I find most humblebragging unobjectionable, because there’s usually some sincerity in it. Some people must really feel #blessed, and think that their followers are on the same page about life’s blessedness, so why not affirm that through sharing? Others must think that you have to be a little humblebraggy “in this day and age,” professionally and all that. They might be wrong, but if they think they must do it lest they perish, well, that’s a good reason to do it. Others may be trying to pump themselves up or feel better about things Actually, all of them are pretty much to do that. But when they do that with a humblebrag that’s all full of positivity and feeling #blessed, it’s not offensive. Just weird/misguided/laying their anxious soul bare.
The the kind of humblebrags I do think are wrong are those that use humor to distract from the bragging, or to conceal it. Here’s an example I found:
Now, @thefartdoctor is one of greatest dudes in the Twitter game. Let’s not lose sight of that. But here, his primary goal is not to provide us with that which has won him acclaim (glimpses into his twisted mind). It is to let us know that he as an “article” on my site. But he won’t say it normally. He couches it in humor. And the humor is: That’s not how a person usually acts in this situation. This is irreverent! with a little In doing this, he is commenting on others who act this way, and exposing how lame it is, and of course, there is a twisted image. By the end, it almost seems as if providing humor was the goal from the start. Sure, there was more going on, but the tweet has distinct humor value, and that’s what’s important (for the audience).
Why do I think that’s wrong? Because the Fart Doctor does: if he didn’t think sincere self-promotion were objectionable, he would do it, right?* It would be easier. The only thing he’d need to do would be to create a sentence. No joke-crafting.
So: he thinks what he’s doing is wrong, but does it anyway! He forces it upon you anyway. And he tries to conceal that he’s doing it at all.
Not every kind of self-promotion mixed with jokiness is bad. There’s a spectrum here. A horrible, horrible spectrum. And I hope the high-intensity end of the spectrum disappears someday. I hope it’s not a permanent feature of life now.
This reminds me of getting to a certain age and realizing that when your mom asks you to set the table, you can actually say “NO!” and treat that like a sarcastic joke, even though you do NOT want to set that stupid table. You still have to, but you’ve injected some toxic evil into the situation, and your parents can’t even get mad at you.
And that reminds me of how when you’re the younger sibling of a teen or pre-teen, there’s a weird period when you and your parents are all knowingly united against the teen of the house. And you have some nice bonding moments because of it: “Teens.”
Then it’s down into the depths of teendom yourself.
*It’s also possible that the person has crafted an Internet persona for themselves, one in which sincerity doesn’t have a role. So that reasoning would be something like “I can’t do this because that’s not what my fans want.” ‘Avoiding’ the megalomania issue there, isn’t an absolute commitment to insincerity itself wrong?