The #LuckyGirl’s Lie

文/漢納·塞利格松 譯/陶嘉瑤 審訂/陳秀

On social media, admitting effort is taboo.

[2] It’s rare for a social-media meme to inspire a book title, but for Jessica Knoll the hashtag “lucky girl” captured something fundamental about TifAni FaNelli, the twentysomething acerbic,status-conscious, and very insecure protagonist in Knoll’s novel, Luckiest Girl Alive. To Knoll, who is 31 and a former editor at Self1綜合類女性生活雜志。magazine, #luckygirl,which has been used over a million times on Instagram2一款圖片分享社交軟件。, is a commentary on the split self that pervades social networks.

[3] “There’s the image we present to the world—where we have the perfect wardrobe, the perfect body, the perfect fiancé—but inside we are just miserable or harboring some dark secret. That’s Ani in a nutshell,” Knoll said in a telephone interview. In this way, #luckygirl re flects something deeper—and perhaps pernicious3pernicious有害的；致命的。—in contemporary culture:the pressure young women feel to be“effortlessly perfect,” as a landmark 2003 Duke University study coined it.You have to have it all together, but don’t let them see you sweat.

社交媒體上，人們忌諱承認努力。

[2]書名源于社交媒體流行語，這種情況實為罕見。但是杰西卡·諾爾卻認為，“幸運女孩”一詞契合其小說《在世終極幸運女》中主人公蒂法尼·法內利的基本特征：二十出頭、言辭犀利、看重地位、安全感極缺。31歲的諾爾曾擔任《悅己》雜志的編輯。對她而言，“幸運女孩”這個在Instagram上超過一百萬次使用的網絡熱詞，真實地刻畫了網絡中盛行的分裂自我現狀。

[3]諾爾在接受電話采訪時說：“我們向世人展現的是一副模樣：我們服飾得體、身材完美、郎君如意。而實際上，我們內心凄苦，隱藏著不為人所知的秘密。簡而言之，這就是阿尼?！?如此看來，“幸運女孩”反映了當代文化中更深層次、或者說也許是有害的觀念：年輕女性想要“變得完美而不費吹灰之力”，為此感到壓力。這一表述為杜克大學2003年一項標志性研究所創。你必須同時樣樣具備，但是別讓他人知道你曾經流過汗水。

[4] Cosmopolitan.com opined that#luckygirl is “weirdly distancing in its annoying refusal to take any credit. It’s like the girl you graduated with who just explains her amazing job with a shrug: ‘I just got lucky.’” Instead of telling you she had three grueling4grueling使極度疲勞的。summer internships, networked every day for months, and cold e-mailed5cold e-mail冷郵件，泛指關系陌生、但是想找對方幫忙而不得已發送的郵件。相較于大多數溝通方式來說，發送“冷郵件”往往難以得到回應。283 random people.

[5] The “lucky girl” hashtag6hashtag話題標簽，社交網絡中用于表示話題的#號標簽。tells the world that everything just happened easily, without lifting a finger. For instance,the woman who writes #luckyat32 underneath the picture of her two adorable children might not have said that she had children after seven wrenching,expensive rounds of IVF7=in vitro fertilization〈醫〉試管授精。. But social media isn’t a place for hashtags like#triedforyears; it’s an alternate universe where everything is attributed to good fortune.

[4]時尚網指出，“幸運女孩”接受任何榮譽時，總會避免提及其經歷的不順，這一現象十分奇怪。這就像與你同屆畢業的女孩，她找到了一份相當不錯的工作。對此，她聳聳肩膀，解釋說：“我只不過是幸運罷了。”她不會告訴你，自己歷經三個煉獄般的暑期實習，堅持數月日日與人溝通，漫無目的地給283個人發過冷郵件。

[5]“幸運女孩”這一標簽在向世界宣告，一切都信手拈來、不費吹灰之力。例如，一位女性朋友會曬出孩子的照片，照片上兩個孩子惹人喜愛。她還會在照片下面配上文字：32歲的幸運。但是她可能不會道明自己曾進行了七次痛苦而昂貴的試管授精，才得到這兩個孩子。社交媒體并不是個容納諸如“#多年嘗試”的地方。恰恰相反，它是一個把一切都歸功于幸運的領域。

[6] Women, it seems, are particularly prone to use the word “lucky” on social media. (There is no analogue8analogue模擬的。trend of grown men tagging themselves with the diminutive9diminutive無足輕重的；小的。#luckyboy.) Over the last year on Twitter, the word “lucky” was used by women 56 percent of the time,according to data from the analytics company Crimson Hexagon. But when you specifically look at tweets where“lucky” is used in the first person—e.g.“I’m so lucky”—it shoots up to 67 percent.

[7] Is that because men don’t deem themselves to be lucky? Not necessarily.It’s a commentary more about women’s reluctance to take ownership of their accomplishments, says Rachel Simmons,the author of the book The Curse of the Good Girl.

[8] Lucky girls, who are now rather ubiquitous on social networks, appear to be luckiest in romantic scenarios, where the hashtag reigns. Think: the boyfriend down on one knee with a ring, kissing at sunset on the beach, and a dozen roses being delivered to your doorstep.

[9] Love is the pinnacle10pinnacle頂峰。of good fortune, at least on Instagram. But appearances, as we all know, are deceptive. “The ‘lucky girl’ hashtag makes it appear like you were walking along and simply got proposed to, not that you worked really hard to meet the right person and prioritized a relationship and actively tried to bring that into your life,” said Simmons.

[6]在社交媒體上，女性似乎特別青睞“幸運”一詞。（成年男性少行此事，他們不會給自己貼上“幸運男孩”的小標簽。）根據社群網站分析公司深紅六角的數據分析，過去的一年里，推特上女性對于“幸運”一詞的使用頻率，占據了總使用量的56%。如果特別關注“幸運”一詞用于第一人稱語境下的推文，如：“我如此幸運”，統計數據就會飆升到67%。

[7]莫非男性自認為不幸運？不一定如此。瑞秋·西蒙斯認為，這是女性不愿承認自己有所成就的說辭罷了。瑞秋·西蒙斯是《善良女孩的詛咒》一書的作者。

[8]如今社交網絡上，幸運女孩比比皆是。在“幸運女孩”標簽大行其道的王國里，她們看起來是浪漫場景中最幸運的角色。想想看：海灘之濱、夕陽西下，男朋友手拿戒指單膝下跪、獻上親吻，還有一打玫瑰正送貨到家。

[9]愛情是幸運的頂峰，至少在Instagram上如此。但我們都知道，表象極具迷惑性。西蒙斯說：“‘幸運女孩’標簽似乎是想表達：你獨自走著走著，就遇到了求愛之人，并不用認真努力去尋覓有緣之人，亦無須珍視一段關系并主動將這段關系融入你的生活之中?！?/p>

[10] Modern-day romance, particularly for straight people, might be closer to what Knoll describes: “You have all these discussions, wait for him to take action, and probably acted like a total wench in the process,” said Knoll. (Try conceiving a clever hashtag for that process.) “No one wants to admit having to work for love,” Knoll observed.

[11] Still, maybe sometimes we really just are lucky. You show up a party and meet the love of your life. And, of course, effort doesn’t always beget love or the plum job11plum job美差；報酬高的工作。. But it doesn’t make the hashtag any less grating12grating使人不愉快的。for its blatant envy baiting.

[10]現代愛情可能更接近諾爾所述，異性戀者之間尤是如此。她講道：“你守著所有這些念想，等待他付諸行動，而且在此過程中你可能表現得像一個傻姑娘?！保ㄔ囋嚳礊檫@一過程想個貼切的話題標簽。）諾爾認為：“沒人愿意承認，自己需要刻意追求愛情?！?/p>

[11]不過，也許有時候我們真的僅僅是幸運：在某次聚會上一露面，就邂逅了一生的真愛。當然，有時候，努力未必總是可以收獲愛情或是好工作。即便如此，也絲毫不會減少人們對這個標簽的厭惡，因為這個詞明目張膽地惹人眼紅。

[12] So why is there so much reluctance, or downright refusal, to acknowledge the blood, sweat, and tears most of us expend behind the scenes to end up with photos that we stamp with a tag that basically says “effortless”? On social media, we all want to be seen as ducks, a term researchers at Stanford University came up with to convey how,like the animal, young women want to be seen as gliding serenely along, but in fact under the surface are paddling ferociously13ferociously兇猛地。.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we talked more openly about how much effort we exert to hold it all together?

[13] This is a new punishing standard for young women today and why Knoll’s character Ani, who is an avatar14avatar化身（印度教和佛教中化作人形或獸形的神）。of this behavior, has struck such a chord with readers. The Los Angeles Review of Books called Luckiest Girl Alive, which is so far the number one best-selling debut of 2015, “a millennial guide to femininity” for its searing15searing猛烈批評的。description of how young women are forced to perform, especially on social networks.

[14] In reality, though, most of our jobs, relationships, and accomplishments are hard won. So wouldn’t it be refreshing if we talked more openly about how much effort—the antipode16antipode恰恰相反的事物。to luck—we exert to hold it all together(or even just moderately together)? ■

[12]那么，為什么大多數人最終寧愿給圖片加上 “不費吹灰之力”的標簽，也極不愿承認或者干脆拒絕承認自己在背后所付出的血汗淚水？因為在社交媒體上，我們都愿被人看成“鴨子”。斯坦福大學的研究人員用“鴨子”一詞說明年輕女性就像鴨子一樣：她們想讓人看到，自己只是平靜地在水面上滑行；而實際上，在水面之下，卻在猛烈地用腳掌劃著水。

如果我們能更為大方地談論，我們為了得到一切而付出了諸多努力，這是不是會讓人耳目一新？

[13]這是針對當今年輕女性的新批判標準。諾爾小說中的主角阿尼是這一行為的化身，能引起讀者強烈的共鳴，其原因就在于此。迄今為止，《在世終極幸運女》首次發行就位居2015年暢銷書榜首，用飽含批判精神的文字，描繪了年輕女性被迫扮演的角色，特別是在社交網絡上所扮演的角色。為此，《洛杉磯書評》稱此書為“千禧年女性指南”。

[14]不過現實生活中，對于大多數人來說，求職問業、情感歸宿、事業成就往往難以幸運獲之。因此，如果我們能更為大方地談論幸運的對立面，談論為了得到一切（哪怕些許成就）而付出的諸多努力，這是不是會讓人耳目一新？ □