swagger is self-defeating

I've made this essential point before. But it continues to amaze me how often people make exclamations of their own self-confidence all over the Internet. The most common vehicle of this is talk about "swagger," a term as juvenile as it is unconvincing. I find it plastered on every other Tumblr I read, it's on people's Twitter bios, people write Facebook statuses about it.... And I never, ever buy it. Indeed, I can't think of an easier way to announce one's own insecurity than to be talking about having swagger all the time.

I understand the value in "faking it until you make it," in trying to project certain mental strengths that you don't really have. That makes sense to me. But coming out and explicitly saying that you have them is paradoxical; the people who have them don't need to say that they do. And it's an especially weird fit with something like confidence, which is real exactly when it is not performative but rather inherent and unspoken. Since swagger is the projection of confidence, it's a liar's word, a fake's word. True confidence lies in those people who don't care if others believe them to be confident. I'm not one of them; I feel insecurity and self-doubt all the time. I admire those people, sometimes, although often it seems as though confidence comes with a lack of compassion or perspective. But either way, I don't mistake people saying they have it for those who actually do. I don't buy it, I don't believe you.