To think a good deed isn't selfless if you post it on social media?

[Edgeofthedesert]

Someone I know witnessed a car accident and stayed with the man until the emergency services arrived, she then took a photo of the accident and posted on Facebook what she had done to help.

Another person bought food for a homeless man. He filmed the entire thing, he bought him a McDonald's and was even telling the woman serving him it was for the homeless guy outside.

I just don't get it. You're doing a good thing, do people really need the recognition for it as well?

It makes me feel sick and sad that people behave this way. I can't imagine having the thought to start filming some of these scenarios. I'm at the behaviour!!!

I assume a lot of it comes from just a bad habit of over sharing on social media that makes people feel they have to report their lives as if they were an embedded war reporter or something!?! But some people really seem to crave the validation and praise of a mass audience which is really sad.

And so selfish and narcisstic - but what about meeeeeeee, how does this affect meeeeee, what do iiiiiiii need, when is it myyyyyyyyyyy turn, I want to taaaaaaaalk now. Its like children who haven't yet learned to share.

Bossy I'd respond much more postively to a post that simply publicised the event, rather than one that seemed to publicise your personal involvement. I appreciate you didn't mean it that way but I agree with AnnieLouise in the way it comes across when mentioning your role and the hours you spent doing the activity.

It seems that is the common way to write these days but it takes the focus away from the real purpose. And I don't think 'guilting' people works anyway. Better maybe to encourage and faciltiate people doing whatever they can big or small rather than seeming to compare or quantify a contribution.

Filming is just odd.

But I've done cpr on a heart attack victim. It wasn't a "good deed" it was a bloody traumatic experience. I didn't help to be good, I helped cause I had to, I was first there and couldn't not.
I absolutely had to talk about it after, quite a lot tbh. I was pretty traumatised and only by going over and over it again with quite a few friends could I process it. I just couldn't carry on as normal without mentioning it the rest of the weekend (it was first thing on a Saturday morning).

I agree that there's a balance to be struck, which relates to the reasoning behind any decision to publicise. Agree with one poster above that posting a photo of someone who is homeless is a crass invasion of privacy!

I work part time and use some of my spare time (which I am lucky to have, I know!) to volunteer every week at a local charity. I also give money monthly to three charities. I have never felt the need to tell people about that, but I once had a poisonous boss who was collecting sponsorship for a charity and banging on about how she made monthly donations to this charity, and how everyone should give to charity, and how she'd do so much more if she worked part time. It was soooo obviously aimed at me. I didn't enlighten her, because I didn't want to make her feel like I owed her an explanation. She controlled me at work, but my home life was for me.

With this in mind, I can see why some people post stuff about donations or good deeds- some people make assumptions if you don't make it known that you already do stuff. But that's not a good reason to do the good deed in the first place!

Or when there's a RAOK thread on MN and people pile in to talk about their own good deeds...I wonder if they know how it comes across.

Museumum DS was in a similar situation. Came across a car accident where the driver's injuries were incompatible with life, but he and the person he was with tried to save her. He had flashbacks for ages, but I think part of his problem was that he didn't really talk about it. You did the right thing.