Virtue signalling is a pejorative neologism for the idea that an expression of a moral viewpoint is being done disingenuously, with the intent of communicating good character. [1] [2] [3]
According to the Cambridge Dictionary , virtue signalling 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... indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favour for certain political ideas or cultural happenings". [4] The expression is often used to imply by the user that the virtue being signalled is exaggerated or insincere. [5]
One example often cited as virtue signalling is "greenwashing" (a compound word modelled on "whitewash"), when a company deceptively claims or suggests that its products or policies are more environmentally friendly than they actually are. [5] [6]
According to The Guardian , the term has been used since at least 2004, [7] appearing for example in religious academic works in 2010 [8] and 2012. [9] Nassim Nicholas Taleb cites Matthew 6:1–4 as an example of "virtue signalling" being proclaimed as a vice also in antiquity ("Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven")." [10]
British journalist James Bartholomew claims to have originated the pejorative usage of the term "virtue signalling," in a 2015 Spectator article. [11] [12] His 2015 formulation described virtue signalling as empty boasting (directly or otherwise): [11]
No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things...[that] involve effort and self-sacrifice.
Merriam-Webster editor Emily Brewster describes both "virtue signalling" and "humblebrag" (a term coined by Harris Wittels in 2010) as examples of "self-glorifying online behavior." [13]
Angela Nagle, in her book Kill All Normies, described Internet reactions to the Kony 2012 viral video as "what we might now call 'virtue signaling'", and that "the usual cycles of public displays of outrage online began as expected with inevitable competitive virtue signaling" in the aftermath of the killing of Harambe. [14] B. D. McClay wrote in The Hedgehog Review that signalling particularly flourished in online communities. It was unavoidable in digital interactions because they lacked the qualities of offline life, such as spontaneity. When one filled out a list of one's favourite books for Facebook, one was usually aware of what that list said about oneself. [15]
Blackout Tuesday, a collective action that was ostensibly intended to combat racism and police brutality that was carried out on June 2, 2020, mainly by businesses and celebrities through social media in response to the killings of several black people by police officers, was criticized as a form of virtue signalling for the initiative's "lack of clarity and direction". [16] [17]
In addition to individuals, companies have also been accused of virtue signalling in marketing, public relations, and brand communication. [18] Virtue signalling has been noted in some brands' reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. [19] [20] [ example needed ]
Actors and other celebrities may be accused of virtue-signalling if their actions are seen to contradict their expressed views. [21]
Psychologists Jillian Jordan and David Rand argued that virtue signalling is separable from genuine outrage towards a particular belief, but in most cases, individuals who are virtue signalling are, in fact, simultaneously experiencing genuine outrage. [22] Linguist David Shariatmadari argued in The Guardian that the very act of accusing someone of virtue signalling is an act of virtue signalling in itself. [7] The Conversation 's Karen Stollznow said that the term is often used as "a sneering insult by those on the right against progressives to dismiss their statements." [3] Zoe Williams, also writing for The Guardian, suggested the phrase was the "sequel insult to champagne socialist". [23]
Financial Times editor Robert Shrimsley suggested the term "vice signalling" as a counterweight to virtue signaling: [21]
A vice-signaller 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.
Stephen Bush, also in the Financial Times, describes vice signalling as "ostentatious displays of authoritarianism designed to reassure voters that you are “tough” on crime or immigration.", and that it "risks sending what is, in a democracy, the most dangerous signal of all: that politicians do not really care about their electorate’s concerns, other than as a device to win and to hold on to their own power." In particular, Bush cited Donald Trump's Mexican border wall pledge and Boris Johnson's Rwanda asylum plan. [24]
"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, [25] 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." [26]
A virtue is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is valued as an end purpose of life or a foundational principle of being. In human practical ethics, a virtue is a disposition to choose actions that succeed in showing high moral standards: doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong in a given field of endeavour, even when doing so may be unnecessary from a utilitarian perspective. When someone takes pleasure in doing what is right, even when it is difficult or initially unpleasant, they can establish virtue as a habit. Such a person is said to be virtuous through having cultivated such a disposition. The opposite of virtue is vice, and the vicious person takes pleasure in habitual wrong-doing to their detriment.
Liberal elite, also referred to as the metropolitan elite or progressive elite, is a term used to describe politically liberal people whose education has traditionally opened the doors to affluence, wealth and power and who form a managerial elite. It is commonly invoked pejoratively, with the implication that the people who claim to support the rights of the working class are themselves members of the ruling classes and are therefore out of touch with the real needs of the people they say that they support and protect.
In popular culture, the friend zone is a relational concept, describing a situation in which one person in a mutual friendship wishes to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with the other person, while the other does not. The person whose romantic advances were rejected is then said to have "entered" the friend zone, with the sense that they are stuck there. The friendzone has a strong presence on the Internet; for example, on Facebook, dating sites, and other social media platforms. However, over time the term has expanded into middle schools, high schools, and colleges where young people are discovering their identities when it comes to dating and romance.
Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15–24. Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of “Alter-Activism” resulting in an emphasis on lived experiences and connectivity amongst young activists. The young activists have taken lead roles in public protest and advocacy around many issues like climate change, abortion rights and gun violence. Different from past protest or advocacy, technology has become the backbone to many of these modern youth movements. It has been shown in multiple studies that internet use along with seeking information online is shown to have positive impacts on political engagement. Popular applications like Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have become the newest tools for young activists in the 21st century. Technology and the use of digital media has changed the way youth participate in activism globally, and youth are more active in media than older generations.
Internet activism involves the use of electronic-communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular information to large and specific audiences, as well as coordination. Internet technologies are used by activists for cause-related fundraising, community building, lobbying, and organizing. A digital-activism campaign is "an organized public effort, making collective claims on a target authority, in which civic initiators or supporters use digital media." Research has started to address specifically how activist/advocacy groups in the U.S. and in Canada use social media to achieve digital-activism objectives.
Slacktivism is the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment. Additional forms of slacktivism include engaging in online activities such as "liking," "sharing," or "tweeting" about a cause on social media, signing an Internet petition, copying and pasting a status or message in support of the cause, sharing specific hashtags associated with the cause, or altering one's profile photo or avatar on social network services to indicate solidarity.
An online petition is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. Typically, after there are enough signatories, the resulting letter may be delivered to the subject of the petition, usually via e-mail. The online petition may also deliver an email to the target of the petition each time the petition is signed.
A pejorative word or phrase, slur, or derogatory term is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a term is regarded as pejorative in some social or ethnic groups but not in others or may be originally pejorative but later adopt a non-pejorative sense in some or all contexts.
Karen Stollznow is an Australian-American author, linguist, public speaker, and podcaster. Her books include Missed Conceptions: How We Make Sense of Infertility, On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present, The Language of Discrimination, God Bless America: Strange and Unusual Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States, Haunting America, Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic, Hits and Mrs, and Would You Believe It?: Mysterious Tales From People You'd Least Expect. Stollznow also writes short fiction, including the title Fisher's Ghost and Other Stories, and she is a host on the podcast Monster Talk with Blake Smith. She has written for many popular publications, including The Conversation and Psychology Today. Stollznow has also appeared as an expert on many TV shows, including A Current Affair and the History Channel's History's Greatest Mysteries.
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Social justice warrior (SJW) is a pejorative term and internet meme mostly used for an individual who promotes socially progressive, left-wing or liberal views, including feminism, civil rights, gay and transgender rights, and multiculturalism. The accusation that somebody is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction, and engaging in disingenuous arguments.
Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
Alpha male and beta male are pseudoscientific terms for men derived from the designations of alpha and beta animals in ethology. They may also be used with other genders, such as women, or additionally use other letters of the Greek alphabet. The popularization of these terms to describe humans has been widely criticized by scientists.
Cancel culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a cultural phenomenon in which some who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized, boycotted, or shunned. This shunning may extend to social or professional circles—whether on social media or in person—with most high-profile incidents involving celebrities. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been "canceled".
James Gilbert Bartholomew is a British journalist and author. He has written for the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Spectator.
"OK boomer" or "okay boomer" is a catchphrase and internet meme that has been used by members of the Millennial generation and Generation Z to dismiss or mock attitudes typically associated with baby boomers – people born in the two decades following World War II. The phrase first drew widespread attention due to a November 2019 TikTok video in response to an older man, though the phrase had been coined years before that. Considered by some to be ageist, the phrase has developed into a retort for resistance to technological change, climate change denial, marginalization of members of minority groups, or opposition to younger generations' values.
The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity is a 2019 book by conservative British journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray. It was published in September 2019. The book attracted polarized reviews.
Blackout Tuesday was a collective action to protest racism and police brutality. The action, originally organized within the music industry in response to the murder of George Floyd, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and the killing of Breonna Taylor, took place on Tuesday, June 2, 2020. Businesses taking part were encouraged to abstain from releasing music and other business operations. Some outlets produced blacked out, silent, or minimal programming for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the originally reported length of time that police officer Derek Chauvin compressed Floyd's neck.
Performative activism is activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause.
Extremely online, also terminally online or chronically online, is a phrase referring to someone closely engaged with Internet culture. People said to be extremely online often believe that online posts are very important. Events and phenomena can themselves be extremely online; while often used as a descriptive term, the phenomenon of extreme online usage has been described as "both a reformation of the delivery of ideas – shared through words and videos and memes and GIFs and copypasta – and the ideas themselves". Here "online" is used to describe "a way of doing things, not [simply] the place they are done".
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
Virtue signaling is defined at the act of publicly expressing opinions in order to demonstrate that you are a good person. However, this has become muddied with placing more importance on the appearance of moral correctness, than the correctness itself.
We, along with virtually every other large asset manager, eagerly engaged in a form of financial virtue-signalling that has become de rigueur in the industry, exaggerating how beneficial ESG information had suddenly become to all our investment processes.
Other cultural evolutionary models show that prestige and success biases may combine with imitative learning and virtue-signalling to favour religious cultural transmission (Henrich 2009)
It's noticeable how often virtue signalling consists of saying you hate things. It is camouflage. The emphasis on hate distracts from the fact you are really saying how good you are. If you were frank and said, 'I care about the environment more than most people do'.. your vanity and self-aggrandisement would be obvious
The phrase came to me after years of trying to come up with the something. Researching my previous book, The Welfare State We're In, I came to realise that the Victorians and Edwardians gave vastly more money to charity than people do now.
this rush to virtue-signal support without providing substantive aid is an all too familiar instinct on social media, where an issue can become a trend that people feel the need to address in some way, whether or not it makes sense or does any actual good.
The word "slacktivism" traces to 1995 as a portmanteau of "slacker" and "activism." As elements of life have moved online in the 25 years since, slacktivism has come to represent halfhearted social media-based activity, along with other terms like "virtue signaling" and "performative allyship."
Virtue-signalling, for those who have never felt drawn to the term, is the apparently modern crime of trying to be seen doing the right thing...One regular whipping girl for this abuse is the actor Emma Thompson, who recently rocked up at the Extinction Rebellion protests to give her support, only to be caught days later sipping champagne while flying first class. How her opponents howled.
it doesn't have very much meaning, beyond 'person X holds views less compromised and more ambitious than mine, ergo, person X is a narcissist who uses other people's misery as grist to their own self-fashioning.
The dictionary definition of virtue signalling at Wiktionary
