It’s used insultingly in the contexts I’m familiar with - eg. it really is remarkable what you have achieved given your obvious limitations - such overachievement. I wouldn’t ever say it to anyone directly as it is very patronising and belittling, and on the rare occasions I have to insult someone I prefer the direct route.
I’m not above using it amongst colleagues talking about another person’s work - like most fields it’s very possible to succeed in mine through perspiration over inspiration. Plenty of folk doing very well though hard graft and assembling a good team under them, but lacking the creativity and insight that is the mark of a genuinely talented scientist - overachievers. It’s not an out and out insult in this context, as it would be stupid not to value hard work above almost anything else, so there’s respect there but also a recognition of the type of game they’re playing.
If I were invited to join a friend for Thanksgiving dinner and that friend told me that their family is full of “overachievers”, I wouldn’t necessarily brace myself for a bunch of bragging. Instead, I would expect a lot of questioning about my career and life goals and a lot of boring conversation about the accomplishments/disappointments of folks not seated at the table. “Did you hear Marvin is now chairman of the board? Isn’t that great? But poor Anne found out she didn’t get accepted to Brown. You know that has been her lifelong dream. She will just have to make do at Duke, I suppose!”
I would not expect a family of overachievers to entertain themselves by comparing and contrasting the characters on Floribama Shore.
Overachiever is kind of a “belittling” term like you were marked in life for much less. My grade 12 physics teacher referred to me as the “consummate underachiever” like I was deliberate and calculating in my “underachieving”. I think he just wanted to make sure it was an “insult of insults”. You had to know this guy, he was the “consummate a**hole”.
It’s one of those terms that began as a compliment that began to be used sarcastically so much (like in the context of examples above where someone who broke the price curve in a Secret Santa, or someone working in or rattling off accomplishments or shiny milestones at a social gathering) that it’s now taking on overtones of being a negative; in another 2 generations or so (or sooner) the transition will be complete. Similar to how “terrific” originally mean “that which inspired terror”, then “terrifically good” was a popular and sarcastic way of saying “it was so good it scared me!”, then just “terrific” meaning “really good”.
And how for people under 30, according to the NY Times, “OK” or even “K” feels sarcastic or passive-aggressive, the common replacement being “kk” for “[o]k, kewl” to mean a casual “I’m good with that”. While “OK” is read as “Yeah, OK, whatever. walks away”
Tone goes a long way, so you’d know better than us whether there was a subtle slam behind this comment. But on it’s face, it reads like a perfectly normal compliment to me.
If I’m gabbing with Jane Doe and she tells me that her daughter just graduated from West Point with honors, Jane’s husband just got a book deal on his second novel, and Jane’s new business just landed a big contract, I could totally see myself calling her and her family overachievers. Simply because they are achieving more than the average person in their socioeconomic situation has achieved, and there’s clearly hard work and hustle behind it.
Yeah, those are good examples of what I would consider a complimentary use of the term. Rodman too. Damn, it was nice when the Bulls finally beat them!
I can understand this, but I think it would be better to say something like, “Those are impressive accomplishments.” To me, “overachiever” connotes trying “too hard”, or doing “too much”, possibly with the result of making others who are not as capable or hardworking look bad by comparison.
I think that’s a good distinction- there are overachievers who are… just that way, and then then there are the overachievers who have a conscious, explicit reason for it- they’re aiming for a goal, or they feel like they can’t let someone else win, or they are attention hogs, etc… and are basically making a point of overachieving. They’re generally the ones who people are referring to when they use the term “overachiever” as an insult I think, because that sort of overachievement is often obnoxious and toxic, and it’s not genuine either.
But that connotation doesn’t work in the particular context I gave, because landing a book deal and scoring a big contract are tied to tangible benefits no one with good sense would roll their eyes at. You only look like a “try hard” when you mistake spinning your wheels with actually going somewhere in life.
I would only perceive insult in the way you’re referring to if someone was talking about stuff that isn’t actually impressive but gives the appearance of impressiveness to superficial or immature people who conflate activity with accomplishment. Think of a boy scout who is trying to max out the number of badges he has, not for the joy of mastering new skills but because he just wants to have the badges to show off. This is an “overachiever” in the sense you are talking about.
But I rarely hear the term used in that way in my parts.
Is it possible that part of this is just that you are uncomfortable sharing on the same level, and people respond poorly? You have had some struggles in your family–you’ve posted about them here. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep that private and put your best foot forward with people you know, but it can also be somewhat frustrating when it feels like someone is presenting their life as a Norman Rockwall painting. It can feel like they are trying to “one-up” you, not by being successful but by refusing to admit times when things haven’t gone the way they want, when you yourself have been open about your struggles. In a case like that, people lash out a little.
Are you thinking about your wife? I am thinking about your wife–to me, she seems like an example of the first kind, the sort of person who just always wants to excel in what she does and doesn’t at all care what other people think about it. That’s a really good kind of overachiever.
No, it really hasn’t been like that. I think the “struggles” I’ve posted about have been pretty minimal compared to what I hear/see of much of our social circle. And I likely magnify those struggles because my personal standards are so high. But my high standards are based upon an awareness of my and my family’s abilities. Even doing a half-assed job, we have enough advantages that we should be able to lead decent lives so long as we don’t fuck up.
All of our kids graduated college and are employed, independent, and in longterm relationships. We are both pretty healthy, and pretty financially secure. My wife has always done a very good job of having our home appear more “gracious” than my income might suggest. We’ve had our difficulties, but have been married 33 years.
So the kinda situation is people will be talking about which spouse lost their job, who had health problems, which kid dropped out of school or was arrested, who got divorced…, and we almost feel guilty about saying things are going pretty well with us. And if we just mention what we have done or what we expect, we are called “overachievers.” I dunno, I merely consider us competent.
I was actually thinking of some college acquaintances more than anyone else though. In college, I was in the dorm whose admissions were regulated by the university honors department- first as a resident, and later as a RA. To get admitted into that dorm as a freshman, you had to have won one of a few large university-granted scholarships, all of which were very competitive and required not only academic but extracurricular excellence. So nobody there was just an average achiever- we were all overachievers of some sort.
I noticed that people broke out into two basic categories. Most were just normal people who happened to be good and motivated at academics, and did the extracurriculars that they wanted to do because they enjoyed it in some way. Of course, with that population a lot of them ended up leaders in the various student organizations.
But the second category were the people who, for lack of a better term, had an agenda. They always had very defined and specific goals for the medium-long term, and were actively massaging their lives, grades and extracurriculars to get there. They weren’t doing what they were doing because they were just good at it, or because they enjoyed it, but rather because it looked good on a resume, or to an admissions board, or something like that. Or worse, because what they wanted to do did NOT look as good as what they were doing. They were the people who were looking to get in to medical school, so they were engineering their resume to look attractive to the med school admissions people. They were the people who were planning to run for office in the future/be politically active, so they were engineering their lives to set themselves up for that. And since they had a goal, they were typically extremely competitive- they always had to win, or else they weren’t going to achieve their goal.
They always came across as very insincere and fake- nothing that they were doing was for its own sake, but was always aimed at some other goal. They felt untrustworthy or suspicious for some reason- it wasn’t a case of them actually being that way, but that was always my reaction to that particular sort of person.
The tl;dr version would be to compare the kid who earns his Eagle Scout badge because he liked being a Boy Scout, and doing that sort of stuff, versus the kid who joined Boy Scouts and got Eagle strictly because it looks good for college admissions, not because he likes camping or community service or anything. The second one is the toxic sort of overachiever I’m talking about.
It can sometimes be used with an air of jealousy to it, but yes, that is my experience.
I can see how you can read it like that, but when I’ve heard the term in use, I’ve never really gotten that sense. Ambivalid’s definition is about right: “An overachiever is someone with the short stick of talent and the long stick of work ethic,” though I don’t necessarily think you need to have a short stick of talent. You can be reasonably talented and still be an overachiever. To me, it is someone who works hard and strives towards achievement, someone who is very goal-oriented and successful vis-a-vis their peers. An overachiever does not necessarily need to be compared to his/herself, like in the interpretation that an overachiever achieves more than one would expect them to, but rather to their general peer group.
I honestly can’t think of a time I’ve heard the term used pejoratively or as a backhanded compliment. With the right context and tone, I’m sure it can, of course – that’s just not the way I encounter it IRL.
When I’ve heard it in a negative context, it’s always been about one of those second category people, and usually when they’ve overachieved in a way that draws undue attention or leaves others behind.
It hasn’t been used as an insult or a direct pejorative term, but as part of snarky-ish commentary about the overachiever’s behavior. Sort of like saying “Oh, did you hear about so-and-so’s son in the newspaper?” and then the reply would be “Yeah, he’s a bit of an overachiever, isn’t he?”, with the implication that he’s getting a bit big for his britches. It’s not quite a crabs-in-the-pot situation- nobody’s claiming he doesn’t deserve it, but they’re critical of how he got there.