The Virtue of British Self-Deprecation

The British aren't miserable — they're humble

The line between the (few) British members of the St Andrews student population and those who hail from ‘across the pond’ is becoming increasingly blurred. Seeing a figure in a green waxed Barbour jacket advancing towards you on Market Street no longer signifies a pending invite to a bird shoot on Balmoral estate, but instead a Californian with a vocal fry asking you if you’d like to attend this week’s Polo social. Wellies have become a fashion shoe, teapots are just so quaint, and Princess Di is total fashion inspo. 

However, one aspect of our British culture that the St Andrean Yanks seem averse to adopting is our tendency towards self-deprecation. In conversation, even amongst our most trusted of friends, we Brits always err on the side of modesty. If we absolutely must bring up our achievements, we will do so with all the necessary humility and understatement, always careful to downplay them at each step. 

For example, if asked “What did you get up to over the Summer?”, a popular socially galvanising question of the moment, never respond, as many Americans have been known to these past few weeks, with a slew of self-aggrandising remarks that amount to a spoken LinkedIn post. None of this investment bank name-dropping and return offer nonsense, just say something brief about the nice weather we had, shame that you had to spend a month in an office staring at Excel, and be done with it. 

On the rare occasion that somebody asks you: “How is your degree going?” (a sure sign that pub chat is drying up), mumble something about how you’re always out drinking pints and can’t quite seem to remember where the library is, then offer to buy the next round. Never ever resort to mentioning that you are on track to get a First or, god forbid, bring up that you won some kind of academic award or had your coursework published in a journal. How utterly gauche. 

This tendency to put ourselves down doesn’t actually mean that we think little of ourselves. In fact, endless boasting about one’s successes comes across as terribly needy, as if you are Oliver Twist begging for just a little more admiration, just a few more compliments. To be the first person in a room to decry your own achievements, however, points to a fortitude of character; you are an independent soul who does not feed on the adoration of others. And when, inevitably, the wheel of fortune turns once more, and the firm who offered you that stellar grad job sinks into liquidation, no one will cackle loudly in your face and recount how you drunkenly told every drinker in Aikman’s cellar your starting salary. Instead, they’ll give you a sympathetic pat on the back and move on.

Yet, is there something we can learn from our American peers? Should we be more comfortable blowing our own trumpet, and is our tendency towards self-deprecation actually as attractive a quality as we think it is? To be honest, before writing this article I expected to discover that we Brits are all just miserable people, suffering from a malaise brought on by eating too many tinned products and only seeing the sun once a year, unable to emulate the happy-go-lucky personalities of our American counterparts. Yet, for all the culture that we import from the States, their singers, sitcoms, and big brands, this is one thing I think that they could take back stateside after four years spent in Fife. 

For all our British misery, our endless chatter about whether it’s too hot, or too cold, or too rainy, this is the one thing I think we get right. You can never go wrong by being humble and modest, rather than brash, boastful, or egotistic.

Illustration by Zoe Small