, your photo could not be recognized".