Name: #GeneBragging
Age: New for summer 2019.
Appearance: Glamorous, photogenic, aspirational, related.
Related to what? To one another.
Who are? The #GeneBraggarts.
I’m confused. Can we start again? I think we just have.
What are we actually talking about? We are talking, my friend, about a trend. More specifically, about an Instagram trend.
Oh God, these things never make any sense to me. It’s basically the new #SquadGoals.
That doesn’t help. #SquadGoals was a hashtag commonly appended to shots of one and one’s mates having fun, looking fit and possibly dressed in matching outfits.
I’ll take your word for it. And #GeneBragging? The term, seemingly coined in a recent Telegraph article, denotes a new fondness for posting lovely photos of one’s glamorous parents, children or grandparents while on holiday in exotic locations with them.
Glamorous parents? Who has glamorous parents? Celebrities, and the offspring of celebrities.
I’m feeling slightly exempted from this. That’s partly the point. It’s a deflective form of showing off.
How so? Because you’re being complimentary about someone who happens to share a lot of your genetic material.
And then you add the hashtag #GeneBragging? Oh God, no. That would ruin it.
So what do you write? Well, in the case of Holly Willoughby’s pic of her mother sitting on the beach in a swimsuit, she wrote: “When I grow up I want to be just like this please …”
That’s sort of sweet, I guess. After which she appended the following hashtags: “#glammam #glamgran #timelessbeauty”.
Do you have any other examples? Yes: Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson snapped walking together in a sunny street: “Taking a little mommy daughter stroll in Italy after a 37k bike ride to this amazing town!”
37km bike ride? Do they look sweaty? They do not.
I think I understand, but it still seems odd. One of the reasons I want to be famous is so I can stop going on holiday with my parents. That sounds like an aspiration in search of its own hashtag.
Do say: “Here’s my hot grandmother sipping prosecco while bungee jumping out of a helicopter over Mount Etna! #GoNan #TrueBeautyNeverFades #ObviouslyWhereIGetItFrom.”
Don’t say: “I’ve got some good video footage of my Auntie Joan falling out of a plastic cafe chair in the Algarve, but I’ll need to transfer it from VHS. #24HoursInA&E #SevereBruising #StillHilarious #RIPJoan.”