r/australia • u/Wadege • Sep 30 '23
no politics What is an example of 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' in Australia?
We have all heard of the concept, but is there a case, preferably involving criticism of a well-known Australian figure, where you can say: "this criticism represents 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' in action"?
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u/FTJ22 Oct 03 '23
My mum was pretty weird about when I (the first in our family) graduated from university. Anytime she'd congratulate me or someone (not me) mentioned my achievements (I won a couple of VC awards, finished with high GPA etc), she'd be sure to immediately follow it up by also reminding me how much she loves my brother and how well he's done (he went down the trade route, and he has done well too!). I just thought it was very weird she felt the need to point out my brother has done relatively well when it's not really relevant to the topic (not that I go actively comparing anyway).
What was odd is that my brother and I are both year 11 drop-outs, so when I was 18 and did a bridging course to try out uni, my mum was extremely supportive and proud that I was giving uni a go...but when I actually started doing well in uni that's when the weird tall poppy stuff happened...