The real-life antidote to friends’ boastful Insta travel posts

We are friends with a wonderful couple, but we cringe every time they post a story on Instagram about all their business- and first-class travel (“On my way to paradise! #Businessclass”. “Oh! Drinking a pre-flight coffee #firstclasslounge”). Why do I baulk at this?
K.Y., Parkville, Vic

Credit: Drew Aitken

Wonderful friends? They sound more like wankerful friends (#hawhaw #cleverwordplay #notreally #sorry). You’re right to baulk at their boasty posting: it’s obnoxious and validation-seeking and just makes you feel like crap because most of us have never travelled business or first class, let alone been in a first-class lounge. We’ve only peeked inside as we walk past, our eyes blinded by glinting, golden surfaces and veneered teeth, our noses smelling Caramelised Calf’s Foot with Lobster Remoulade, our ears picking up at the sound of music and frivolity and orgy-giggling.

Whenever friends start bombarding me with boasty travel posts, I always poke gentle fun at them – and by poking gentle fun, I mean bludgeon them around the head with a sack of their own entitlement.

If I were you, I’d reply with a series of anti-boasty, non-holiday, unentitled Insta posts: a photo of yourself on a crowded train going to work, squished up between surly, sweaty commuters, and the message, “On my way to paradise, too! #Workingclass”. A selfie at the end of a long day, schlumped on the couch in jammies, guzzling cheap wine from a bottle, “Oh! Drinking a pre-bed bevvy #loungeroom”.

Photo after photo, message after message, capturing all your most mundane daily moments. Doing Wordle on the toilet (#dailyroutine). Eating porridge out of a microwave tub (#dinnerfave). Wiping down the kitchen benchtop with a pair of old undies (#livingthedream!).

Hopefully, that will put an end to their cringey travel posts and make your first-class friends realise they’re behaving like first-class rear-ends (#stoppingnow #tryingtoohard #don’tknowhowhashtagswork).

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