In or around 2008 when I learned about Facebook, I couldn’t stay off. My co-workers referred to it as Crackbook and I completely agreed. Facebook was a way to find high school friends while connecting with relatives you would normally never talk with. It was/is a way to stalk (I obviously mean that sarcastically) people and find out about their lives. Hell, I even wrote a post on how to see who’s viewed your Facebook profile. It was an amazing, wonderful place with endless possibilities. That is until the art of online humble bragging became a thing.
Fast forward to today and Facebook has become a place average people, can be perfect people. Despite being an alcoholic, belligerent mother, you can show off that one Pinterest craft you sent your child to school with. Suddenly, the kudos and accolades roll in from her “friends”. The husband can take photographs of the car he just bought his wife for her birthday but fails to mention his maxed-out credit because of it.
Don’t you just want to call bullshit on these people?
I don’t know about you but their words are often so carefully chosen that it’s blatantly a humblebrag. If you don’t know what a humble brag is, it’s basically when someone expresses a challenge (humble) or chore they had to go through to get to a reward (brag). Here, allow me to demonstrate:
“I still made time for this little cutie despite working 50 hours this week, volunteering at the homeless shelter and being home each night by 5 to have dinner on the table. Because nothing is more important than family!”
Along with the brag comes 1-18 pictures of the outing. Now, you know damn well it isn’t about the kid or family. It’s a “me, me, me” post. We don’t care Sarah that you worked 50 hours a week and volunteered to serve soup to orphaned ferrets. If you go out and do a selfless act, you completely cancel the selfless part when you brag about it.
Fuckbook
I want to create Fuckbook. After thinking about the name for a second, I’m guessing someone already has that URL and it’s probably more geared towards the porn crowd, but stay with me on this. I want a social media site where we highlight our failures or screw-ups. It’s not a place to wallow or look for sympathy. That’s where “Vaguebooking” comes in. Don’t know vaguebooking? Here, allow me to demonstrate vaguebook posts:
“I need prayers.”
“I want to cry right now.”
It’s wouldn’t be about putting your best foot forward. It’s about saying, “I’m human, I totally screwed up, here’s what I did today.” Look, we all want to put our best foot forward but it’s not fair when it’s not honest. I think being able to show our weaknesses shows empathy towards others. I appreciate people like this.
I honestly don’t know where I’m going with this post. I guess one night I scrolled through several and it was humble brag after humble brag. I’m sure at some point in the last decade I’ve created my share of these but it’s only the past few years I’ve become more mindful on the “whys” of it. What do you guys think? Are you guilty of this? Do you disagree with me?
Had never heard the term “humble brogue” until now, thank you. Now I know what it is that annoys me. I don’t spend much time on FB because I quickly learned you can’t engage in a decent conversation without name calling, judging, and negative nellies coming at you.
I don’t care for “vague booking” either. Call me old fashioned but I don’t believe in putting personal problems out there. Having a bunch of people giving you likes and hearts doesn’t really help.
I like being able to chat with relatives I don’t see often but I find myself scrolling through things a lot.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this either but I do enjoy reading your blog.
Oh Ann, thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoy reading it. And like you, many posts rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn’t put my finger on it as to why I had issue with it. I am careful who I engage in convo with on social media as trolls can’t wait to attack.
Vaguebooking and humblebragging are two of the things I hate most about Facebook. If you want to say something, say it. Own it.
Yes and yes! And I’ve started to type stuff out before and then delete it, thinking to myself it sounds a bit like bragging. We just need people to be more mindful when they post. I know, pretty much impossible!