Still having trouble figuring out what I'm talking about with this term? Want an example? Take the good looking thirty-something man that says on Facebook, "Women please be proud of your bodies no matter how they appear. You are lovely whether you are fat or thin, white or chocolate, and in any shape or size. You are all beautiful." But then you actually know this guy and he dates only thin models or women who have smooth legs that exist nowhere in nature outside of a dolphin (and wear high heels and have long flowing hair and makeup). And yes, the same guy dates only white women. Yet he is chased after by dozens of women, because yeah...he's good looking...like movie-star good looks. He could have anyone he wants, so why not take the Lizzo look-alike? It's because what he's saying online is a hypocrisy. It is not the truth, because fat women actually don't (and never did) have a chance with him at all. It's the "do as I say, and not as I do" type of person.
I've noticed that one of the things about virtue signaling is that it actually does not require the person saying anything to live by what they preach. Additionally, the person that is engaging in "virtue signaling" generally comes across as pompous and bossy. I think most of us would want others to just privately act on one's convictions without the hope or expectation of acknowledgement. However, a lot of people in the modern world have no self-identity within themselves and depend on an external source of validation in order to obtain any kind of life happiness or satisfaction.
And I think that's the ultimate answer to the question I posed in the headline: why do people spend so much time virtue signaling online? It's because in the modern world, a lot (and I mean LOTS in all caps) of people are relying upon external validation for their self-esteem. Through virtue signaling, they get reassurance that they know what they stand for, they point out to others that they are a good person, and they (maybe) identify with a wrong that harmed them personally and are pointing it out to the world so that others avoid being damaged in the same way.
That's what I think, anyway. As to why people collectively worldwide seem to possess low self-esteem, I have only a few theories. The most prevalent one is that the Earth is extremely overcrowded (population explosion times infinity). Because of this, scarcity of resources is becoming an everyday thing as is the inability to distinguish oneself from another because anything you have to offer is a dime a dozen.
The term "spoilt for choice" comes to mind. This is a British phrase that means, roughly, that there are so many things to choose from that it becomes impossible to choose, which can create anxiety. Remember elementary school and not wanting to be the last one picked for a dodgeball team? Well society is essentially a dodgeball team on a grandiose scale. Whatever is doing the picking, whether it is for a job, for a lover, to be a model, to be a singer, to be a famous author...no one wants to be in the picked over pile. But because there are so many of us, the pickers are "spoilt for choice" and (I hate to say it) but a lot of us just end up on the bottom of the barrel rotting away. Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, I think Earth's ever increasing population does a disservice to us all by collectively devaluing the actual cost of a single human life with each new baby that comes along. That's not to say that I don't like babies. I adore them as much as the next person. I'm just trying to state the obvious that when a population goes from a million to ten million and to a hundred million, each individual in that population is worth less (in terms of what value they bring to a society). This is why we all have to join unions to get collective bargaining power: a single person alone is no threat at all to the employer.
So maybe virtue signaling in the end is an attempt to restore some of that lost value damaged by unchecked population growth. However, (and for whatever reason) it always makes me think for a little while that the people who are doing it are smug. It makes me want to ask, "Who gave you the power to tell others how to live?" I don't like it, but I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Just my two cents on a Wednesday.
Curious: do you virtue signal online? Please leave your answers and thoughts in the comments.
