Have you guys been seeing this shit? I swear it's getting more and more popular:
"Virtue signalling", according to The Cambridge Dictionary, is "an attempt to show other people that you are a good person, for example by expressing opinions that will be acceptable to them, especially on social media." The expression is often used to imply that the virtue being signalled is exaggerated or insincere.
A Vice-signaller (by contrast) boasts about sneaking meat into a vegetarian meal. He will rush on to social media to denounce as a 'snowflake' any woman who objects to receiving rape threats, or any minority unhappy at a racist joke...Vice-signallers have understood that there is money to be made in the outrage economy by playing the villain. Perhaps, secretly, they buy their clothes at the zero-waste shop and help out at the local food bank, but cannot be caught doing so lest their image is destroyed.
"Vice signalling" has been used variously elsewhere, to refer either to "show[ing] you are tough, hard-headed, a dealer in uncomfortable truths, and, above all, that you live in 'the real world'", in a way that goes beyond what actual pragmatism requires, or to "a public display of immorality, intended to create a community based on cruelty and disregard for others, which is proud of it at the same time."
It's always been a thing for ad hominem strikes, but I'm starting to see the concept become increasingly referred to overtime, normalizing the terms. We've been seeing groups splintering, and my guess is that an insincere display of virtue (or vice) is like the glue between them through appeals to emotion as a shortcut, similar to forming a Bandwagon but with no central figure.
Where is this trend headed, what's the next step for it? What happens when signaling becomes passé?
Ę̵̚x̸͎̾i̴͚̽s̵̻͐t̷͐ͅe̷̯͠n̴̤̚t̵̻̅i̵͉̿a̴̮͊l̵͍̂ ̴̹̕D̵̤̀e̸͓͂t̵̢͂e̴͕̓c̸̗̄t̴̗̿ï̶̪v̷̲̍é̵͔
last edit on
7/25/2022 6:23:26 PM
