Subtly letting others now about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or "woe is me" gloss. (Urban Dictionary)
There’s nothing new about false modesty, nor its designation as a form of bad manners. But the prevalence of social media has given us many more canvases on which to paint our faux humility — making us, in turn, increasingly sophisticated braggers.
Enter the self-deprecating boast known as the “humblebrag,” a term devised by the comedian Harris Wittels...
Indeed, this may be why false modesty is no less discomfiting to its audience (and is sometimes more so) than outright bragging. Outright bragging expects to be met with awe, but humblebragging wants to met with awe and sympathy. It asks for two reactions from its audience, and in so doing makes fools of its beholders twice over." New York Times, 12/2/2012
Say hello to the humblebrag. As in those two sentences, the humblebrag is when someone, possibly unconsciously, manages to show off about something while simultaneously couching it in terms of self deprecation – at least enough to give the impression that the author doesn't believe the hype. The Independent, March 23, 2014
Very in the news now, humblebragging has been getting increased notice. And no more than in the Fat Acceptance Movement.
A whole new crop of business people intent on getting fat people to dislike themselves (if they don't already) enough to want to lose weight have become increasingly sophisticated in their approaches. They know now that there are enough fat people who are not going to hate themselves just because advertisements tell them to do so. So they have to come up with something much more subtle. They now discuss the fact that they didn't dislike themselves when they were fat, and yet for some mysterious reason(s) they decided to go on diets or get WLS and lose weight. They don't list the reason or reasons. And they try to be deprecatingly humorous about it.
They do, however, list links to their businesses, which invariably turn out to be weight loss training and/or diets of some kind.
Here is an example.
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-13018/5-things-i-miss-about-weighing-more-than-300-pounds.html
Don't read it if you just ate or are planning to eat.
Trying to figure out how to work this into a poem..
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