My point is that "envious", "self-absorbed", "arrogant", "hater", and "full of shit" are not objective qualities that a person can intrinsically possess. Rather, they are value judgments that one person labels another with. "Nostrademons is an arrogant twat" is not an objective statement; it is a subjective one, with an implicit "I think that..." prefixing it. "Pekk thinks that nostrademons is an arrogant twat" is an objective statement (hopefully false in this case, it's provided for example only).
For any given person's actions, there will be a cloud of value judgments around that action. What's arrogant and obnoxious to one person may seem self-confident and assertive to another. And in general, people are happier when they don't hang around people they find obnoxious. So there's some degree of self-selection going on. If taken too far, you may end up in the situation where nobody wants to hang around with you, and that's probably a good reason to tone it down a little with the bragging. Similarly, if you find that the only people who want to hang around you are folks who you don't want to hang around, you may want to either change your actions to attract folks you actually want to be with, or change your definition of who you want to be around. But there's no intrinsic good or bad level of self-promotion, only the level at which you personally are uncomfortable.
>Rather, they are value judgments that one person labels another with.
Not quite. Reputation is collective, not individual. If enough people agree that someone is self-absorbed and arrogant, that person has a problem.
Now, it could be a problem with the collective, not the individual. Most collectives have a reversion-to-the-mean feedback loop which punishes outliers - with a possible get-out where they demonstrate exceptional effectiveness and value.
But that doesn't mean there isn't an objective reputation consensus, with objective consequences.
So the "That's just your opinion, man" defence isn't always going to work.
What I find personally annoying, is when "you" are in a "competetive pond", and then people drags in stuff from outside the pond, into the pond for competetive purposes. That is unedible, and "foul play" in my book. :)
For any given person's actions, there will be a cloud of value judgments around that action. What's arrogant and obnoxious to one person may seem self-confident and assertive to another. And in general, people are happier when they don't hang around people they find obnoxious. So there's some degree of self-selection going on. If taken too far, you may end up in the situation where nobody wants to hang around with you, and that's probably a good reason to tone it down a little with the bragging. Similarly, if you find that the only people who want to hang around you are folks who you don't want to hang around, you may want to either change your actions to attract folks you actually want to be with, or change your definition of who you want to be around. But there's no intrinsic good or bad level of self-promotion, only the level at which you personally are uncomfortable.