Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Giving and Getting: Using Charity’s Symbolic Power
- 3 #Humblebrags and the Good Giving Self on Social Media
- 4 Charities, Expertise and Policy
- 5 Charities, Expertise and Policy
- 6 Poppy fascism
- 7 Effective Altruism and Ignoring Charity’s Symbolic Power
- 8 Conclusions: The Good Glow
- References
- Methodological Appendix
- Index
3 - #Humblebrags and the Good Giving Self on Social Media
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- About the Author
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Giving and Getting: Using Charity’s Symbolic Power
- 3 #Humblebrags and the Good Giving Self on Social Media
- 4 Charities, Expertise and Policy
- 5 Charities, Expertise and Policy
- 6 Poppy fascism
- 7 Effective Altruism and Ignoring Charity’s Symbolic Power
- 8 Conclusions: The Good Glow
- References
- Methodological Appendix
- Index
Summary
So it's time for Humblebrag of the Week. They’re all over social media, boasts disguised as moans. Here's one:
“Just gave up my seat for an old Gurkha soldier. He didn't want to accept it – I insisted. #nicefeeling.”
This is another classic:
“A huge thanks to Donna at Pitsea station who saved my pashmina. It was from Thailand when I volunteered teaching English at an orphanage.”
Oh sod off! Yeah, I get it, you’re great – if you were really that great you wouldn't tell anyone! (The Elis James and John Robins Show on Radio X, 24 October and 25 July 2015)
Social media enables you to update the world on only those bits of your life that you want others to see, and with the options to frame exactly how you want them to see it. Of course it's not perfect: one person's Instagram post documenting how proud they are of a personal achievement is another person's showing off; similarly another person's carefully crafted Facebook status detailing a personal setback can be interpreted as an attention-seeking tale of woe: the Urban Dictionary (2011) defines the ‘humblebrag’ as, ‘When you, usually consciously, try to get away with bragging about yourself by couching it in a phony show of humility.’ Due to the delicacy of such phoniness, this form of impression management is far from flawless, but it can be seen as an attempt to remove the risk from ordinary social interactions. The likelihood of committing the social faux pas of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing or of being misjudged are, one could argue, significantly reduced if we get the time to reconsider and rewrite every text reply or status update, or retake every photo. Yet of course a whole new set of failed interactions and interpretations are created, such as not being excited enough about a friend's new Facebook update, and, as the writer Nancy Jo Sales (2016) has documented, such minor infringements of the new digital social etiquette loom large over the lives of Western teenagers, particularly girls.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Good GlowCharity and the Symbolic Power of Doing Good, pp. 51 - 70Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020