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The other side of the coin to virtue signalling; rather than angling for praise by performatively proclaiming their support for certain causes, vice signalling involves attempting to show off their good person credentials by performatively approving of harm or other bad things that have befallen others.
Like virtue signalling, vice signalling is a largely tribal act; a way for the speaker to associate themselves with certain other groups, causes or ideals. Also like virtue signalling, vice signalling is a means of doing this without actually showing any follow-through or doing anything tangible for the cause it apparently supports; much like adding a filter to your Facebook profile to support Group X doesn't actually accomplish anything, tweeting your support for violence against Group Y serves to gain edgy clout without actually taking any meaningful action. Finally and also like virtue signalling, it is not so much the morals behind it as the smug and performative nature of vice signalling that make it irritating: a reasonable person might for instance agree that at times, the use of force has been necessary to stop people from committing terrible acts, but when someone makes a great deal of effort to be seen revelling in physical harm done to someone else however necessary it may have been, it ceases to be about the morals and becomes instead an exercise of preachy autofellatio.
Steve never fails to post on Reddit about how great it is every time some celebrity he doesn't like dies. A classic case of vice signalling.
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This is the opposite of Virtue Signaling. It is a way to broadcast to other ultra conservatives that you despise those different from you and judge others based upon superficial traits.
Jimmy Bob really was vice signaling to the MAGA crowd when he got up and shouted obscenities at the Pride Parade marchers walking downtown.
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vice-signaling means extreme gayness!
I'm vice-signaling!
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Vice-signaling is about being rude to the right persons, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way
Opposite — parading one’s moral superiority like taking the opportunity to demonstrate one’s decency outwardly. Example driving a Prius or wearing a mast during a pandemic.
Think of the toga party scene in Animal House. A young man with a guitar is wooing some girls with folk pap (“I gave my love a cherry that had no stone…”). Along comes John Belushi, who gives a little listen before grabbing the guitar and smashing it. The singer was virtue-signaling; Belushi was vice signaling
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