Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From house to
Speaker 1: works not cold. Hello, welcome to the podcast from Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristen. And so we're talking about the the
Speaker 1: internet phenomenon that literally everyone should be familiar with, which
Speaker 1: is basically hashtag, humble brag, hashtag lucky girl, this whole
Speaker 1: phenomenon of posting things on the Internet to make yourself
Speaker 1: look great but not necessarily show off how much effort
Speaker 1: went into it. And this really made me. I had
Speaker 1: to have some some introspection, Kristen. I needed to think
Speaker 1: back to figure out if I had done this, and
Speaker 1: I think I was guilty of this, probably when I
Speaker 1: was younger, like literally when Facebook first came out and
Speaker 1: we were in college. Because we're so old, I feel
Speaker 1: like it was much more common. And I say that
Speaker 1: as if it's like someone other than myself. And I
Speaker 1: think that now I'm so turned off when other people
Speaker 1: do it online that I, as a grown person, try
Speaker 1: to avoid bragging on the internet bragging or humble bragging.
Speaker 1: Oh well, the humble brag, you know, like showing my
Speaker 1: glamorous podcaster lifestyle on the internet just to make myself
Speaker 1: look better. So in what ways would you humble bragg
Speaker 1: on Facebook back in yielden days, the old two thousand four.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't come up with like a
Speaker 1: specific example, but um, but everybody knows that humble brag
Speaker 1: if if if you haven't done it, you've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing where you know, people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to get up so early to
Speaker 1: go win that marathon race today hashtag blast. I intentionally
Speaker 1: de friended an X of mine years ago now because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to yield to the temptation to turn
Speaker 1: my Facebook into one big humble brag. Oh yeah, you're like,
Speaker 1: look how fine I am. I'm just so great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a friend who will remain un named, who
Speaker 1: recently went through a breakup. And and Kristen, she might
Speaker 1: she's doing a little bit of that. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what we're talking about. Like we
Speaker 1: we we know the humble brag, we know the outright
Speaker 1: bragging on social media, but it's this whole lucky girl
Speaker 1: phenomenon of posting stuff on the Internet, whether it's a
Speaker 1: picture on Instagram or a status on Facebook or Twitter. Um,
Speaker 1: that looks great. You know, maybe your apple pick in
Speaker 1: North Georgia or going through wine country in California, and
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful and you've got a wonderful picture, but
Speaker 1: you don't indicate what's going on behind the scenes. Maybe
Speaker 1: you did go through a breakup. Maybe you had to
Speaker 1: take fifty pictures for one to turn out right, you know, well,
Speaker 1: and speaking of what's going on behind the scenes, did
Speaker 1: you have to take fifty plus photos? This is very
Speaker 1: reminiscent of what was happening earlier in November with social
Speaker 1: media star a Sina O'Neill, who took herself off of
Speaker 1: Instagram and all of her platforms because she fessed up
Speaker 1: that it's all fake. Shocking. Yeah. Yeah, she said she
Speaker 1: was tired of the whole you know, sponsored post rigamarole,
Speaker 1: that she was tired of caring as a teenager. She's
Speaker 1: really young. I think she's just eighteen now, she said,
Speaker 1: you know, she was tired of being such a young
Speaker 1: person whose entire life was dedicated to putting forth this front,
Speaker 1: this hyper stylized, hyper fashioned, hyper dieted front, when really
Speaker 1: none of that was giving her any happiness. That it
Speaker 1: was portraying an amazing lifestyle. But then of course there's
Speaker 1: a whole question that we're going to get into as
Speaker 1: well of actually owning our success and being comfortable in
Speaker 1: our success and achievements and good things that happened. Because
Speaker 1: while I think it's totally responsible as an Internet person
Speaker 1: to have your humble brag radar on and do what
Speaker 1: you can to control your output of it, there's the
Speaker 1: line between that and then being completely averse to any
Speaker 1: type of self promotion or sharing good things to happen
Speaker 1: because you don't want to seem like you're being too boastful. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: so the article that I saw that got my wheels
Speaker 1: turning on this within the Atlantic in September of this year,
Speaker 1: and they were talking about this whole what they call
Speaker 1: vi bating hashtag lucky Girl phenomenon um, and like we said,
Speaker 1: this is basically just posting the fruits of your sometimes
Speaker 1: very extensive labor or hardship without acknowledging the hard work
Speaker 1: that went into making it. Whether this is getting engaged,
Speaker 1: whether this is uh preparing a meal, you know, like
Speaker 1: it could be anything. It could be small, large, significant,
Speaker 1: or insignificant, but it's simply putting forth this image. Like
Speaker 1: we said that everything's hunky dorry when perhaps he really
Speaker 1: had to work for it well, And that's why when
Speaker 1: I got engaged and shared it with my Facebook friends,
Speaker 1: I first uploaded just a photographic montage of all the
Speaker 1: fights and tears that my fiancee and I had experienced
Speaker 1: in the previous couple of years, and like, it was
Speaker 1: such a long walk down the Wall of China, you know,
Speaker 1: an old wall of China, and how actually this is true.
Speaker 1: How in the car ride do the Great Wall of
Speaker 1: China where or podcast vans who are not aware that's
Speaker 1: where my proposal took place. And it was amazing. But
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was going to happen because in
Speaker 1: the van ride there he was rasing me the whole time.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, he's being very unromantic today, so
Speaker 1: surely there's little bait and switch, little bit an affection
Speaker 1: bait and switch. And don't think that academics haven't gotten
Speaker 1: in on this because it is tied into so much
Speaker 1: gendered stuff. You know, social media is so hot right now,
Speaker 1: you guys. But they wrote that it reflects something deeper
Speaker 1: and perhaps pernicious in contemporary culture, the pressure young women
Speaker 1: feel to be effortlessly perfect, And they're citing a two
Speaker 1: thousand three Duke University study that coined effortlessly Perfect. Although
Speaker 1: I'm sure other people have said that phrase before. They
Speaker 1: write that you have to have it all together, but
Speaker 1: don't let them see you sweat. Doesn't it seem to
Speaker 1: tie into the broader have it all goal, Well, for sure,
Speaker 1: just all part of it um and Cosopaldian Magazine is
Speaker 1: having none of it either. They recently talked to about
Speaker 1: this hashtag lucky girl, which is super common on Instagram
Speaker 1: in particular, and they described it as weirdly distancing and
Speaker 1: its annoying refusal to take any credit, using the fictional
Speaker 1: example of a girl who graduated and landed this amazing
Speaker 1: job without noting that, oh, you know, I had all
Speaker 1: these summer internships and how to do all this networking
Speaker 1: and email like two hundred random people and finally got
Speaker 1: this job. But instead all you see is hashtag lucky girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's not to say that you know, you can't,
Speaker 1: for instance, post a picture on the first day of
Speaker 1: that new job and be super excited or whatever, but
Speaker 1: it's that whole attributing everything to luck instead of and
Speaker 1: not that you would necessarily say, like hashtag I had
Speaker 1: to email two people to get this job. But it's
Speaker 1: the it's the combination of not owning your own success
Speaker 1: and hard work and also um portraying your life for
Speaker 1: the event or whatever it is in a way that's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know me, I'm just so good at this hashtag
Speaker 1: blast hashtag. Well, and there is a gendered element to
Speaker 1: this social media good fortune as well, And this is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why, of course we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about it on Stuff Mom Never Told You Because
Speaker 1: analytics company Crimson Hexagon looked at the statistics over the
Speaker 1: past year and found that women on Twitter are the
Speaker 1: ones using lucky fifty six percent of the time, and
Speaker 1: that she gets up to sixty seven percent when it's
Speaker 1: specifically in the first person. So I'm so lucky. And
Speaker 1: it seems to be most common in the romantic arena,
Speaker 1: So proposals, romantic dates. I don't know what else, What's
Speaker 1: what is romantic swiping? Right? I don't know what do
Speaker 1: people post? A lot of people post on the Internet.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, well, so why why is it gendered?
Speaker 1: Why is does it seem to be more women? The
Speaker 1: Atlantic Sites author Rachel Simmons, who wrote the Curse of
Speaker 1: the Good Girl, who says that it's about women's reluctance
Speaker 1: to take ownership of their accomplishments, which Kristen to me,
Speaker 1: sounds really familiar. Since you and I did an episode
Speaker 1: about the impostor syndrome, we talked about Lenin, We've talked
Speaker 1: in general just a lot about professional women who maybe
Speaker 1: don't speak up enough for themselves, and so as part
Speaker 1: of that, we've talked about how ladies are already less
Speaker 1: likely to self promote and ask for more money, ask
Speaker 1: for a raise, negotiate for a higher salary, and hand
Speaker 1: in hand with that, they are more likely to give
Speaker 1: credit to others. And so, speaking of Lenin, Cheryl Sandberg writes,
Speaker 1: ask a man to explain a success, and he will
Speaker 1: typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a
Speaker 1: woman the same question, and she'll likely attribute her success
Speaker 1: to external factors, insisting she did well because quote she
Speaker 1: worked really whole hard, or got lucky, or had help
Speaker 1: from others. So this sounds pretty related to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, absolutely, and it's not just Sandberg coming up
Speaker 1: with that. I mean, there are so many studies in
Speaker 1: both academic and workplace settings that corroborate this, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it seems to route back to this likability
Speaker 1: factor where women are often in this double bind, especially
Speaker 1: if they are ambitious of wanting to succeed but also
Speaker 1: wanting to remain likable at the same time. And unfortunately
Speaker 1: those two things don't always go hand in hand thanks
Speaker 1: to gender issues in work environments, and women especially for
Speaker 1: that reason, don't want to appear to be bragging, if
Speaker 1: not only to protect themselves from criticism, but also to
Speaker 1: protect other people's feelings. They might not want to damage
Speaker 1: a friend or partners ego. They might want to make
Speaker 1: other feel other people feel comfortable around them, they want
Speaker 1: to stay relatable. One of the articles we were reading
Speaker 1: about this, I can't remember if it was in Forbes,
Speaker 1: but they were interviewing a woman who was very successful
Speaker 1: but also a very hard worker. I mean, things weren't
Speaker 1: just handed to her. She wasn't just hashtag lucky. She
Speaker 1: worked really hard. And she said she felt like she
Speaker 1: couldn't publicly sort of enjoy the fruits of her labor. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, she felt like she couldn't carry the fancy
Speaker 1: handbag out to dinner or by you know, the very
Speaker 1: expensive meal off the menu. She felt like she kind
Speaker 1: of had to, I guess, do the financial equivalent of
Speaker 1: dumbing herself down. But the thing is that ended up,
Speaker 1: she said, sparking sort of a cycle of well, I
Speaker 1: don't want to brag about my success, but I at
Speaker 1: least want to talk about it with my friends, And
Speaker 1: the less I talk about it or feel I have
Speaker 1: to hide it, the worst I feel about myself. And
Speaker 1: so it creates this whole cycle of if you're not
Speaker 1: self promoting, which that tends to have a negative connotation anyway,
Speaker 1: but if you're not self promoting, then other people won't
Speaker 1: know how great you are. So I mean, it is
Speaker 1: a fine line, and it's especially fine for women who
Speaker 1: statistically tend to be so much more nervous about coming
Speaker 1: off as bragging or just coming off as you know,
Speaker 1: I'm better than you somehow. And not only is there
Speaker 1: that issue of our worries about other people's perceptions, but
Speaker 1: also our own twisted perceptions of our own success. And
Speaker 1: this really gets into imposter syndrome territory where we do
Speaker 1: genuinely believe that we are lucky and nothing else because
Speaker 1: we feel like we don't deserve the achievements and successes
Speaker 1: that we've had, and this turns into this cycle where
Speaker 1: you kind of can never self promote, which was something
Speaker 1: that software engineer Natasha Muritia shared in Forbes. Yeah. She
Speaker 1: wrote that if you believe that you've got a big
Speaker 1: promotion because of luck rather than your hard work, you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to feel right bragging about how much
Speaker 1: you deserve the promotion and how awesome you are. Instead,
Speaker 1: she writes, you're going to feel like a scam artist
Speaker 1: who got lucky, and that you'd be lying if you
Speaker 1: said you deserved it. So what is up with that?
Speaker 1: What's the deal? The deal? Lucky Girls? Wait on? Caroline's
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld in the studio. He's always sneaking in here
Speaker 1: under the stable. It's really uncomfortable. He like keeps asking
Speaker 1: us to get in his car. I wish Elaine Bennet
Speaker 1: would sneak into the studio from time to time. You
Speaker 1: and me. Both she and I have similar dance moves.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, me too. We just have a podcast
Speaker 1: studio dance party. We're I think we are just clearly
Speaker 1: outright bragging that our dance skills are as good as
Speaker 1: Elaine benees they are as elbow and knee heavy as
Speaker 1: all eb I know it, but seriously, what's up with
Speaker 1: all that? And I'm not talking about our dance skills,
Speaker 1: although perhaps we should. Uh yeah. Writing over at Forbes
Speaker 1: in July, Peggy Drexler wrote that the scietal expectations for
Speaker 1: female behavior traditionally and enduringly value modesty and collaboration. And
Speaker 1: so even if you think, oh, we'll screw everybody, we
Speaker 1: should feel confident in our abilities or in our accomplishments
Speaker 1: or whatever, you would be foolish to think that women
Speaker 1: don't internalize societal norms and expectations, especially things that have
Speaker 1: been around forever. That women just need to quietly enjoy
Speaker 1: baking at home, not that you can't. I like quietly
Speaker 1: baking at home, baking and then taking endless photos of
Speaker 1: your perfect baking right right, and just hashtag lucky the
Speaker 1: eggs are really good today. I didn't even I barely
Speaker 1: had to stir um well. And it doesn't help either
Speaker 1: that pop culture enjoys the trope of the self deprecating
Speaker 1: heroine or the charming but downdrawden woman, as as Drexler
Speaker 1: points out, So what really struck me in comparing and
Speaker 1: contrasting the whole like lucky are a humble, bragging social
Speaker 1: media thing with the professional accomplishments thing, is that all
Speaker 1: of those career articles that we just cited Kristen seem
Speaker 1: to have a lot more to do with having a
Speaker 1: chieved success through hard work, through effort, but not wanting
Speaker 1: to seem like you're bragging about the success itself, when
Speaker 1: really you have every reason to be pleased with yourself
Speaker 1: and to be confident about the work you've done. Whereas
Speaker 1: the social media lucky girl stuff, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: seems like to me that it's putting the success on
Speaker 1: display but then downplaying the effort so that everyone is
Speaker 1: aware of when you're successful or when something awesome is happening,
Speaker 1: without being aware that behind the scenes you could very
Speaker 1: well be struggling, yeah, or that it just requires a
Speaker 1: lot of work. Allah Sena O'Neill taking a bazillion photos
Speaker 1: just to get one where her collar bone looks especially perfect, Well, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and I mean yes, of course she is lucky in
Speaker 1: the literal traditional sense of the word, because she's getting
Speaker 1: or was getting free stuff from designers to wear on
Speaker 1: her blog. But on the other hand, what we didn't see,
Speaker 1: uh is Yeah, like Kristin said, all of the work
Speaker 1: that went into it, that she had to make her
Speaker 1: sister take five pictures of her in a single dress.
Speaker 1: Do we think that that these are the same women
Speaker 1: doing both things at various times where we might be
Speaker 1: curating almost to keep to keep up with this social
Speaker 1: media lingo that we're kind of curating how we display
Speaker 1: our effort versus success and maybe the audience where it's
Speaker 1: okay to show portray success, whatever that might be, whether
Speaker 1: it's success in the sense of being very beautiful or
Speaker 1: very adventurous, or successum in a more professional setting. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure in the Venn diagram of all
Speaker 1: of this stuff is absolutely overlaps. But I do think
Speaker 1: the motivations are pretty different. I think that um not
Speaker 1: wanting to make your friends. Maybe you're you don't want
Speaker 1: to make your unemployed friend feel uncomfortable by talking about
Speaker 1: your incredible rays at work, UM, so you kind of
Speaker 1: hide that even though you should be very proud of it.
Speaker 1: Whereas if you're posting all of these vacation pictures from
Speaker 1: a tropical location and you're like, oh, you know, I
Speaker 1: just just landed in Bali so jet lag, hashtag lass,
Speaker 1: hashtag lucky. You know, it's like the motivations, they're different.
Speaker 1: I got a hunch. I've got a stuff mom ever
Speaker 1: told you hunch. Why that is why posting your vacation
Speaker 1: photos and food photos and beauty picks, etcetera, without showing
Speaker 1: the effort behind it is more acceptable because that's more
Speaker 1: feminine gendered leisure time, cooking, being beautiful, curating your image
Speaker 1: just are all things that we expect of the tradition
Speaker 1: an old feminine role, whereas things like ambition raises, leaning
Speaker 1: in in the boardroom are still transgressive in some ways
Speaker 1: to feminine gender roles. Yeah, so maybe it feels more dangerous. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it could. You don't want to you don't want to
Speaker 1: be threatening to those around you, whether it's friends, partners,
Speaker 1: or even you know, fellow coworkers or whatever. Um. And
Speaker 1: then I mean as far as like the vacation pictures
Speaker 1: and hashtag lucky, like, yes, it could be that that's
Speaker 1: a traditionally feminine thing. It could also be that some
Speaker 1: of these people are jerks and they just want to
Speaker 1: find They're going to find a way to brag about
Speaker 1: what they're doing. It's just that bragging is such an
Speaker 1: unfeminine thing to do traditionally and socially, and so they've
Speaker 1: almost got to hide the brag, or seem to be
Speaker 1: attempting to hide the brag behind, whether it's a humble
Speaker 1: brag or whether it's just saying that you lucked out
Speaker 1: instead of you know, no, you paid for that plane ticket,
Speaker 1: you saved up for months, and then you flew to
Speaker 1: Bolly by yourself. You're alone in Bolly, Gosh darn it,
Speaker 1: you eat pray love, You're crying in that cocktail. But
Speaker 1: what really fascinates me with all of this is how,
Speaker 1: especially the hashtag lucky Girl, is a product of this
Speaker 1: very lady mag promoted idea of effortlessness. I mean, how
Speaker 1: many fashion spreads have we seen in our favorite fashion
Speaker 1: magazines have ways to look effortlessly attractive and on trend
Speaker 1: this season. Now, when I literally do the effortless thing,
Speaker 1: so I literally put no effort into what I'm doing, Um,
Speaker 1: it's terrifying. And people get this concerned look on their face, like,
Speaker 1: oh God, have you just been evicted? You know, like
Speaker 1: I am. I didn't do my hair yesterday at all,
Speaker 1: Like I might have run a brush through it. But
Speaker 1: I basically woke up hashtag woke up like this and
Speaker 1: my this is like frizzed hair out to hear arms
Speaker 1: super wide, you know, no makeup, dark circles under my eyes.
Speaker 1: That is my effortless And as l Magazine pointed out,
Speaker 1: and a really kind of funny and interesting spread they did,
Speaker 1: it costs so much money to look quote unquote effortless,
Speaker 1: not homeless, which is what I look like yesterday. It's
Speaker 1: our Whole Athlesia podcast and how you have these high
Speaker 1: end designers getting into Athletisia where just so that we
Speaker 1: can look as if we might be going to the gym.
Speaker 1: Oh I know, I gave this woman in Whole Foods
Speaker 1: the side eyed today, Uh not intentionally but like literally
Speaker 1: just trying not to look directly at her because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be creep. But she was totally in
Speaker 1: line at Whole Foods wearing the full like yoga uniform.
Speaker 1: But and I don't mean to be a judgy b word,
Speaker 1: but like full face of makeup, like heavy, heavy, full
Speaker 1: face of makeup with lashes and everything. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I bet she's doing the athleasure thing. You're going home
Speaker 1: after this and you haven't been to the gym, or
Speaker 1: maybe she's going to pure bar who knows you gotta
Speaker 1: look goods well. And speaking of makeup, it also reminds
Speaker 1: me of the whole no makeup makeup trend, where the
Speaker 1: whole thing is to spend a lot of time making
Speaker 1: your face look as flawless as possible with a lot
Speaker 1: of makeup, but not looking like you have much makeup on.
Speaker 1: And ps, I have not mastered it yet. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just going with the no makeup. No, literally, there's no makeup.
Speaker 1: Look now, I have to put on enough concealer to
Speaker 1: not look like a broken out thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 1: And then because I've put on so much concealer, and
Speaker 1: I'm already very pale, as my mother liked to remind
Speaker 1: me all while I was growing up. I know I've
Speaker 1: told you before that my mother always used to tell
Speaker 1: me that I needed more blusher. So if I don't
Speaker 1: want to look dead, I've forgot it, then put blush pond.
Speaker 1: But then if I'm nothing but like a white sheet
Speaker 1: with two red dots on my cheeks, well, now I've
Speaker 1: kind of put on mascare so that you can at
Speaker 1: least see that I have eyeball. You kind of get
Speaker 1: that marionette look excessive blusher. I mean I do draw
Speaker 1: the lines from my lips over the corner of my
Speaker 1: mouth down to my chin, so I look like a puppet.
Speaker 1: That's just that's natural. Well, and how in that l
Speaker 1: magazine spread that you were just referencing, what do they do?
Speaker 1: They added up all of the costs of these effortless
Speaker 1: and quotes outfits like at leisurely outfits, all the drap
Speaker 1: shirts and sneakers and vegan leather leggings and the cold
Speaker 1: press juices and all the things, all the various things,
Speaker 1: and uh, rounded it up to it costing over what
Speaker 1: like one fifteen thousand dollars a year to look effortless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's if you want to do all of the stuff
Speaker 1: that they've broken down, all the lotions and the potions,
Speaker 1: and the hair creams and the face creams and and
Speaker 1: the clothes and on the watches and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But they think they tallied up like just one maybe
Speaker 1: one week's worth of outfits and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: it's still came to fifty grand. I mean, if you've
Speaker 1: got the designer boyfriend jeans, the designer tunic the designer
Speaker 1: calftan over a designer calftan. But I'll know I've made it, Captain,
Speaker 1: I long for it. Um. But yeah, and so they
Speaker 1: make an interesting point though, they say it's probably no
Speaker 1: coincidence that during this moment culturally of unprecedented buzziness or
Speaker 1: at least perceived business, because I think we've talked before,
Speaker 1: right about how we're just in this age of like,
Speaker 1: I'm working so late. Everybody's bragging about working all the
Speaker 1: time even when they're not. Uh. They say, this new
Speaker 1: aspirational lifestyle is one marked by leisure and ease. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: looking effortless is not making us less busy or any
Speaker 1: richer or less and to here, for that matter, our
Speaker 1: era of sartorial and corporeal nonchalance rests on a myths
Speaker 1: that looking natural and being low maintenance are one and
Speaker 1: the same. But they write for most of us who
Speaker 1: weren't born hashtag blessed, they are definitely not. And speaking
Speaker 1: of hashtag blessed, it made me oh so happy when
Speaker 1: in May, uh The New York Times published a trend
Speaker 1: piece on hashtag blessed by friend of the podcast Jessica Bennett,
Speaker 1: who described it as quote invoking holiness as a way
Speaker 1: to brag about your life, and hashtag blessed is, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the evolution of the humble brag, where it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so aware of what I'm doing, and sometimes hashtag
Speaker 1: blessed is your use in purely comedic forms. Um, I
Speaker 1: have I've done that before. Whether people have laughed at it,
Speaker 1: I don't know. On Twitter, that's how I first became
Speaker 1: familiar with hashtag. The concept of hashtag bless is not
Speaker 1: literally Christen Conger hashtaging left, but the idea of just
Speaker 1: like what I know, just the idea of someone being like,
Speaker 1: you know, I picked my sandwich up off the floor
Speaker 1: and it was still edible hashtag blessed. I wasn't. I think.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this gives away too much about
Speaker 1: the type of people I follow on social media, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't and I'm still not following anyone who legitimately
Speaker 1: says that they are blessed because those people are out there,
Speaker 1: I think by this point, especially considering this piece came
Speaker 1: out in which is like a bazillion years ago and
Speaker 1: Twitter years. Um, if you are actually using hashtag blessed
Speaker 1: in a non religious meaning I think you haven't caught
Speaker 1: onto the internet and how it speaks. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so Bennett's writing about how, in that period that snapshot
Speaker 1: of time in everybody in her Twitter feed, on her
Speaker 1: Facebook wall, everybody's hashtag blessed about something, anything from being
Speaker 1: accepted to grad school, uh, to getting tickets to fashion
Speaker 1: Week to going on SPA weekends, you know, and like,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get the sarcastic hashtag blessed. And
Speaker 1: I'm cool with like the religious, like actual Christian grandmother
Speaker 1: saying she's blessed for one of the tweets hashtag blast.
Speaker 1: I'm cool when the pope does it. But it's that
Speaker 1: like middle ground of just just stop, just stop. I'm oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so look at my manicure hashtag blessed. Well, and
Speaker 1: it's so transparent um and Bennett talked to noted linguists
Speaker 1: Deborah Tannin about it, who said that what makes these
Speaker 1: examples humble brags isn't the blessed itself, but the context,
Speaker 1: because what you're really doing is telling the world, for instance,
Speaker 1: that maybe your fiance is the best, or you've been
Speaker 1: invited to do something impressive, or you have this beautiful
Speaker 1: elongated fingers. If you're saying hashtag blessed about your manny pet,
Speaker 1: do you know I'm going to admit something embarrassing. It
Speaker 1: has little to do little to nothing to do with
Speaker 1: humble brags and hashtag bless But so I am ridiculously clumsy,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to sharp objects. And I've cut
Speaker 1: several fingers on my right hand and the other day, Uh,
Speaker 1: the only band aids in my direct vicinity were red
Speaker 1: band aids with white high heels all over them, and
Speaker 1: so I had my hands covered in these like hilariously
Speaker 1: lady terrific band aids, and I thought like, this is hysterical.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a picture and post this to
Speaker 1: Instagram like this is really funny, and so I did,
Speaker 1: but I was like, my fingers look fat. You deleted
Speaker 1: it well, and I still have the picture, but I
Speaker 1: didn't post it. I didn't post it to Instagram listeners.
Speaker 1: I saw the band aids and I loved them. Kristen
Speaker 1: was like, what did you do to yourself? And where
Speaker 1: did you get those band aids? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think they were my Christmas stocking or something. It looked
Speaker 1: like they would come with like Barbie, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: they came in one of those tins you know that's
Speaker 1: like lady emergency. Oh lord. But I was like I
Speaker 1: kind of opened the tin. I was like, I'm just
Speaker 1: I need band aids. I'm covered in cuts from like
Speaker 1: cooking dinner and trying to open a box from Amazon.
Speaker 1: Talking about hashtag blast. But so back to linguist Deborah Tannin, Uh,
Speaker 1: she's right on the money. Humble bragging is a million
Speaker 1: percent transparent, and it just makes you look like a jerk.
Speaker 1: According to science. It's not just Christian and me, it's science.
Speaker 1: According to a study in psychological Science, in humble braggers
Speaker 1: overestimate positive responses and underestimate negative ones to their posts
Speaker 1: thanks to an empathy gap. It sounds like a bunch
Speaker 1: of psychopaths. Uh. This is basically not putting themselves in
Speaker 1: other shoes. So, for instance, a humble bragger might see
Speaker 1: someone else online humble bragging and being like so tacky.
Speaker 1: I don't like that at all. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to them humble bragging about a vacation or a new car,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, they're like, people are going to be
Speaker 1: so happy for me, but I don't want to out
Speaker 1: and out bragg because I don't want to be a jerk,
Speaker 1: so I'm just kind of kind of like humble brag,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. So they get a
Speaker 1: vanity plate for their new car that's hashtag like LK
Speaker 1: Y g R L Instagram that, oh god, you know
Speaker 1: that exists. I'm sure it does because I own it,
Speaker 1: because it's me, my dented hatchbag. That that is true.
Speaker 1: I'm not even jerking about the hatchbag part and the dents, right, No,
Speaker 1: I would never leave out the dents. But speaking of
Speaker 1: a dented hatchbag, is this a decent segue into the
Speaker 1: hot mess humble brag to and how we see this
Speaker 1: propped up in pop culture? And Caroline, we were having stuff. Mom,
Speaker 1: never told you mental synchronicity somehow, because right before you
Speaker 1: sent me this slate piece examining this whole hot mess
Speaker 1: phenomenon that we see among our fave Hollywood starlets and
Speaker 1: the women they portray on screen, a girlfriend of mine
Speaker 1: sent me a similar piece over at Salon, basically being like,
Speaker 1: what's up with this whole self deprecating hot mess situation?
Speaker 1: Which I feel like was really exemplified by Liz Lemon
Speaker 1: on thirty Rock originally because here we have a super
Speaker 1: successful woman. Is us like such a hot mess in
Speaker 1: so many ways? But we see it more off screen
Speaker 1: with a lot of stars today as well. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: a lot of women who are it's it's it goes
Speaker 1: back to that relatability thing that we mentioned earlier, with
Speaker 1: the whole professional woman thing of of enjoying great success
Speaker 1: and being you know, multi hyphen it's maybe these celebrities
Speaker 1: are writers and actresses and producers and directors, who knows
Speaker 1: what they are, but still they aim for relative hility
Speaker 1: by talking about, Oh I drank too much. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a bad sex the other night. I never exercise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: god I love pizza, you know, just like say stars,
Speaker 1: they're just like us. But Eileen Giselle at Slate in
Speaker 1: August was not having any of it, not having any
Speaker 1: of it at all. She was talking about how bragging
Speaker 1: about being a hot mess, because that's that's essentially kind
Speaker 1: of what it is. It's another way of bragging about
Speaker 1: like I'm so busy and I'm so accomplished. Basically, Giselle
Speaker 1: is arguing, like, look how busy I am. Look how
Speaker 1: complicated and complex my life is, Uh, that I even
Speaker 1: have time to sit here and talk to you. I
Speaker 1: haven't even brushed my hair. Oh my god, am I
Speaker 1: bragging about being a hot mess? Conger? I just talked
Speaker 1: about not brushing my hair. Um. But she says that
Speaker 1: it's become this badge of honor for virtually all successful
Speaker 1: Caucasian women between twenty and forty um, and that was
Speaker 1: one of her big bones to pick with the hot
Speaker 1: mess trends. She's like basically saying that it's only the
Speaker 1: is super privileged successful white women who have the luxury
Speaker 1: of complaining about being a hot mess and drawing attention
Speaker 1: to their screw ups, whether it's a fashion choice or
Speaker 1: a job choice or a life choice. Where she argues,
Speaker 1: women of color, uh feel more compelled to not brag,
Speaker 1: but just emphasize their success so that they are taken seriously.
Speaker 1: She writes, successful women of color are painfully aware that
Speaker 1: public conceptions of their race presume hot mess status, and
Speaker 1: she gives the example of Lena Dunham interviewing Carrie Washington
Speaker 1: for I think it was Murray Claire and how Carrie
Speaker 1: Washington was on the cover and the headline was something like, oh,
Speaker 1: we all want to be Carrie Washington. And meanwhile, Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham herself is obviously very successful, a very hard worker,
Speaker 1: like an over worker, overachiever. You know, she's got She's
Speaker 1: definitely a multi hyphen it. And so it just all
Speaker 1: writes that hyper successful white women can at about being
Speaker 1: clueless messes all Elina Dunham, while black women all like
Speaker 1: Carry Washington are turned into what she calls surrogate philosophics.
Speaker 1: So being a hot mess is a byproduct of white privilege.
Speaker 1: That's what Gazelle is arguing. You should have read the
Speaker 1: comments section under it. No, actually you shouldn't have. You
Speaker 1: tell me about it. What were the comments, like, um, well, no,
Speaker 1: the comments were all over the place, as one might
Speaker 1: expect for anything on the internet, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people were coming to say, um, so we can't have
Speaker 1: a bad day and just like complain about not having
Speaker 1: time to brush our hair because we've got so much
Speaker 1: work to do or something like that, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if Gizell does have an answer for it,
Speaker 1: or did at the time, but I kind of came
Speaker 1: away from that article feeling the same way of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally can see that how culturally it tends to
Speaker 1: be like young hot white actresses who like the adorable
Speaker 1: and very talented Anna Kendrick, who like loves to call
Speaker 1: her your self a hot mess. And I can see
Speaker 1: how that is sort of a humble brag of like,
Speaker 1: Anna Kendrick, You're so amazing and adorable and successful, and
Speaker 1: you're sitting here, like even telling your interviewer to refer
Speaker 1: to you as a hot mess and interviews, and so
Speaker 1: Giselle is saying, like, this is such a young white
Speaker 1: woman thing. But meanwhile, you've also got Tracy Ellis Ross,
Speaker 1: who's a woman of color, obviously uh successful actress, amazing
Speaker 1: person who refers to herself as a hot mess two
Speaker 1: in the media. And so I kind of came away
Speaker 1: from that article being like, I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: this is an equal opportunity descriptor a self descriptor anyway.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I see her point. You know, she
Speaker 1: also points out that it's very gendered, the hot mess
Speaker 1: humble brag. You don't see a lot of men going
Speaker 1: around being like I'm such a hot mess. Instead, she writes,
Speaker 1: you know, men own their success. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: this is over analysis to some degree of what hot
Speaker 1: mess really means, because all it really is is self
Speaker 1: deprecating humor, and self deprecating humor is something that I've
Speaker 1: pondered myself in recent years. I got to a point
Speaker 1: later in my twenties where self deprecation had been my
Speaker 1: stick for laughs for a really long time, and I
Speaker 1: kind of not that I'm not self deprecating anymore, but
Speaker 1: I grew out of it being such a crutch because
Speaker 1: it did start to feel kind of inauthentic, partially because
Speaker 1: I was asking myself, well, why can't I just also
Speaker 1: be me when I'm not screwing up to other people?
Speaker 1: Can I be funny in other ways as well? Um? So,
Speaker 1: I think it's definitely worth thinking about in terms of
Speaker 1: what success in likability mean when you are a woman.
Speaker 1: Because Amy Humor is someone whose name comes up with
Speaker 1: these hot mess convos as well, because obviously she's super successful,
Speaker 1: she's white, and her comedic persona is a wild hot mess.
Speaker 1: But Jed Apataw and other people and just like as
Speaker 1: you can observe as a human um have noted she
Speaker 1: is one of the hardest workers in show business, and
Speaker 1: her being cited as I don't know like self labeling
Speaker 1: is a hot mess and that's that's not okay. I
Speaker 1: don't know with those kinds of examples, I am skeptical
Speaker 1: because it's her brand. Yeah, it is her brand, and
Speaker 1: I think it's there. And there are plenty of like
Speaker 1: I guess equivalent male comedians who could potentially be called
Speaker 1: hot messes themselves. I mean, I see what the writer
Speaker 1: was saying in terms of, like, hey, if you're actually
Speaker 1: a really hard worker, like an Amy Schumer, don't equate
Speaker 1: yourself with somehow being out of control just by being you. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this is also making me think of how Amy
Speaker 1: Poehler is so the antithesis of the hot mess I
Speaker 1: mean partially because Leslie Nope obviously has a binder for everything.
Speaker 1: But even in Amy Poehler's public presentation, as slapsticky as
Speaker 1: she can be, sometimes she's still very authentic in how
Speaker 1: she works and how work is meaningful to her and
Speaker 1: things that she thinks about, like her family and relationships
Speaker 1: beyond work. It well as well that might at times
Speaker 1: feel like hot messes, but it's just all part of
Speaker 1: being a busy, successful woman. And so rounding all of
Speaker 1: this back to the lucky girl phenomenon social media. Um,
Speaker 1: why women would seek to mask competence or seek to
Speaker 1: mask effort. I mean, it's all part of sort of
Speaker 1: shaping your identity online, which is something that more and
Speaker 1: more of us are doing. There was the stat Pro
Speaker 1: survey that found that a majority of people on social
Speaker 1: media post online in a way that defines their identities.
Speaker 1: And so it's no wonder we want to look good
Speaker 1: in a way that we can control. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I think in some ways, to like hot mess
Speaker 1: can be controlling your own narrative as well, because it
Speaker 1: takes work to make a mess. Yeah. Well, and and
Speaker 1: also to be comfortable enough to be up on a
Speaker 1: level where you're comfortable enough to publicly admit like I'm
Speaker 1: a mess, Because if you genuinely were falling apart and
Speaker 1: you felt like your life was in a shambles and
Speaker 1: that you couldn't you weren't accomplishing anything, like, would you
Speaker 1: be as comfortable admitting that, like, oh, I'm a hot mess?
Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, you really are, Like please let
Speaker 1: me help you. Well, And is there a distinction between
Speaker 1: just being a mess and being a hot mess? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: culturally I would think so you know, but I do
Speaker 1: like how Mendy Galing like wants nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the whole hot mess thing. She has straight up said,
Speaker 1: I work like a lot a lot, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: that as well, if someone who is very transparent about
Speaker 1: all of the effort and you know, work that goes
Speaker 1: into building her empire like that. Yeah, she talks about
Speaker 1: how she completely over prepares and works so hard, and
Speaker 1: we're used to hearing about women over preparing in terms
Speaker 1: of the imposter syndrome, like I don't believe in myself,
Speaker 1: so I have to overwork and be overprepared and then
Speaker 1: I'm stressed out to death. Mindy kalinks take on it
Speaker 1: is pretty refreshing and that she's saying, no, like I
Speaker 1: work really hard, I over prepare for anything, but that
Speaker 1: is so that I can go kick ass everything that
Speaker 1: I do. I want that that. Yeah, I like that idea.
Speaker 1: That that well, I mean, it's just it's confidence and
Speaker 1: and owning how much work you actually do. And it's
Speaker 1: such a contrast too to the type of overwork and
Speaker 1: over preparedness that we discuss in our Little mis Perfect
Speaker 1: Perfectionism podcast, because that kind of overwork is a sign
Speaker 1: that you're actually not doing things right because you're only
Speaker 1: focused on failure. You're overworking because you are convinced that
Speaker 1: you will fail otherwise, whereas someone like Mindy is overworking
Speaker 1: because she's so focused on success. Yeah, and so it's
Speaker 1: time everybody to ditch this whole luck discourse of everything
Speaker 1: that you accomplish in your life, anything that happens to you,
Speaker 1: anything that you experience, chalking it up to luck. Enough
Speaker 1: with that, it's time to own your work effort and
Speaker 1: your work ethic and and even the hardships that come
Speaker 1: along with it and how much, even how much success
Speaker 1: you've earned. I mean, there's no shame in owning any
Speaker 1: of these things. And at least that could start to
Speaker 1: help engender a little bit of confidence in yourself. When
Speaker 1: you're not telling yourself and others like I'm just lucky,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh no, I didn't really do that much
Speaker 1: to get the promotion to be like the CEO of
Speaker 1: this company. So let's start the trending hashtag unlucky girl.
Speaker 1: That's techically, that's exactly what I meant. Hashtag hard working girl,
Speaker 1: hashtag I'm sweating as I type this, oh, hashtag working girl.
Speaker 1: And then Oh my god. Then I could use so
Speaker 1: many Melanie Griffith gifts done perfect. Well. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling that this topic resonates with a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: because social media, y'all, it's everywhere, and we're curious to
Speaker 1: know your thoughts on it. Is it something that you've
Speaker 1: noticed that you've caught yourself doing something that maybe grates
Speaker 1: on your nerves? Hashtag shut up, lucky girl. Mom Steff
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is where you can
Speaker 1: email us. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
Speaker 1: of messages to share with you right now. Well, I
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Julie about our Gendered Chef episode.
Speaker 1: She says, I've especially enjoyed listening to your sociological commentary
Speaker 1: on women in stereotypically gendered professions. Me being a woman
Speaker 1: who cares about other women read a feminist, I was
Speaker 1: so excited to finally listen to your Gendered Chef episode
Speaker 1: this week. Male domination of certain professions is an issue
Speaker 1: close to my heart. My younger sister is considered a
Speaker 1: leader in the stem field. My older sister has a
Speaker 1: PhD from m T and a career in academia, and
Speaker 1: I left my position as a corporate attorney to become
Speaker 1: a chef, a pastry chef, and she literally writes que
Speaker 1: sad trombone music. Julia goes on to say, well, I
Speaker 1: agree with every point you made regarding the sadly lacking
Speaker 1: level of female representation and head chef and executive chef positions.
Speaker 1: I do take issue with what I perceived as you
Speaker 1: reinforcing the gendered nature of pastry and banking. It's true
Speaker 1: that more women gravitate to this area of the culinary field. However,
Speaker 1: I made a very risky career move and decided to
Speaker 1: go into pastry making, not because I was intimidated by
Speaker 1: the world of chef to cuisine, but because pastry is
Speaker 1: something that I am passionate about. I understand why you
Speaker 1: explain the fact that pastry and baking has historically been feminized,
Speaker 1: but I think you missed an opportunity to discuss the
Speaker 1: fact that this type of cooking is not less than
Speaker 1: nor less important or rewarding than other types of cooking.
Speaker 1: I would counter that it's the act of feminizing dessert
Speaker 1: making that is robbed of the prestige associated with the
Speaker 1: male gendered chef de cuisine. There is no less skill artistry, intelligence, knowledge, creativity, danger, sweat, invention, precision, calculation,
Speaker 1: or spontaneity involved in making pastries than there is a
Speaker 1: preparing meat. Instead. What I heard on your podcast was
Speaker 1: banter about how disappointing it is that most female chefs
Speaker 1: are still in pastry as if it were a lesser profession.
Speaker 1: This is all to say, well, I think it's important
Speaker 1: work discussing the serious and upsetting gender gaps and many professions.
Speaker 1: I would caution against rhetoric the demeans women in largely
Speaker 1: female professions of something less than those enlargingly mail ones.
Speaker 1: Though it does take courage into enacity to succeed in
Speaker 1: male dominated fields. No argument here. It's a step backward
Speaker 1: to identify historically female dominated fields is somehow less worthy
Speaker 1: than male ones. She says, thanks again for your podcast,
Speaker 1: keep up the good work and the good fight. And Julie,
Speaker 1: I have to say, I totally agree with you, and
Speaker 1: I was hoping that we were sharing those tidbits about
Speaker 1: women's baking history just as a way to enlighten listeners,
Speaker 1: and I totally did not mean to indicate in any
Speaker 1: way that being a pastry chef or being involved in
Speaker 1: pastry in any way, whether it's eating it or making it,
Speaker 1: UH is left banned by virtue of being feminist. Well,
Speaker 1: I gotta let her here from Rosa about our podcast
Speaker 1: on cooking shows, and she writes, while listening to your
Speaker 1: show about celebrity chefts, you mentioned that Julia Child found
Speaker 1: her passion and started her career later in her life.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed how both of you commented on the fact
Speaker 1: that there's nothing wrong with finding what you love to
Speaker 1: do later in life. Our society really is focused on
Speaker 1: becoming highly successful before you reach the right bold age
Speaker 1: of thirty. What's up with that? I'm a seasonal worker
Speaker 1: and haven't found a full time job that I really
Speaker 1: enjoy yet. But I'm going to keep on searching and
Speaker 1: we'll have Julia in the back of my mind as
Speaker 1: my motivation. So thanks Rosa, and thanks to everyone who's
Speaker 1: written in to us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com is our email address and for links to
Speaker 1: all of our social media as well as all of
Speaker 1: our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this one with links
Speaker 1: to car sources so you can read more about hashtag
Speaker 1: lucky Girls head on over to stuff mom Never told
Speaker 1: You dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Does it, How stuff works dot com