Politicians and influencers have been accused of 'virtue signaling' during police brutality protests, but the callouts could do more harm than good

• As Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality have spread across the world and social media, so too have accusations of "virtue signaling."
• "Virtue signaling" is a term used to allege that a person doesn't believe in the causes they publically support or are only backing a certain idea for the clout or popularity.
• While true virtue-signaling probably exists among a small group of people, some activists are questioning how useful the label is, and research suggests that many people are capable of performative activism that is still grounded in part by morality.

In April 2015, the British journalist James Bartholomew had a bone to pick. Bartholomew, who would later run (unsuccessfully) for British Parliament with the conservative Brexit Party in 2019, took issue with a new Whole Foods advertising campaign that positioned the brand as "part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food — one that champions what's good."

The American grocery chain had once been seen as the best store for organic options. But in 2014, its leadership recognized a branding dilemma. The company began a reported $15-20 million advertising campaign under the slogan "Values Matter," in an effort to "distinguish what makes our brand special, our food different, and our quality superior," Whole Foods said in a statement at the time.

Bartholomew, bothered by the posters advertising Whole Foods' corporate virtues, called the campaign a "particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of what might be called 'virtue signalling,'" in an article published in the largely conservative British publication The Spectator. Bartholomew's turn of phrase, which he wrote to discredit Whole Foods' value-based advertisements as performative and disingenuous, has retained a spot in American vernacular, in both social and political arenas, in the five years since its publication.

Since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who said he couldn't breathe while former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck, social media feeds worldwide are full of content protesting police brutality and society's unfair treatment of Black people. People of all ages, races, genders, and nationalities are joining together, seeking an end to the institutionalized racism that killed Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Tony McDade, and so many more Black Americans for just existing as themselves in the US.

Despite the clear, legitimate frustration, many people are identifying aspects of the collective protest as "virtue signaling," or a deliberate effort to portray one value (for recognition or clout) while believing another.

It's become popular to point to displays of anti-racism as "virtue signaling"

Since the beginning of the sweeping movement that followed George Floyd's death, allegations of virtue signaling have flown freely.

Republicans, liberals, and many others quickly characterized Congressional Democrats donning kente cloth, a Ghanian fabric, and kneeling for a moment of silence in Floyd's honor as virtue signaling. Arimeta Diop wrote for Vanity Fair, "white members of Congress wearing kente cloth can't help but seem unnecessarily performative and, at worst, pandering."

John Cardillo, a conservative former NYPD officer known for the podcast "Reality Unmasked," said in a tweet on Tuesday, "The entire Democrat Party is nothing more than an embarrassing collection of identity politicking, virtue signaling, cringe inducing fools."

Other influencers, celebrities, and everyday people have also faced the charge. A quick search for the term "virtue signaling" on Twitter reveals hundreds upon hundreds of comments in opposition to the anti-racism and Black Lives Matter movement.

While the kente cloth incident was certainly ill-conceived — the cloth certainly doesn't act as a symbol for all Black Americans and the symbolic gesture is ironic for part of a body that could enact real change — Dominique Roberts (@domrobxrts) questions the utility of trying to apply the label of virtue signal to various incidents. The activist and graphic designer whose Instagram posts have become extremely popular for sharing anti-racism resources and messages said that right now, calling people out for "virtue signaling" is "not solving any problems."

"The term carves the world neatly into parts: There are real concerns, and there are contrived, theatrical ones," journalist Jane Coaston wrote for The New York Times Magazine in 2017. "And accusations of 'virtue signaling' are, more than anything, a way of walking out on that argument and dismissing it altogether — a quick and easy solution for those moments when engaging and listening, agreeing or disagreeing, seem too hard, too challenging, too personal, too dangerous." Coaston went on to write that to adopt the posture of a virtue-signaling-hater makes it so that "almost any public utterance of concern becomes easy to write off as false — as mere performance."

While "virtue signaling" is used as a political insult, members of both the Democrat and Republican parties are always trying to signal things to their constituents and supporters, Coaston told Insider in an interview. But when used as an allegation in an effort to claim that someone is "displaying a virtue that you don't actually have," then it takes on new meaning.

"Allegations of virtue signaling are really, to me, kind of horrific, because it kind of implies that each of us is deeply amoral at heart, and any effort to pretend otherwise is just lying," Coaston said. The allegation indicates that the these causes are so unworthy of attention, that no outrage could be genuine.

Research has shown that the desire to signal moral goodness or virtuosity is not inherently bad

Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in January 2020 by Jillian Jordan and David Rand investigated the science behind "virtue signaling." Jordan and Rand found that while the desire to be seen positively by others can influence one's morals, "authentic outrage is influenced by implicit strategic calculations."

Jordan, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University who researches the origins of human morality, told Insider that in the current online landscape, she sees three possible scenarios explaining why anyone would post on social media about their own outrage over racism and the murder of Floyd. First, the person might not be "motivated by the desire to appear virtuous at all" perhaps a lifelong activist, or someone who has close personal ties to the issue, such as Black Americans who may have experience police brutality or misconduct before. Regardless of any reputational outcomes, the person would always have posted about this issue.

Secondly, there are people who are influenced by the "desire to look good in the eyes of others," Jordan said, but were still genuinely motivated or committed to taking actions against racism in addition to social media posts. This type could be seen in the Congressional Democrats' kente cloth moment, as they likely wore it both for the public image aspect, but also to honor Floyd and make a statement against racism.

"It could be that you post about your moral outrage about what happened to George Floyd, and you wouldn't have posted if there weren't reputational incentives to do so, but yet you genuinely feel outraged and you're not being inauthentic when you say that you care about the issue," Jordan said. This is the type of motivation that she and Rand wrote about in an op-ed in The New York Times last year, arguing that it's possible to be influenced by reputational outcomes while still acting genuinely.

The third type of motivation, Jordan said, is the one who is acting out of bad faith, and only sharing their virtues for the purpose of looking good. This type could be seen when Washington Examiner reporter Fiona Moriarty-McLaughlin allegedly posed with a drill for a photo-op to make it look like she was helping board up a store amid protests and looting in Los Angeles. A video of the incident has nearly 30 million views on Twitter. According to the footage, Moriarty-McLaughlin drove up, asked to hold the drill for a photo, and drove away. After outrage online, Moriarty-McLaughlin deleted her social media accounts.

"I do think it's important to reflect on the causes of your behavior and which camp you fall into. I think the third camp is sort of much more worrying than the second camp," she said. "Our argument is often to some degree, just because you were motivated by virtue signaling doesn't mean it's inauthentic."

While the social media landscape may be fraught with performative activism, the solution is not to avoid posting on social media at all

Coaston said that performative activism is absolutely still a problem online today, as some white people are posting on social media without actively engaging in ways to help further the movement. "To make it as if, for white Americans, if you post these things on the internet, then you're done — well, for me, and for my family, or for any nonwhite American, it's not done, it's never done," Coaston said.

That issue was on full display for Blackout Tuesday on June 2. In an effort to amplify and elevate Black voices on Instagram, many users posted black squares on their feeds and in their stories. Many of them used Black Lives Matter hashtags, which effectively drowned out any resources on anti-racism and protests from visibility on those hashtag pages.

Roberts, the activist whose Instagram posts are shared constantly by white and nonwhite people, calls this "performative allyship," rather than "virtue signaling." "It's centered around you," and not protecting Black lives, she said.

Patia Borja, a 27-year-old based in New York whose meme account @patiafantasyworld has become a huge voice and resource for the anti-racism movement, said that she sees that many white people posting on Instagram aren't necessarily using their privilege for good, and are only doing the bare minimum.

"I've seen people kind of going to protest, and then chilling the next day and posting it. I don't think it's considerate. Obviously the people who are probably doing this do not have a lot of black friends, or maybe even any. And so they feel like they could do that on their own personal feeds. But I do think it's just inconsiderate," Borja, who also runs a free database of educational resources for dismantling racism and white supremacy, told Insider.

Borja added that she's noticed many of these white people who participate in protests are continuing to "sit in the park having an ice cream cone" while Borja, who is Black, is doing her part to support the protesters and the movement. "People are aware of what's going on. I think it's just disrespectful and a slap in the face," she said.

For Borja, what it comes down to is that many people are only speaking up on social media because of the attention the anti-racism movement is receiving worldwide. "People don't celebrate black lives when they're alive," she said. "And it's only when this happens — every year that there's national media-wide attention on it. I think it desensitizes me personally, because it's like this replayed movie that I know in my head."

But still, Roberts said she tries not to judge people on social media, because at the end of the day, she doesn't know what their motivations really are.

But activists are encouraging people to actively help the cause, rather than just post on social media. "It's easier to say you're doing something on social media than actually do it," said Borja.

Calls for concrete action seem to be working, and undermining the reason for identifying "virtue signaling" or performative activism in the first place. After Olivia Jade — the influencer whose parents, Lori Loughlin and Massimo Giannuli, pleaded guilty in the college admissions scandal — was criticized for performative activism, the YouTuber participated in the BLM Donation Challenge, sharing receipts on her story for donations to National Bail Out.

Beyond donating money to organizations like Black Lives Matter and funds to bail protesters out of jail, people can participate in the movement directly by sending emails to Congressional representatives, signing petitions, and in many other simple ways, Roberts said.

"Posting a black square is totally fine — to stand in solidarity and amplify our voices — but you have to graduate," she said. "People should be able to grow from mistakes they made."

• Read more:
• People are flooding social media with black squares for Blackout Tuesday, but critics say they could do more harm than good for the Black Lives Matter protests
• People keep sharing the video of George Floyd. Some activists and mental health professionals are calling it 'pain porn' and begging them to stop.
• People are urging influencers and celebrities to support Black Lives Matter online or stop posting entirely
• Black Lives Matter and 'I can't breathe' makeup looks keep popping up, but beauty YouTubers are calling them 'disrespectful'