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Remembering The Creator Of The Word ‘Humblebrag’

Jessica M. Goldstein Twitter
Wittels (second from right) on an episode of “Parks and Recreation.” CREDIT: SCREENSHOT/YOUTUBE/NBC
Wittels (second from right) on an episode of “Parks and Recreation.” CREDIT: SCREENSHOT/YOUTUBE/NBC

Harris Wittels died last night. He was only 30 years old. You probably already know who he is, even if you don’t know you know him.

Watch Parks and Recreation? He was an executive producer, a writer, and a recurring character: Harris, one of the two incompetent stoners who ran Pawnee’s Animal Control.

Spend any time on Twitter? His feed is littered with perfect one-liners.

Into comedy? He did stand-up — he was performing at The Meltdown the night before he died –and wrote for The Sarah Silverman Program and Eastbound and Down.

But my favorite of all his contributions to our culture is this: his creation of the word “Humblebrag.”

Humblebrag is the word we never knew we always needed, the spot-on definition for an insidious, ubiquitous and unintentionally hilarious kind of arrogance. A humblebrag is when someone tries to hide self-promotion under a guise of modesty. It’s about as effective as hiding three little kids standing on each others’ shoulders underneath a trench coat and trying to pass them off as one suspiciously young-looking adult. Humblebrags are likely as old as humanity but they, like so many annoying things, have flourished on the internet.

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Wittels coined the term in 2010, starting a Twitter account to retweet the worst offenders. The following year, he started a column on humblebrags for Grantland, ranking the most outrageous humblebrags Twitter had to offer and commenting on their ridiculousness. In 2012, he published a book on the subject: Humblebrag: The Art of False Modesty.

Humblebraggers, come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Yet for all their sparkly-snowflake-individuality, they can usually be sorted into one of the following categories.

There is the humblebragger who simply states something impressive and true but punctuations this declaration with a “weird”:

There’s the beautiful person who just needs you to know that someone called them beautiful today:

Or skinny:

The “I’m doing this incredible, amazing thing, but really I’m still such an awkward, regular person!” humblebrag:

The humblebrag that exists solely to draw attention to how many fans the humblebragger has:

Or how famous the humblebragger is:

Or how successful (though a humblebragger must always maintain the appearance of awe and disbelief at his or her success, as though such success occurred by accident or magic or accidental magic):

https://twitter.com/seaninsound/status/265543708294922241

Or just that the humblebragger is in a cool, envy-inspiring location, like first class:

https://twitter.com/jash01/status/201883309154902016

Another humblebrag classic is when the offender draws a contrast between the luxurious, impressive nature of his surroundings and how “awkward” he acts while being here:

Often, but not always, that type of humblebrag involves announcing proximity to a celebrity:

The humblebragger who tweets like an Upworthy headline, basically forcing you to follow up and ask for details:

All of these dummies are just amateurs compared to Totes McGotes, who Wittel described like so:

Totes is my all-time all-time favorite Humblebragger. Unlike most Humblebraggers, he does not live in Hollywood, nor is he related to the entertainment industry in any way. I think he’s a real estate broker from San Diego or something. His Humblebrags are unmatched.

Totes has tweeted gems like “I just realized I’ve only showered in ONE of my FIVE showers since I’ve moved in here. This must change #totesproblems” and “Told the cpl renting my house in the midwest, who both lost their jobs last month, not to worry about Nov/Dec rent. They have a little boy.” He’ll tell you “Preparing my accountant for my office changing from a few hundred sq ft to several thousand. And boat expenses as third home. #plsdontaudit.”

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The Humblebrag Twitter account has 249,000 followers. But under that Following tab, there is only one man: Totes McGotes.

I assumed Totes either didn’t know or care about his, to use a humblebragger term, weird kind of internet fame, but as it turns out he and Wittel communicated a bit, and today Totes was tweeting some self-aware humblebragg-y tributes to his biggest fan:

Goodbye, Harris Wittels. Thank you for making us laugh.