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Contra deBoer on overt status signaling - by Ron Ghosh

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2024-10-09 16:00:04

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“Past a certain level of accomplishment, the affect of being unimpressed with one’s self, of not taking one’s own success seriously, becomes worse than arrogance, righteousness, self-promotion, or bragging.”

Essentially he’s pointing out that a lot of people who acted “try-hard” in their school and career achieve a certain level of success, and then pretend as if they were never try-hard about it. It’s like a very attractive person telling you that looks aren’t everything — only related to accomplishments.

People find it irritating because a) it comes across as condescending and b) it misleads people about the level of effort required in order to attain uncommon goals.

Freddie’s piece also eloquently summarizes my own experiences in higher education; the majority of the people in [REDACTED BUSINESS SCHOOL] had hyper competitive personalities (a combination of high conscientiousness and high neuroticism), but nevertheless tried to pass themselves off as chill and relatable.