humble brag

A humble brag is a fake-modest boast: "Ugh, my fan mail pile is so heavy." Coined by comedian Harris Wittels. Not concerning, just a useful label for an annoying social behaviour. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in. Most slang of this kind moves through TikTok and group chats, so seeing it in your child's vocabulary just means they are plugged into normal teen internet culture.

Humble brag is a fixed phrase coined in the early 2010s describing a boast disguised as a complaint or modest statement. Use in casual and journalistic writing. Formal equivalent: "a self-deprecating boast." Common non-native mistake: hyphenation. Both "humble brag" (two words) and "humblebrag" (one word) appear; one-word form is increasingly standard. Used as a noun and verb. Read or listen to the word in context several times before trying it yourself; the right register is harder to learn than the dictionary meaning.