People announcing their good deeds?

[yswning]

I’m part of the community Facebook group that as we all know gets weird and wonderful things posted. Someone just posted about how someone couldn’t pay for their bus fare as their card wasn’t working and so they jumped up and tapped their card to pay for them and they wanted to know if they got home ok (no mention of the person being vulnerable just that their card didn’t work).

And whilst that’s a lovely act, it just smacked me as a “I did a good deed and I need recognition”

I’ve seen someone else I know posting a photo from their car of a car accident with the emergency team. And how they’d seen the crash and they’d assisted the person. Again good deed but weird you had the thought of then photograph it as proof it happened..

I always try and do good deeds, I don’t need to document any of them and tell as many people as I can. Aibu?

I always try and do good deeds, I don’t need to document any of them and tell as many people as I can.

But you’ve literally just come on here and documented I DO GOOD DEEDS 🤣 as part of your narrative.

Well done OP for doing good deeds and not posting on FB about it but posting on MN instead

For me it’s when for example someone says “I saw a man fall over so I went to help him, everyone else was just ignoring him” and then someone says “people just don’t care these days” - yet someone did evidently care and help him.

I also don’t think this to be true. I embarrassingly fell on the road when I was crossing because of ice and people did stop to help and picked up my bag for me, I think you just get people more oblivious these days as they are engrossed in their phone/music or people are nervous to help because they have no idea of a reaction they might get.

“A good deed dies when it is spoken about”

I do this (donate money, not post about it all over social media!).

A few years ago we worked out that cards and stamps totalled about £150 but obviously our chosen charities would only receive a fraction of this. Therefore making a donation, with gift aid, would be far more valuable.

This year we will be donating £200 to 3 different charities. But we won't be putting it on social media.

I don't like it either - happened earlier today - someone on our group chat couldn't afford to pay the deposit for our hobby Christmas meal as she hasn't got paid yet and it's due today. I got paid on Friday, so I texted her to say that I could sub her until her payday if she wanted - you know, texted her behind the scenes, away from the group - so that she could make up her own mind about whether she wanted to accept privately and then how she might then communicate to the group that she could pay now after all. However, another member of the group then sent a gushy: 'Oh NOOOOO! Poor you!! I can pay for you if you like? It's honestly no problem, I'd be happy to help - it can be my good deed for the day!" Fuck off you virtue-signalling cow. Guess who she took up on their offer? It wasn't Little Miss Oh NOOOO! Some people really are tone deaf aren't they?

I don't agree about the Christmas card thing - but I think it depends how you do it. I don't sent cards because of the environmental impact - honestly the amount of C02 produced in the making and sending of Christmas cards is horrendous. So I choose not to participate - instead I donate to a charity that gives you a nice PDF to send to someone - last year I adopted a Manta Ray and emailed a 'Manta Claus' PDF card to everyone with a Christmas message (so no different to sending a card, you can personalise your email and include nice sentiments). I suppose the difference is that (a) everyone I send a card to HAS an email address - including both of my parents who are elderly and (b) I don't put a big message out on Facebook telling everybody that I have done it, the only people who know I have done it are those we get the PDF from me.

Isn’t that just standard? Don’t most people do good deeds every single day? From giving to charity to just taking your neighbours bins out because they forgot.

I didn’t put that to set me apart from the average person because it doesn’t. Like I just posted when I had a fall people did help me, if someone fell in front of me I would also help them.

I think you’re just deliberately missing the point to be like a “gotcha moment”. When I didn’t list out good deeds I’d done, they are just things that happen in day to day life that you do because you want to help someone. That the vast majority of people would also do.

Mine is full of bloody missing cats despite there being a specific local FB page for missing pets.

There's one guy on our local FB page who is always doing this sort of thing.

His latest is organising warm blankets for the elderly. How thoughtful you might think but... He asks for £x each then buys them from eBay whereby a bulk discount is available so he ends up with the difference. But the comments are all full of how wonderful he is and any detractors get roasted.

His family are all like it. One posts around this time of year how he would like to donate £50 to a family in need for their Christmas. Why can't he just donate to a local charity working with families! No, he clearly does it for the Facebook comments. I think he must also get off on vulnerable people getting in touch while he dangles money in front of them, deciding who is most worthy.

Same here. And many people send cards to their loved ones AND donate to charity.

Tom Lehrer had it right in his song about Bay Scouts:

Be prepared,
And be careful not to do,
Your good deeds
When there's no one watching you.

Boy, not Bay

I think this can be a bit different. Friend of mine does this for a charity close to their heart after losing a relative. It raises awareness of the charity

But I don't suppose your lovely friend announces it to everyone!

"I'm just thinking of the person who always posts their good deeds online in a self-aggrandising fit of fatuous virtue signalling. Hope they're OK."

Yes. To raise awareness. Maybe to encourage others to do the same. At a time when they've just lost a spouse writing Christmas cards with just one name instead of two it's heartbreaking enough and virtue signalling is the last thing on their mind

Yes, quite a bit of this on my local Facebook. Also wanting to give stuff to someone in 'genuine need'. But how are they deciding that?? Are there needy auditions where the most downtrodden wins?! All seems to be for the benefit of the 'doer' rather than the reciever. Although even worse when it's just a general 'where can I donate some clothes/books/toys etc', like the high St isn't 50% charity shops!!

Adopting a manta ray - does it not make it awkward when you want a bath?

Virtue signalling. I would put that on the FB post and let them look it up.

No, most people are incredibly selfish. They rarely do anything for anyone else and when they do they expect the favour to be returned.

I reckon it's no more than 20% of people actually do good things on a regular basis and the other 80% only look out for themselves.

More people helped each other out for a while during covid, but then switched back to their normal selves again.

It's amazing how many people say "I pay tax, that's my contribution." Even when asked for something that requires their time, not money.

A lot of people also think that doing something for their kids also counts as an unselfish good deed/thinking about someone other than themselves.

I would absolutely love to read a “good deed thread” when people share anonymously all the wonderful things they’ve done because it really does make me feel like there are wonderful people still out there.
But that’s because it’s anonymously done. Not so everyone can say, “well done Mandy you’re a saint”.
I like hearing about nice things people do but I don’t want to see some wee smirking prick taking a selfie with a homeless fella and a Greg’s bag showing off they’ve spent a quid for 20 likes.

Someone once took my dog who I was out walking, genuinely he ran after a ball about 6am into the park bushes. By 20 past 6 Facebook local groups were all sharing this “poor abandoned dog” and how awful his owner was and how he was to be dropped off at kennels. It was the most performative bollocks, “he looked too skinny”, (was part greyhound ffs!) his collar was scruffy/nails too long (he’d had them clipped 2 weeks earlier, they were fine, his collar wasn’t new but it was real leather etc) but about 30 people had told the woman who hadn’t bothered to shout for his owner or even look around and just got him in her car, how amazing she was. I was in the bushes looking for the dopey sod who’d fucked me off for a bite of old sausage roll from a stranger. She didn’t look for me/call out. She literally dognapped him to post on bloody FB.
Our local group couldn’t praise the dog rescuer enough and with each “well done” she got she added more bollocks about my absolutely well kept boy.
I then was given loads of unwanted advice about his nails or my favourite why I shouldn’t walk my dog early. (Yet the woman who bundled him into her car was also walking her dog)
Also because it was posted publicly that I was in our local park 6am dog walking I stopped going there because I was early 20s and nervous enough being out alone in the dark without every local wrongun knowing my route.

What they mean is:

'I did a thing to make myself look good and I'm pissed off the recipient hasn't posted thanking me yet, so I'm going to do it myself'

YANBU

I’ve done “nice” stuff like paying for bus fares/shopping, helped people who have fallen over but never posted about it or probably even mentioned it. Of course it is probably boasting me mentioning it now 😂

I remember handing someone their arse along with another lady on Facebook following a post on a holiday forum that went a bit like this...

" Myself and my boyfriend were in X restaurant last night and we saw this poor lady ALL ALONE. We felt SO sorry for her so we went and sat with her to keep her company. Hope she is ok today"

This was posted with a photo of said couple with cheesy grins next to a bewildered looking lady in her 60's.

Cue lots of posts saying "Oh you two are so lovely" " What a kind thing to do" etc etc.

Myself and another woman were the only ones to suggest that maybe the lady was actually enjoying her own company and what right did they have to inflict themselves on her and then to post her 'predicament' on social media.

As someone who goes away a few times a year solo, I would be horrified if someone did this to me. I am quite happy in my own company and not at all sad thank you very much, and please don't come and sit with me as I don't want to make inane small talk with strangers 😡

‘When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men".

"I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full".

"So that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you".

It is a 'sin' that it is all too easy to commit with the arrival of social media. Most people just want to be loved, or respected, in some sense, by their community.
I can see why it is a tempting thing to do, even if self-serving.