This post is about something some people do sometimes that I don’t like.
Before I get into it, here’s a quote from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
Andy Warhol was wrong. In the future, people won’t be famous for fifteen minutes. No, in the future, everyone will sit next to someone famous for at least fifteen minutes.
The character that says that is sitting next to a famous person on a plane. He soon realizes that he’ll “be bragging about this stranger for the rest of my life.”
Now we get to what I’m here to complain about. I don’t like when people brag about having some connection to someone important. Some people find that impressive and I don’t know why.
I probably sound like a bit of a dick, so let me take a few sentences to redeem myself.
Let’s say a friend of mine was at a restaurant and bumped into a writer she really admires. The next day, I’m talking to her and she brings up that this happened. I can hear the excitement in her voice. She’s overjoyed playing back this memory. Something really cool happened to her and she’s sharing that with me. Sharing her joy.
That’s great. I’m happy when good things happen to my friends. I want to be clear that this isn’t what I’m referring to when I say I dislike when people brag about having a connection to someone important.
What I don’t like is when someone passes off others’ accomplishments as their own.
“I once talked to someone who talked to the President.”
“I actually know the guy who founded that company, he lived on the same floor as me in college.”
“You know, I went to school with a guy that acted in that movie.”
These aren’t bad statements in all contexts, but when they’re said in a bragging manner, to show off that I’m important because I have some small connection to people that have made something of themselves, I hate that shit.
I guess you could call this phenomenon vicarious bragging. You’re trying to take credit for accomplishments that aren’t yours. Not direct credit, but credit by association.