Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking

by Ashley 'Dotty' Charles

‘While offline punishment signals your virtue only to whoever might be watching, doing so online instantly advertises your character to your entire social network and beyond.’

What Molly suggests is that online outrage comes with the promise of character-enhancing advantages and we engage in moral warfare as a way of cashing in on these personal benefits. So our digital fits of rage aren’t necessarily coming from a place of genuine concern; they might just be manifestations of our own vanity, a prop to boost our performance on the world’s biggest stage.

We have all been guilty of it; drafting the perfect post to eloquently offer an opinion that nobody asked for. Dressing up our personal bias in a technicolour dreamcoat of decency and good intention. Could it be that we are all just virtue signalling?