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What is Facebragging and are you guilty of it?

"I'm having so much fun!"

"I'm having so much fun!" Photo: Getty

Among the many, many photos of Julie Bishop posing with various world leaders on her Facebook page, there are two featuring Amal Clooney, posted side by side.

In one image – in which we see Clooney from behind – the women are holding each other by the forearms, in the jubilant manner of winners of a school eisteddfod.

In the second photo, Bishop, in a black frock with a lacy frontispiece, is grinning as Clooney, looking a little shy, apparently rests her hand on the small of Bishop’s back.

The sober caption accompanying the photos offsets any suggestion this is some kind of pictorial name-dropping: “Working with #AmalClooney raising awareness of Yazidi plight.’’

It’s a typical Bishop post: a brief mention of serious work set against hob-nobbing happy snaps. So it goes for a Foreign Minister well attuned to social media.

But does she realise that she’s engaging, daily, in a highbrow form of Facebragging?

Say what?

Facebragging is an especially grating form of boasting on social media characterised by an awareness you’re probably pissing people off … but you need to let them know how great you are anyway.

The best definition of the phenomenon I found comes from an Indiana pastor and blogger Lawrence W Martin. He writes: “Humble bragging… promoting yourself while pretending to be mystified by your own achievements.’‘

It’s saying things like “Can’t believe my little darling won first prize (again) in the school show #speechless”. Or “Salesman of the year for the third time running. Never saw this coming #humbled”.

Fear of missing out

Dr Nicholas Hookway is a cultural sociologist at the University of Tasmania. Over email, Hookway told The New Daily: “Facebragging plays out as part of a wider anxiety in our consumer culture about how much fun are we having and how much pleasure we accumulating. [Social media] becomes a key space in contemporary societies where we play out and negotiate this anxiety.’’

It’s the hint of an apology that makes Facebragging so irritating – and yet it demonstrates the inherent vulnerability of sharing one’s life online in order to gain approval or even admiration.

But with human nature, displaying any kind of weakness only serves to provoke disdain among the same people you’re to impress.

“The difference with social media is that rules of positive affirmation are embedded within the interaction in an explicit and exaggerated way, through ‘liking’ and commenting,’’ said Hookway.

“This makes us vulnerable when our sharing and interactions are met with little attention, or worse, silence.’’

For people whose own lives are going so swimmingly, the Facebragging of others is a downer.

“Considering these highly stylised presentations of self online, it’s not surprising that research shows that people who lurk on Facebook, rather than actively contributing via status updates and commenting, are more vulnerable to feeling depressed or report low moods as a result of their use. It’s the ‘lonely in a crowd’ phenomenon.”

Memes about Facebragging abound on social media.

Memes about Facebragging abound on social media.

‘I need to draw closer to God’

Curiously enough, Facebragging has become a talking point in the US church scene, with ministers riffing on the subject as a cool way to address questions of God-filled humility.

A post from LarkNews.com – an American satirical Christian website – recently went viral, being shared on Facebook 65,5000 times. It was written like a newspaper story and began thusly:

MANSFIELD, Ohio — Last week Molly Parker posted a stunning photo of a three-tier cake with elaborate icing decorations, along with the caption, “A little something I made for the fam in my free time …”

“It was so typical that I forgot to be annoyed,” says a friend who like others in their church says Molly’s ‘Facebragging’ amounts to a constant wave of self-congratulatory posts about her life. “If you want to learn patience and slowness to anger, do yourself a favour and friend Molly Parker.”

Friends use her posts as a gauge of how spiritual they are feeling that day.

“If I’m upset by Molly’s posts, I know I need to draw closer to God,” says one. “If her Facebragging rolls off my back, I’m good.”

Let us pray for patience when dealing with serial Facebraggers. Photo: Getty

Let us pray for patience when dealing with serial Facebraggers. Photo: Getty

Can you Facebrag your way to a break-up?

In recent weeks there have been countless blogs – and lawyer websites – propagating a claim that Facebragging is fuelling divorce statistics.

The story was spawned by the UK’s Telegraph newspaper, sourcing lawyer Holly Tootill from Manchester law firm JMW Solicitors. Ms Tootill has a history of gaining media coverage by claiming to recognise emerging social trends.

In April she told The Telegraph that one in five marital splits on the company’s books were caused by “silver splitting’’ syndrome – otherwise known as a big age gap.

In August Tootill told The Telegraph that one in five of her cases involved spouses complaining about their “imperfect’’ marriages – with social media a major conduit for discontent and unrealistic expectations.

No doubt Tootill’s remaining three in five cases will eventually be blamed on other social trends. But is she onto something?

It makes sense that the highly-curated and self-congratulatory version of your life that’s been posted online becomes psychologically poisonous once the real life accumulates problems.

And when friends and family learn that things have gone to hell, all that Facebragging merely adds to your shame and sense of failure. And it could well intensify the bad feelings that are causing your ship to sink.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Dr Dan Woodman is TR Ashworth Senior Lecturer and Head of Discipline for Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences. He’s sceptical about the divorce link, in part because it’s come from “a press release from a law firm’’ rather than a legitimate peer-reviewed study.

On the other, Woodman say the practice of putting on a good show for the rest of the world – the keeping up with the Joneses syndrome – is something we’ve always done.

“And to a degree we let each other get away with it,’’ said Woodman.

“Everyone wants to feel a competent actor in the world… and everything we do can be seen as a performance where we represent ourselves in the best light. If you picked up every mistake or exaggeration that people made, the world will stop.

“We forgive the lack of perfection… but we’re not quite so forgiving when people start to sound full of themselves.’’

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