I was wondering about that. Thanks! Also, I never realized that admissions committees just basically throw dice all day long, but that’s useful info too.
Anyways, I think a lot of people would have some negative internal reaction if a friend of theirs talked about getting hit on constantly. Not necessarily because it’s not true, but because it just takes some audacity to say it, because in my experience, in the real world, people don’t openly say positive things about themselves.
Or maybe my friends are particularly self-deprecating.
Thanks for the responses, btw. They’ve been helpful. I think my perceptions about boasting in real life vs. the internet are a combination of confirmation bias and the need for a backstory, with a mix of “everyone’s a hottie millionaire on the 'net” thrown in.
People always brag more on the Internet than IRL, but this here is nothing more than false modesty and rude to boot. If you are proud of something, it is OK to say so and it doesn’t need to be followed by a self-deprecating remark, especially if it’s something you actually accomplished.
“I lost twenty pounds!” is a great example of being justifiably proud of something.
“I was born to rich parents!” is a great example of bragging.
And compliments should always be received with grace. I hate the “I love that sweater!” “Oh, this old thing?” I don’t know how that latter came to be seen as graceful by anyone; it feels like an insult to me - i.e., you thought it was nice but it’s really crap.
I’m honest about how I feel about myself in the real world, as well as on the internet. I have bad qualities, but also good ones (mostly the good ones are a matter of luck/genetics), and I see no point in pretending I don’t recognize either and the ways they effect my life.
These are all fair points. I’m not necessarily defending the behavior I experience/participate in IRL, but rather pointing out what I see as social mores in that environment.
That is to say, I wouldn’t think it’s rude if someone brushes off my compliment, but I can see how others would feel that way.
To clear up any confusion because some people were wondering, I’m female.
Without giving out details that would lead to someone showing up on my doorstep, here’s the scoop: I’ve been working since I was a kid. When I was younger, I did a lot of commercials (shampoo and beauty products mostly) and some print (pattern covers, shampoo ads, catalog, and so forth) modeling.
I have switched careers a couple of times in my life, and gradually tapered off on the in front of the camera end. I now do something else entirely. Am I attractive? Yes. Some of it is genetic, some of it is because I work hard at it. Very hard.
Oftentimes people here take pride in the fact that they don’t work out or take care with their appearance. That’s their choice. My choice is to eat right, stay healthy, work out and make sure that I look and feel my best no matter what I am doing with my life. To me, that’s not bragging. It’s a personal lifestyle choice I made and feel best with. I like being happy and healthy.
Bragging goes on here, but I agree that its no more than in real life and maybe considerably less. I’ve heard lots of idiots bragging away about inane crap in real life. There is definitely some bitterness and nasty behavior on the sdmb towards some posters who’ve been fortunate enough to have rich parents and/or good looks. Not one of our better traits.
I don’t really talk about myself irl at all. So there is no chance to brag, if you will. Online I adhere to the adage “it ain’t bragging if it’s the truth”. As long as it’s relevant. I wouldn’t threadshit a random person’s thread with my IQ, because IQ isn’t relevant there. I would divulge my IQ in a thread talking about IQs, because it’s relevant. It just happens to be high; why is it bragging as long as it’s relevant? If someone came into a thread talking about their 98 IQ randomly, it wouldn’t be bragging but it would still be obnoxious.
For an actual example, I do not normally talk about the fact that I was valedictorian of my high school class. But I did in the thread about female conscription, because it’s extremely relevant to why I wouldn’t have agreed to be drafted at the age of 19.
The fun stuff is plausible: could I have once upon a time claimed to be in the top 100 or so players of the contrabass bugle, probably not, but I was a finalist at the DCI world championships. Only 120 or so Contrabass Bugle players were there…
If somebody just posts something positive about themselves, either a piece of good luck they had or something they accomplished, the only appropriate reaction is to be happy for them, really.
What I see here, all the time, is people who can’t resist tearing down other posters just for the hell of it, just because they can. It’s like “Here’s a person who feels bad, let me see if I can make it any worse.”
Now, that’s not bragging, but there’s sort of a bragginess in saying to implying to someone who’s had some bad luck “That could never have happened to me, because I’m smart/attractive/righteous enough to avoid such misfortunes.”
Doing that in real life is sort of frowned upon, but you can do it with impunity here.
I’m not pulling shit out of my ass, which I’m sure galls you. Yes, Virginia, there were people just as qualified as you who didn’t get an acceptance letter in the mail.
Again, like WhyNot said here:
nobody says these things around friends; their friends are around to witness it.
So…yeah. Your question was answered logically and completely, and some were nice enough to make some jokes about it too.
ETA:
Nobody says this in real life. Or rather, very very few people do. In real life, people say to the person who lost the weight “Holy shit, you lost 20 pounds! Go you!”. Or they bag on their friends with rich parents.
Look, I’m glad some people are beautiful and are confident enough to say so. But some of us aren’t. Personally I’m not bitter, but I’m not going to lie to cover for who I shave in the morning. Its not some badge, its not some phony meme to steal ‘cool cred’. Its being honest.
I may be a wise-ass, but if you catch me bragging about being perfect this or better than the rest that, I sure hope that the board would call me out on it. I drive clunkers. The only people I make more than here are unemployed. The only person I could ever make rich might be a good labor lawyer.
Still, while the world I stand on might be made of crap, I take my stand in choosing not to be just another turd on the pile. I don’t call that bragging; I just call it being Human.
To be fair, most of the “Why Do People Want to Date You” thread has been pretty mild. Universal Internet Bragging Tendency aside, in the context of “what do you bring to the table in dating” stuff like “I have a college degree/I have nice blue eyes/I have a successful career/I have big hooters” is fairly healthy and honest self appraisal.
I never denied that. But to randomly come into a thread and go off on my insecurities based on the fact that I’m a med student? WTF?
Also, yeah, implying that I’m here just “by luck” is pretty insulting. Sure, tons of people with numbers equal to or better than mine didn’t get in. But there must be something I did that they didn’t do that the interviewers liked. Maybe it was as simple as applying earlier, or as arbitrary as a different hairstyle, but comparing it to a “roulette wheel”?
I’m probably mostly responsible for the sneak-brag hijack that happened in the thread linked by the OP. One of LurkerInNJ’s posts in there really came off to me as being weirdly braggy in an out-of-context way, but I have since been convinced that I was having some kind of Interweb Malfunction and misunderstanding what she meant.
I’m tempted to throw in a little commentary here about how I really know what I’m talking about on this topic due to my exceptionally high SAT scores, but I should probably just lay off the jokes on this issue for a day or so, yeah? Yeah.
Stevie Hawking and I were just talking about this the other day, and we both think that the proportion of internet bragging to RW bragging can only be approximated.
In my culture bragging isn’t so much frowned upon as likely to turn you into a social outcast. It was one of the things that I found hard when moving to the US: I was supposed to do things like tell my boss during my annual review “my accomplishments for this past year” - in Spain, the boss would have been the one expected to track that! It didn’t felt like necessary reporting but like bragging.
So for me there is a big differential, but it isn’t a matter of “this is the 'net and who’s going to refute me”, it’s because of completely different cultural contexts.
I think Brits and Americans boast in different ways.
Massive generalisation ahead…
Americans will tell you straight up within a few second of meeting you all the cool things about themselves. They will also ask you very intrusive questions in an attempt to socially classify you (‘where are you from?’, ‘where did you go to school?’, ‘what do you do?’).
Brits will tend to downplay or be quiet about their achievements. Speaking for myself, this isn’t a form of modesty, but a more long-term bragging strategy. It has two benefits. First, you get to smugly listen when an American is going on about themselves. It’s quite nice to think “what a fool, he’s going on about Cornell like it’s impressive, little does he know I went to Harvard”
Second, when you do reveal impressive stuff later, or it gets dragged out of you, and it’s obviously no big deal to you, then that impresses people all the more. “Wow he went to Harvard and he doesn’t even think it’s a big deal! Wonder what else he’s got going on…”
Aaannnyway. I tend to think that the British approach is not quite so doable online. So I for one find myself a bit more openly boastful online. That’s because I’m so intelligent and socially astute, so I’m able to adjust my message to the medium.