Virtue-signalling explained

 The piece below was written by a guy named Gad Saad.  He seems to have nailed it.  I've edited it a bit:

Let me explain the source for all the platitudinous virtue signalling we're seeing. 

The truly privileged elites know deep down that they're frauds. They suffer from existential guilt. Hence one of the ways by which they assuage the guilt albatross around their necks is to show the rest of us that they are truly compassionate, truly loving, truly caring, truly profound. 

Thus they love 

• all "undocumented" immigrants;
• Mother Earth (usually hipster-renamed as "Gaia"); 
• the ozone layer; 
• BLM. 
• socialism; 
• inner cities;
• "diversity" (though only diversity of race, not of ideas or speech)
• LGBTQ movies;

They hate "gentrification" (building new homes in older neighbourhoods). 

They are better than you--more caring, more cultured, more empathetic. This belief allows them to sleep better at night. "See, I'm not a fraud," they say.  "I may be the CEO of a huge company (social media?) or an overpaid BS actor, but I'm fighting for renewable green energy!  None of those climate-killing fossil fuels for ME!   Rubes in flyover states deserve their grim lot in life.  They're all uneducated racists who bed their siblings, while we elites believe Science--capital S--and fight against Mother Earth rapists while flying to Europe in our private jets to accept awards for our virtue.  What?  Yes, I think it does use kerosene.  Why do you ask?  But you see kerosene is perfectly clear, like water, and it's not like gasoline or oil or coal so it's most certainly NOT a fossil fuel!  Because I am NOT a lying hypocrite.  No no no no!"

It is a classic ego-defense that enables the ruling class to exist within their fractured selves. Once you understand this you'll understand our current problems very well.

Every time a terrorist attack occurs, nauseating hordes of cowards do one of two things:

• Change their social media handles to the flag of the country that was attacked; or 
• Share a new hashtag on Twitter that shows their solidarity with a given cause, like #JeSuisCharlie following the murders (by Muslim terrorists) of 10 unarmed writers at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris, or #BringBackOurGirls, made famous by Michelle Obama after Muslim terrorists of Boko Haram kidnapped 300 Nigerian school girls.

Politicians try to outdo one another in offering “heartfelt condolences" (though never "prayers").  Of course these are utterly useless endeavors uttered to advertise one’s supposed virtue to the world (hence the term virtue-signaling). It is a form of cost-free self-aggrandizing that feeds one’s ego. "You can see I'm a really good person who truly cares, because of my progressive hashtag."  Oh, absolutely.

Source.