Bragging has always been an act that I and most people I know stay away from. It’s a useless self-promotion that ends up with more negative connotations than positive congratulations. And considering that we are all fortunate enough to attend Columbia University, there’s obviously plenty of aspects that we can choose to brag about. There’s a certain reason we all were accepted into a prestigious university, whether it was the constant piano lessons for the next recital, the game-winning goal in the soccer chip, the endless hours of volunteering at the hospital: we all are here because of the experiences we’ve had and the opportunity for us to accomplish so much more.
And then enter 1400 first years all trying to assert their identity in a highly competitive atmosphere. That’s the problem that plenty of students have when trying to introduce themselves or even just declaring some good news—everything is treated as a competition, where fellow students need to one-up each other in order to seem more competent and have better job security. And despite the fact that they have all reached the one final destination of here (*cue the NSOP “You Are Here” videos), the need to show others what one has accomplished is all the more necessary.
Students want to share their good news while maintaining an outgoing and relaxed persona, but oftentimes find themselves either oversharing to the point where their success leads to jealousy, or feeling as if their accomplishments have gone unnoticed and underappreciated.
So how are we to counteract this endless cycle of humility and jealousy? Humble bragging of course!
Defined by our good pals at Harvard as “bragging masked by a complaint” in the school’s study, humble bragging often takes form in social media posts and in casual talking. One would mention some good fortune that has happened, like attaining an internship or securing a new job, with a complaint that does little to underplay the positive aspect of the sentence. Such examples have included Adam Levine posting “Wow. We got mobbed at the airport. I think they thought we were @justinbieber . . .” to a personal favorite from Annie Duke, who tweeted, “Can we start a media campaign to question how I got into Columbia, too? Still scratching my head about how I got accepted & demand answers!”
Alright we get it, you’re famous and smart. But can we use that to our advantage when trying to have simple conversations with motivated peers?
The Harvard study found that humble bragging provides little to no positive results, but rather, it promotes negative images of someone who is not competent or honest. It ran a series of studies in which subjects were given tweets and quotes from a mixture of braggers, humble braggers, and complainers. The subjects tended to vote the complainers as the most honest, with braggers coming in second and the humble braggers coming in last.
However, the study found that if done correctly with the certain amount of complaining and bragging, the negative effects of humble bragging are diminished. There has to be a genuine concern for the complaint as well as telling the brag. For example, instead of saying “I am so fed up with stores not carrying my double-0 size,” one should make an attempt to be as genuine as possible while still offering more information on the bragging part of the sentence. Here, the complaint is overlooked as the reader focuses on the person’s 00 size, yet the genuine complaint would be, “I hope stores will change their policies on stocking more items in 00 sizes.”
The major concern is not that the complaint overshadows the brag, but that there’s a genuine interest in the complaint in the first place. The complaint of “I am so fed up” is not a complaint but a boast in itself, saying “I have a 00 size and I’m mad stores don’t carry it.” It brings bad connotations for the listener in the conversation, because the odds are they won’t have what you’re bragging about and therefore, it comes off as an attack on them for having a wider variety of clothing to choose from in stores. However, the opposite works the same way: by saying a wish, you address that it is the store that has a problem and not the listener, which would not only lead to a complement for your 00 size, but also spark a conversation in talking about the problem.
Give it a try, but don’t come off as too assertive or deprecating. You should celebrate yourself and everything you have done—especially anything that involves leaving this six block radius. It’s a competitive school to get into, it shouldn’t be a competitive school to reside in.
