Oh wait, you don’t even know what a #humblebrag is?  Well since you’ve crawled out from under your rock and got on the internet, let me enlighten you.  </sarcasm>  (I haven’t expected this to catch on yet, so its actually acceptable you don’t know what it is yet. Also, I generally still hate twitter where this is the most prevalent, though facebook comes in a very, very close second)

From the original piece written by Harris Wittels:

“A Humblebrag is basically a specific type of bragging which masks the brag in a faux-humble guise. The false humility allows the offender to boast their “achievements” without any sense of shame or guilt. Unfortunately/fortunately, Humblebragging is very commonly used in our society, and for some reason Twitter seems to be the perfect forum for people to do it. So, about a year ago, instead of just silently griping about it to myself, I gave it a name and started an account on Twitter on which I retweet Twitter’s most flagrant Humblebraggers (www.twitter.com/humblebrag).”

Sean
YO EVERYBODY! Post something about The Voice in your status message so I can defriend you!

me: i really hate losing
Renee: I don’t lose
Renee: so I have no idea what that feels like

Erin: when i talk on conference calls
Erin: i sound like frank from old school
Erin: when he blacks out on the podium

me: How do you even use that?
Daniel: maybe like, “check this out, totally lollerskates” and then continue with your story like you didn’t even just say lollerskates.

Alanna: i might enjoy seeing bruce slip on a small rock down an awkwardly steep yet manageable slope

Steve: I don’t have any children, but I will assume my love for them will be comparable to my present love of gmail

Gunner: oh yea man
i love bocce
but you have to play while smoking a cigar
or else you’re just an amateur

Jess: well you aren’t an idiot, just always learning

r: “Despite popular belief that is apparently being perpetuated by this film, my years of programming, hacking and general computer nerdery have not yielded a similar response.  I figured, when I first got into computers, that I would literally have ladies lining up at my keyboard to get a piece of the action.  Sadly, that is far from the case, and most women’s (and men’s) eyes generally glaze over with boredom when I attempt to explain what I do.  I usually just say “consultant” when people ask now.”

Andy’s take on it:

Literally right off the top of my head, there are three things that that would make a fantastic logo and name for:

A search engine (though it probably would only return moderately pertinent results).
A French restaurant.
A twitter/FML-style social networking site designed specifically for messages of mediocrity (my favorite).

My immediate thought was to comment/post it on status updates on Facebook that I thought were completely inane or useless, but I think his ideas are better.

Hey kids, it’s me, from the record company. You know who totally gets your sex-crazed teenage angst? Katy Perry does. You know who’s a super hot rebel, who dates the bad boy, and doesn’t care what anyone thinks, just like you? Katy Perry, that’s who. You know who digs singing about Jesus, except when it proves unprofitable? Katy Per-wait, what was that last one?

</sarcasm>

I feel like if you didn’t realize that constantly, publicly, announcing your location was grounds for being robbed raped and pillaged (arrr!) then you are and idiot.  I understand there are probably arguments out there against this being an issue, but what it all comes down to is making yourself an easy target.  You can say “well people can break in whenever they want” or “if they really want to steal from me they will be able to just see when I leave.”   This is true unless you are a CEO, famous athlete, JHM, etc and thus more of a target than a normal person.  Outside of fitting into that criteria, why should a person bother to care that other people know their name, address, when they are home, or other things?

Well.. if I am looking for a place to steal shit from, and there are two houses on a block, one with a sign on it that says “no one is home!” and one that has nothing posted.. which one will I go to?  Yeah, exactly.  A bit of an exaggerated point, but if you narrow your twitter feed, looking for people in a specific region that aren’t home, then use their twitter account to find their facebook, linked in, google account or anywhere else their address is posted.. you now have an open invite and can probably figure out exactly how much time you have to peruse their belongings based on where they are “checked in.”  Or, the best status message, “in Hawaii for a week!” shows them they have an entire week to scope the place out and pick the best time to walk in to steal your shit.

Everyone should furthermore appreciate this stupidity in light of how just a few short years ago everyone was worried about posting their LAST NAME online somewhere.. let alone addresses or phone numbers.  Amazing how we went from being tentative to state our last name on a profile or IM account, for fear they could look us up in a phone book.  <- remember those? I do, because they still freaking come to my house. But I digress, that is an argument for another day.

So we’ve moved from that mentality briskly into announcing every piece of contact information about ourselves and on top of that where we are at all times!  Besides being robbed, if a dude (you might not even know them, maybe they found your pic online and liked what they saw) wants to stalk you, find you at a bar or whatever, you are paving the road for them.  Nicely done.

I must be taking crazy pills here but I can’t be the only one who realizes how stupid this is right?!  People gobble shit shit up as soon as the newest ‘social networking app’ is released.  Immediately adopting allows them to be on the forefront of whatever, and cooler cause they can say ‘oh I’ve been using it for months, its awesome you should check it out.’  Other reasons I can think of for using these apps in this manner include but are not limited to, bragging about what they are doing (I include myself amongst people guilty of this) and ‘everyone else doing it.’

I know there are probably more arguments against my point of view, so let me have it, I’m interested.  (And “getting points” or “being a mayor” on foursquare does not count.)