If you’re a regular Twitter user, you might have heard of the humblebrag. On Thursday’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel defined it as “something a person says that is seemingly humble—but it is actually them bragging.” On the same episode, she inaugurated a new, related meme: the fumblebrag.
The fumblebrag, she explained, is what happens when “you’re trying really hard to seem important, but it goes horribly, horribly wrong, because you’re horribly, horribly wrong.” The undisputed champion of the fumblebrag? That “kind of weird” friend of the show, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA).
Here’s a quote from a radio appearance earlier in the day, during which Brown fumblebragged like a pro:
Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been either discussing issues, meeting on issues, in secret meetings and with kings, and queens, and prime ministers, and business leaders, and military leaders, talking, voting, working on issues every single day.
“It’s a brag,” Rachel explained. “‘I’m very important; I meet with royalty. Kings, queens, prime ministers, even. Secretly!’ But it is also a fumble, because, what in god save the queen’s name are you talking about, Scott Brown?”
Hours later, Brown’s spokesman said that the senator had “misspoke when he said kings and queens.” The Rachel Maddow Show had already covered one of Brown’s great fumblebrags: his claim, in early 2010, that the Democrats considered him such a formidable opponent that they were grooming television personality Rachel Maddow to run against him. Rachel, of course, was as surprised to hear that news as anyone. As a result, she took out a full-page ad in the Boston Globe denying the rumors and thus putting the fumble to Brown’s brag. “It doesn’t make you a bad person,” said Rachel. “It just makes you a new meme. And when you do it all the time, it makes you a very embarrassing senator.”
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog. Recommended
