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Virtue signalling: Difference between revisions
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Social media are intrinsically excellent for virtue signaling, because it costs nothing to make a statement, and you can choose & filter your audience (or it chooses and filters you) based on pre-determined proclivities. | Social media are intrinsically excellent for virtue signaling, because it costs nothing to make a statement, and you can choose & filter your audience (or it chooses and filters you) based on pre-determined proclivities. | ||
The cause célèbre of virtue signaling followed Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 girls from a Secondary School in Nigeria in 2o14. This was a categorically horrific act, to which most of the networked world responded, on Twitter, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, often accompanied by a photo of individual (the most famous was Michelle Obama), moon faced, holding up the hashtag on a piece of paper. Everyone joined in. Easy, cheap, filling oneself with a sense of lofty righteousness and achieving precisely nothing. | The ''cause célèbre'' of virtue signaling followed Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 girls from a Secondary School in Nigeria in 2o14. This was a categorically horrific act, to which most of the networked world responded, on Twitter, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, often accompanied by a photo of individual (the most famous was Michelle Obama), moon faced, holding up the hashtag on a piece of paper. Everyone joined in. Easy, cheap, filling oneself with a sense of lofty righteousness and achieving precisely nothing. | ||
The point isn’t to criticize the sentiment — what kind of monster<ref>Well, obviously a member of Boko Haram, of course. But you get the point.</ref> could do that? — but to ask what practical good it does? Would a worldwide crush of hashtags lead a religious fundamentalist to the error of his ways<ref>No, sayeth Wikipedia: “However, with limited action and success after initial protests in 2014, little has been accomplished through social 0/media regarding results. As of January 13, 2017, 195 of the 276 girls are still in captivity, close to three years after the kidnappings.”</ref>? Or was that not really the point, but to visibly, righteously, show concern in a costless but [[bragadocious]] way? | The point isn’t to criticize the sentiment — what kind of monster<ref>Well, obviously a member of Boko Haram, of course. But you get the point.</ref> could do that? — but to ask what practical good it does? Would a worldwide crush of hashtags lead a religious fundamentalist to the error of his ways<ref>No, sayeth Wikipedia: “However, with limited action and success after initial protests in 2014, little has been accomplished through social 0/media regarding results. As of January 13, 2017, 195 of the 276 girls are still in captivity, close to three years after the kidnappings.”</ref>? Or was that not really the point, but to visibly, righteously, show concern in a costless but [[bragadocious]] way? | ||