What is “Versailles Literature”?: Humblebrags on Chinese social networking sites

Ren, Wei; Guo, Yaping

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.08.002

Cited by 30 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Their finding is related to the features of Weibo, a site similar to Twitter in which posts can be tagged with a hashtag and are automatically visible to anonymous users the poster does not know. Ren and Guo (2021) suggest that netizens may be more willing to construct a favorable self-image in the anonymous context of Weibo, but they caution that their findings may not generalize to diverse contexts due to differences in digital genres and cultural backgrounds. This is in line with studies examining self-praise on WhatsApp (Dayter, 2018), Twitter (Dayter, 2014), Instagram (Matley, 2018), and Linkedin (Tobback, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…The three traits do not cover all of the tactics used in VL. Based on the sample collected on Weibo, Ren and Guo (2021) currently provide the only VL strategy classification system. Their finding is related to the features of Weibo, a site similar to Twitter in which posts can be tagged with a hashtag and are automatically visible to anonymous users the poster does not know.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

Zuo

2023

Discourse & Communication

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Versailles literature is a newly emerged phenomenon on Chinese social networking sites. It is in essence an indirect form of self-praise. Despite its popularity on social media, there is little research on this phenomenon. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies for performing VL on WeChat Moments. The results showed that Versailles literature often includes strategies such as implicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise, and self-praise through comments and replies, among which the tactics that have not been observed before, such as bragging in a foreign language, creating false ‘question–answer’ or ‘compliment–response’ interactions and commenting to the adverts. These strategies are implemented in various ways by virtue of the technological affordance of WeChat Moments, in order to balance the disclosure and the dissimulation of the object of praise. The study also discusses the distinctive features of VL and explains the absence of some frequent strategies of self-praising in Versailles literature.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

Zuo

2023

Discourse & Communication

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“…What a tough rainy day"! In the above example, the blogger employed two of the "Versailles Literature" pragmatic strategies proposed by Ren and Guo, namely, narration and complaint [27]. The blogger simply described her experience of that day, however, since the chances for restaurants to offer a free meal are rare, and the chance of being asked for the Wechat ID is higher for good-looking people, it can be speculated that the blogger's real intention is to tell the audience that she is lucky and pretty.…”

Section: Dramatic Realizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To put it simply, with its finite number of associated pragmatic strategies and its function in impression management, "Versailles Literature" is easy to be recognized and imitated [27]. Therefore, it is a successful meme that can spread rapidly.…”

Section: "Versailles Literature" As a Strong Linguistic Memementioning

confidence: 99%

A Socio-pragmatic Analysis of “Versailles Literature” from the Perspective of Dramaturgical Theory and Memetics

J¹

2022

Proceedings of the 2022 2nd International Conference on Modern Educational Technology and Social Sciences (ICMETSS 2022)

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Versailles Literature" is a popular online phenomenon on Chinese social networks that is in essence a type of humblebrag. The impression management techniques of "Versailles Literature" on Chinese social media are investigated in this study through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 150 authentic blogs collected from Sina Weibo. It finds that Chinese "Versailles Literature" impression management techniques include idealization, mystification, dramaturgical idealization, backstage preposition, and taste performance, and these strategies all appear in combination. Moreover, from the perspective of dramaturgical and memetic theories, this study also discusses the generation and evolution of "Versailles Literature" as a strong linguistic meme and Chinese netizens' motivations to deploy such a social practice by using hashtags #VersaillesLiterature, #VersaillesResearchandPractices, and #MasterofReverseVersaillesLiterature. The findings suggest that "Versailles Literature" is a type of powerful linguistic meme that belongs to the third type of memetic phenotype and has the properties of copying-fidelity and fecundity, making it simple to identify and duplicate. With this sarcastic "Versailles Style" trend, individuals are able to conduct value introspection and realize their value which is not equivalent to the commercial value, thus deconstructing the ideology of the commodification of self in this materialistic and commodified society.

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“…This color is too rustic. How can I let him know that I do not like the color?”) instead of straightforward bragging language ( Ren and Guo, 2021 ). In this way, social media influencers aim to alleviate consumers’ potential negative reactions to bragging to enhance their image and those of the brands they promote.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of social media influencers’ bragging language styles on consumers’ attitudes toward luxury brands: The dual mediation of envy and trustworthiness

Feng

Chang²,

Sun³

2023

Front. Psychol.

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On social media, luxury brand managers often use influencers’ bragging language as a marketing tool. As modesty is considered a virtue in the Chinese context, Chinese influencers tend to adopt a humblebragging language style. Research has examined the impact of bragging language styles on luxury brands and has found that humblebragging, which appears to be modest, has a negative influence on brand attitudes. From the perspective of social comparison theory, we proposed a dual mediation model of malicious envy and trustworthiness to reveal the internal mechanisms and moderating factors of the negative effects of humblebragging. The results of three experiments indicated that compared with straightforward bragging, humblebragging was more likely to elicit malicious envy and lower levels of trust in an influencer, resulting in negative attitudes toward the luxury brand endorsed. Moreover, this negative effect was stronger when the influencer lacked expertise or had high similarity with consumers. Our findings enrich the antecedents of social media influencer marketing and provide managers with implications for maximizing the effectiveness of influencer marketing by matching influencers with word-of-mouth content.

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What is “Versailles Literature”?: Humblebrags on Chinese social networking sites

Cited by 30 publications

References 45 publications

‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

A Socio-pragmatic Analysis of “Versailles Literature” from the Perspective of Dramaturgical Theory and Memetics

The impact of social media influencers’ bragging language styles on consumers’ attitudes toward luxury brands: The dual mediation of envy and trustworthiness

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