Actually they’re not (that was just to get your attention!), but expats in Dubai are in pole position to win a Twitter or Facebook boast-off, it seems.
Three out of five adults in the UAE have lied on social media websites to sound smarter, according to a global survey. About the same number even confessed to tampering with photos to make themselves look more attractive.
I’m sure people do this all round the world (and who wouldn’t want their eyebags airbrushed, their fine lines smoothed?), but in this corner of the globe, we’re apparently particularly good at creating online personas as shiny as Dubai’s Gold Souk.
We’re so good at it, in fact, that two-thirds of the adults surveyed in the UAE wished they were more like their stage-managed online versions.
Twitter trumpet: “Dinner at the Burj tonight, champers tomorrow at brunch! #BeachLater #LifeIsGood”
The answer could be the lack of a support network. People move here away from their families and friends who know them well – and who would usually be the first to spot a lie.
Then there’s the pressure that exists to be successful in a city such as Dubai – and to show friends and family back home how supposedly glossy and exciting their new life in the UAE is.
How many desert-dwellers, for example, are guilty of putting photos up on Facebook of a smiling family in front of the Burj, with a bright-blue, cloudless sky in the background and the caption, “Beautiful day in Dubai today”, when in reality it was hot and humid?
The survey results got me thinking about some of the little white lies that mums in Dubai might tell … here are a few examples:
– “I was so lucky – my baby slept through the night from 10 days old”
– “I’d never let our housemaid get up in the night if Veronica was wailing!”
– “My daughter did her homework all by herself. Really.”
– “I never thought of looking on Pinterest for my son’s school project!”
– “Oh this old thing! [touches fuchsia pink Whistles dress] …I just found it in the cupboard”
– “My children would never eat chicken McNuggets!”
– “It was on sale”
– “The mummy tummy will be as flat as a washboard in six weeks”
– “My eyebrows are naturally high”
– “I’m sorry I can’t be class mum..I’m thinking of getting a job”
Hmmm…I have been guilty of cropping a photo so that a certain largish part of my anatomy wouldn’t show. But otherwise – most of my posts are along the lines of, ‘Why do the drunks always stand next to me in the subway?’ or ‘Great – it’s raining and I left my umbrella at home.’ We do definitely have the Glitterati in Seoul, but thank goodness most of my friends are a bit more down-to-earth!
Down-to-earth friends are the very best! 🙂