In my own experience, "virtue signaling" usually means saying something, often expressing outrage, without reflection, because others will react positively to its emotions. (For example, most of Donald Trump's tweets.) Lack of careful thought and attempts to impress a peer group don't constitute setting a good example.
Many expressions mean different things to different people, so it could have other meanings outside my experience.
I was accused of "virtue signalling" for squee-ing publicly (to the audience in a room) about the accessibility improvements at the convention hosting the event I was running. The accusation was made in a blog post the day of the event (when he'd gone to sulk in his room) and repeated *over a year later* on an email list, when I finally replied that no, really, I had just been *happy* ...? The accuser flat-out refused to accept my word that I was genuinely happy about the improvements (e.g., blue tape marking flow lanes and wheelchair / mobility aide rest areas) and I was making spontaneous excited utterances. He said it was a performance of better-than-thou, and continues even now to hold me up as an example of how SJWs have ruined "his" supposedly-formerly-apolitical con.
Edited (Editing in multiple parts of my reply and a conjunction went wrong.) Date: 2017-12-02 04:32 am (UTC)
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Many expressions mean different things to different people, so it could have other meanings outside my experience.
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