How to avoid being as popular as erectile disfunction in 2014. 

I started this bright and sunny morning in the same manner as so many others in the modern age, by logging in to Facebook so I could start the day bright eyed, bushy tailed, and filled with rage and spite. A friend sent me a photograph of a girls Facebook page today, and her status for New Years Eve read something akin to this. 

This year I got a promotion at work, I got a new car, I got a new house, I had a holiday in Australia and my gorgeous and talented son came top of his class, go me!

 

After I was done gouging my own eyeballs out, I decided to ring in the New Year with a short introduction to online ethics, something I wouldn't have thought necessary in 2014, but apparently the internet savvy youth of today have the social graces of a convicted rapist with Tourette syndrome. 

If anybody has a differing viewpoint, feel free to share it with me below, at which point I will delete it and the normal humans can get back to socializing without looking like a twat. 

Something I learned at a very early age, I think I was perhaps 4 or 5 years old, was that bragging is an instant way to stir up dislike. If someone ever told me I did something well and I gratefully accepted the compliment, it seemed to almost instantly cool the air around me, indeed, my own parents would always tell me that nobody likes people that brag, and if ever I forgot the lessons of my Father he would reinforce them in a most ingenious manner that could be used to good effect in modern schools, by smashing my arse to bits with a flip-flop.  

Anyway, fast forward to 2013 and it appears that many peoples parents didn't bother to point this trivial stuff out. In fact, judging by the behaviour of the average twenty something today they also seem to have skipped several other vital lessons regarding personal hygiene, such as "wash occasionally" and "don't brush your teeth with stout" 

In a nutshell, absolutely everybody hates a braggart, even if the bragging is well placed. For example, several sports stars are famous for bragging, and at least in those cases they are almost always perfectly within their rights to do so. If David Beckham decided to announce that he was excellent at crossing a ball, or Sebastian Vettel decided to call a press conference to announce that he was confident he could parallel park better than Ray Charles, there would be little disagreement, but people would still grumble and say things like "Beckham doesn't just dress like a tit, he actually is one."

So as we move into the New Year, remember that if you wish to be popular in 2014 you should try and practice a little humility. Beckham is actually supposed to be a nice guy, so Im sure even if you did start extolling his virtues, he would say something like "Oh thanks, but I'm sure you could do it if you trained hard and practiced" 

He would obviously be lying, but the point is a simple one, even if if you are absolutely convinced that you are a paragon of virtue and talent, at least trying to pretend that you aren't even for a little while will show people that you aren't as unwelcome as a bastard at a family reunion. 

Sure false humility and modesty may be a little dishonest, but it is almost always preferable to the belief that the motley collection of almost strangers that make up your circle of friends in cyberspace actually give a flying fuck about how handsome your husband is, or where you decided to go on holiday.