Anyone else dislike Christmas virtue signaling?

[Twigaletta]

It reminds me of that Fast Show sketch, 'I don't like to talk about my charity work' etc. And then proceed to boast about their efforts.

Examples I've seen this week include staged photos of charity shoe boxes, pleas for funds to 'top up' (and in reality actually fund) some boxes for animals and someone saying they wanted to do something but just needing x, y and z, which in effect meant they supplied the empty box and the wrapping paper with everyone else supplying the contents. Lots of people have 'fallen' for these pleas.

I'm not going to rattle off everything I've done for charity this year because that would be hugely hypocritical. I just get an urgh feeling when I see the virtue signaling on social media.

Should read
The Big Announcement:.
I'm not sending Christmas Cards this year!

Nobody cares.
Shut up about it.
.

I think you're mean-spirited and unreasonable.

I wouldn't post a shoebox on Instagram or publicise my gifting but I dislike what you're doing much more.

As long as people are helping each other, why does it matter how it happens or who is giving what?

we have that on the group chat im on. Constantly. When i want to give stuff, i google charities, then drop off, not put it all over social media with bizarre hashtags!!! I mean, they get a lot of kudos from everyone in the group (there about 250 of us) so perhaps they want the praise, and its not like they're doing a bad thing i guess...

@DifficultPifcultLemonDifficult

I cant stand people who announce on social media "We have decided not to do cards this Christmas, but have donated a sum to [insert charity] instead"

Ahhhh here we go again.

Every fucking year I get moaned at for not sending cards, in fact quite a few people I know do.

We don't send cards out because, as bereaved parents, we don't wish to write cards out for Christmas and miss our kids names off them. It feels awful. We can't include our kids names for obvious reasons.

Some people choose to announce it on their social media to save getting moaned at and make a donation to charity, some don't donate and some just take getting digs aimed at them and quietly make a donation.

The insistence every fucking year that it is down to laziness is, quite frankly, insulting, and small minded.

People quite often have valid reasons that you aren't privvy to, and if they chose to donate and tell people there are often reasons for that too.

Fair play. But a simple I'm not sending cards this year would suffice. People shouldn't have to explain their reasons.

True altruism (as in doing a selfless act wirhout the need to let other people know about it) is as rare as hens teeth.

I hate the word virtue signaling more

It reminds me of that Fast Show sketch, 'I don't like to talk about my charity work' etc. And then proceed to boast about their efforts*

Filling a charity Christmas box, OP, is....very much like making love to a beautiful woman:

• Choose carefully. A small package in a large box gives non-one pleasure but trying to force an overlarge package into a small box is even worse.
• Take your time and don't become over excited. Spillage of liquids will ruin your experience.
• It's all about giving pleasure to a child no wait, not that.
• Never regift- nobody likes receiving a package which has just been played with by someone else.

@Namechangeforthis111

We had all paid a deposit £15 for a Christmas party as part of a group I belong to.

The party was cancelled, and the organiser posted on Facebook that she has the deposits to return.

She then out underneath, “wouldn’t it be a good idea if we donated them to charity instead, who’s in? (No pressure of course)” ! Well who’s going to say no on Facebook, but obviously I bet a lot couldn’t afford that at this time of year.

So she gets to donate the deposit instead!

I'd be replying to that with "Lovely idea, but there might be people who could really do with their £15 back and it would be awful to think they felt embarassed to say. Also, not everyone agrees with the same charities so send me mine back please and I'll donate to a charity of my choice."

Giving the in to other people to agree with your post.

@RosesforMama

I cant stand people who announce on social media "We have decided not to do cards this Christmas, but have donated a sum to [insert charity] instead"

Just admit you were too lazy to write cards and have (probably) assuaged your guilt by binging a tenner to the RSPCA (who you could have supported by buying their cards....)

Last year we popped a note in most of our Christmas cards to say that we were not going to send cards in the future. We didn't promise to fund a goat or plant a tree or anything. We decided on this because the vast majority of cards that we sent were to people that we hadn't seen for decades and it seemed daft. We will send to those closest to us.

I have found my people! The 'I'm so selfless donating to a charity, I'm not going to send cards like you uncaring morons'...

They are too lazy and it's one of the main ways to show you care this year! I haven't seen loads of my friends in the shit show that is 2020, so a nice Xmas card will be one of the ways of showing I care.

witchitawineone (brilliant name!)

The lazy, reductive, dismissive phrase 'virtue signaling' pisses me off far more, frankly. It's right up there with 'Liberal Snowflake' to me.

absolutely this.

Nobody said there's no such thing as "virtue signalling" but it's a crap phrase to make yourself feel smug and superior (and maybe better about yourself that you do nothing?). It is that there is no real altruistic act (philosophers can debate this all day and never come to a resolution).

PP mentioned email? NOBODY uses email these days, sheesh. Keep up

The ive donated to charity instead of sending cards brigade are the worst . Attention seeking at its finest .

Totally agree. Me and my friend were only discussing this today. I despise how the recipients are pure 'props' in the donors virtue signalling ego trip. If you really care about the recipient why would you not ascertain what they truly need first. Think of a way to kindly and tactfully give to them showing them dignity and respect without doing a great big neon arrow not caring less what it is they actually need and declaring 'look at me I've just given my lower than/ beneath me people a great big hamper of "essentials" complete with airbrushed selfy with their arm around some socially deprived person who's meant to look incredibly grateful they've just been advertised as desperate. On my lord... Have you seen those Facebook essays (copy and paste thing) ' please don't go hungry tonight.. Blah blah.... Just inbox me and I'll drop you off a food parcel.. As far as it's concerned it never happened... Blah blah. Its not even personal. Just copy and paste. It's classic virtue signalling because who in their right mind is actually going to inbox a random acquaintance on Facebook and say 'can you bring me round a food parcel please?' it's all done for the 51 'likes' and the flowing comments of 'you're so kind hun' 'well done mate' rant over!

Any cards we get go straight in the bin. Complete fucking waste of time and paper.

Hilarious! Love it

Can you not send cards and donate to charity? ?

I donate to charity instead of sending cards and I tell people I do it. Not to look virtuous but because I hate the waste of paper, I don’t want them to think I’m just being lazy and I would rather a charity got the money I would spent on cards and postage. How else will they know I’m not sending cards unless I tell them? How else would I wish them happy Christmas? If I simply say I’m not sending cards I just look like a lazy cow. If you don’t like it then ignore the message and scroll past!

Not writing Christmas cards does not equal being lazy. FFS why do people act like this about entirely optional tasks? I work incredibly hard and support friends and volunteer. I am not in any way lazy. I haven’t written cards for 10 years. At least. I do donate to charity instead - initially I posted that on social media so nobody felt they had to send me a card. After a couple of years I stopped that as I’d cut it down to only the people who really felt the need to send cards.

@Aerial2020

Can you not send cards and donate to charity? ?

Is it beyond your wit to realise people have a budget for spending? That if a donation is to be made something has to give?

@Southwest12

It's the ones that post to say we're not sending cards but donating to charity who then don't donate that bug me. I used to run a kids charity and every year at least one of the families we knew would post that and we'd think oh that's odd as we've not had anything from you!

You could post an acknowledgement after Christmas, Thanks to these families, name, name, name, who gave a donation instread of sending cards!

Beyond my wit? Sod off!

That wasn't wit btw

@Tiktaktoe

The worst for me is people deciding to take a homeless person for some food and document the whole thing on Facebook. It gives me the absolute fucking rage. Do they have no sense of how awful being made to 'perform' for some food would be for the person. If you are doing a 'good deed' for the attention it brings you then the deed is just a 'look at me tax'.

My thoughts exactly. Nobody thinks of how moronic and 'ground swallow me up' that person must feel.

That’s rude.

The lazy, reductive, dismissive phrase 'virtue signaling' pisses me off far more, frankly. It's right up there with 'Liberal Snowflake' to me.

In my head I read it as 'virtuous' signalling.

OP I totally get you. I am surrounded by lots of lovely people who do things because it is their nature. I work with vulnerable (but not particularly photogenic/great for news editoral/considered deserving) children and families who are benefiting from anonymous kindness through xmas appeals and people who donate to food banks etc. For context I worked with childhood cancer in the past and you would not believe how much was raised and how some was spent. It is more than virtual signalling- it is disprespecful and bloody obtuse. We live in one of the richest countries in the world. Being kind is just that, not an opportunity to post pictures of some tat picked up and put in a shoe box. People who really get it try in which ever small way they can to try and change the world. This may sound huge but is often tiny gestures but meaningful.