This post is as much for me as it is for you. Let me begin there.
The rise of social media has brought with it a tempting opportunity that is hard for the typical person to resist. They call it the humble brag. At its core, it happens whenever someone acts surprised by how good they are and it manifests itself in numerous subtle ways. Here’s a recent tweet that I saw that included not one, but TWO humble brags at once! See if you can catch them.
I black out the names because both of the people involved are good Christian dudes. That’s the point of this all—we can all easily fall into this trap. This is a guy who has a very popular blog and has asked a guest writer to post on it. The guest writer then humble brags about the amazing response to his post and then the blog owner retweets it and let’s him know that he is also surprised at how popular his blog is!
The urban dictionary defines a humble brag as: “When you, usually consciously, try to get away with bragging about yourself by couching it in a phony show of humility.” Inside all of us is a desire to be recognized and to matter to others. The humble brag has become the latest way to feed that desire in a world of social media.
There is an actual Twitter account where all they do is repost other people’s humble brags and they have more than 200k people following it. Click here to check it out. Also, someone even put together a list of the 50 funniest humble brags on Twitter.
In case I’m starting to sound holier than thou, the reason I’m so aware of this is that I stopped myself from posting a humble brag tweet this week. It’s even harder now not to tell you what I was going to tweet about! It’s a vicious cycle. If you are honest, I bet you could go through your own twitter account or Facebook feed and find some of this from yourself.
The challenge is for us is to be content with who we are and resist the urge to elevate ourselves to others. As John Dickson once said, “Humility is beautiful – we are more attracted to the great who are humble than to the great who want us to know it.”
I did not read the list of 50, however, I probably have used 25 or thirty of them. I am one who likes to brag about my association with others. Like Andrew, ‘yeah, my brother, Peter? He actually walks on water”. Or James, “My brother is the one who God loves”. Or “my church does……..”
I think more lives are more impacted by seeing what others have and wanting it over ones who see what some of us have and, in our arrogance, they dont want it even if they see it is better.
Thanks Greg!
I am surprised how often you think all of my comments are brilliant.
You shouldn’t be surprised. It doesn’t happen often
Jeremy! Now I am so curious to know what your humble brag was about! You should let us know anyway.
It’s hard enough to avoid this trap as it is! Don’t make it tougher on me
Jeremy, you could totally one up everyone by humbly bragging about not humbly bragging. Awe ya!
John, your powers of circuitous logic are second to none…
I love this post! It’s something I’ve never thought about, but I sure will from now on.
Once you’re aware of it you’ll see it often. Follow @humblebrag on twitter to see an endless array of them.