Is there a word to describe someone who uses complaints to indirectly brag about themselves?
An example would be
"I hate going to concerts because people start singing and because I have perfect pitch it irritates me."
Perhaps another example might be
"I don't like that video game. It's too easy and I get bored."
The complaint would be in context, like the discussion is about concerts or the game in question, but the person uses it as an excuse to highlight something about which they want to brag.
I don't think I'm looking for narcissism, as it's not necessarily that the person is trying to talk only about themselves, but rather that they specifically use a negative complaint to mask the fact that they are bragging.
Is there such a word to describe this behavior?
Best Answer
An applicable neologism is humblebrag, a boast couched in self-deprecation. Henry Alford describes it as the false modesty of a plea intended to be met with both awe and sympathy. Humblebrag is attributed to Harris Wittels, a writer for the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation who Tweets celebrity examples at that handle and has collected them into a book.
A less popular term from a different U.S. sitcom is backdoor brag, from a 2008 episode of 30 Rock. While not as buzzworthy a term, the example used in the episode matches one of yours:
Update: J.P. Freire in the American Spectator (a politically conservative U.S. magazine) proposes whinebrag, photobrag, busybrag, sorrybrag, and emobrag to capture additional flavors of show-offy self-deprecation. Who knows if any of them will gain currency; he notes the overlap of whinebrag with first-world problems a.k.a. white whines, and the Harvard Business Review lamented the busybrag months ago.