Friends Who Complained Online About Being Busy with Work Are Actually Humble-bragging

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Xian Da
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Last Updated on 2021-10-26 , 2:20 pm

So there’s this thing called humblebragging, not sure if y’all heard about it.

Basically, you just share a ton of stuff on social media about yourself with a bunch of rich-man stuff like holidays on a yacht or golfing at some obscure country club.

Or even more “subtle” ways like “Oh no I’m broke now, just invested all my money in [insert expensive company]”.

If you still don’t get it, either you’re a serial online humble-bragger or you simply need to watch this video:

Personally, I don’t have time for this kind of thing. Too busy with my well-paying job. I’m saving up, by the way. My current Porsche is getting old after 2 years and I’m looking at the new Rolls-Royce. (Editor’s note: firstly, I don’t know whether Xianda is being paid well, but I’m very certain he took a bus to work).

Okay, so we all now know what humblebragging is.

But what if you see your friends complaining online about his workload? He’s serious, right?

I mean, I’d love to complain about my workload online as well, provided my old boss didn’t register a fake account to check on my social media platforms.

Well, well, well.

It turns out it’s a form of humblebragging, too. A new form.

“So busy, I haven’t have lunch and it’s 4:00 p.m. now” = Humblebragging

Now, this humblebragging trend has taken its turn for the worse. According to a study by Harvard, urbanites are increasingly preferring to “show off” how busy they are to prove that they are “in-demand”.

In other words, instead of actual luxury being the status symbol, people are saying they are “too busy” or they “need a holiday” to show off.

This is expanding to include using online shopping services instead of going to the supermarket, ordering takeout instead of eating at home and other behaviour to show you’re too important and busy for those things.

You see, if you’ve no time to do leisure things like sleeping, having a proper meal or walking your dog, it implies that your time is precious, and that put you in the high-SES status.

Dr Neeru Paharia, an assistant professor at Harvard University, has this to say: “Displaying one’s busyness at work and lack of leisure time operates as a visible signal of status in the eyes of others.”

However, what’s interesting is that this result is from a study in the US. Another similar study was conducted in Italy and the old trend of showing off high-SES life, instead of busyness, still stands.

What’s in Singapore, you may ask. Well, what comes to your mind when you see your friends saying that they were so packed with work and hadn’t slept in three days?

You decide.

According to social media experts, people hate it when their friends humblebrag (watch the video above to see the statistics).

I don’t think we need an expert to tell us that, honestly. The only thing more obnoxious than straight up bragging is thinly-veiled “humble” bragging.

According to the same experts, we should instead straight up celebrate our achievements. That’s right, guys. Just tell people how awesome you are, no need to be “humble”.

Or in this case, just say, “Goody Feed needs me so much I’ve to work OT every day. Boss, if you’re reading this, you’d better increase my damn pay or I’m not coming in tomorrow, you fat and ugly bastard.”

There, much better.

There’s a caveat though. Instead of phrasing your accomplishments like you’re better than everyone else, you need a positive tone to invite others to celebrate with you.

For example, emphasise your hard work for an award, instead of how smart or better you are.

But hey, easier said than done.

Featured Image: Shutterstock.com / ProStockStudio

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Xian Da