No eyes anywhere: The vice of virtue signaling
In modern times of crisis, “empathy” floods our phones. Celebrities post black squares to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement and influencers display the Ukrainian flag in their X (formerly Twitter) bios. While these internet activists may receive praise for ‘speaking out,’ how much of this virtual empathy truly translates into meaningful action? Amidst tragic stories and headlines, digital virtue signaling has become the default response over empathy. People repost stories, send “thoughts and prayers,” and flood the internet with emotionless acknowledgments—all without lifting a finger beyond their screens. For those suffering, virtual gestures offer little tangible help. Words of comfort can be useless: sometimes, it’s not the thought that counts. Because while virtue signaling may play a role in raising awareness, it risks covering up tragedies with inadequate details and does little to actually help the victims.
Take, for example, the story of Shaaban al-Dalou:
On October 20, 2024, the New York Times published a piece titled “He Dreamed of Escaping Gaza. The World Watched Him Burned Alive” (Shbair et al. 2024). Over the past year, Shaaban al-Dalou, a 19-year-old Palestinian, took to social media to find means to escape Gaza. On numerous platforms—Instagram, Threads, TikTok—he begged his global, privileged, sheltered audience to help him escape. He posted videos from his family’s tiny plastic tent and launched a GoFundMe to raise funds so they could all escape from the war-torn Gaza Strip.
Despite thousands of comments and shares claiming to support his escape, “the world watched him burn to death” (Shbair et al. 2024). This is no exaggeration. On October 14th, the Israeli government bombed a hospital claiming Hamas militants had been operating undercover within the building. The al-Dalou family had made a home (a tent) in a parking lot near the hospital where many of his family members would later be treated for horrific burns. A video surfaced of the aftermath, and al-Dalou was identified as one of many screaming, eventually burning to death. Nobody helped him—let alone Gaza— escape the fire.
Mr. al-Dalou is only one of many Palestinians who plead for help online. Over TikTok and Instagram, videos appear where Palestinian parents and children plead for help. They ask “Why do you not care? My whole family is dying and you don’t even care.” Viewers repost hoping to increase the video’s attention, commenting “This is heartbreaking. May God provide you a way out” and say things like “Boosting this for the algorithm [to reach more viewers]. What is everyone’s favorite fruit?” Often, the videos will reach hundreds of thousands of likes, tens of thousands of comments, and millions of views. Meanwhile, donation links remain void of money—dollars nowhere near the number of commenters who claim to care.
This is the vice of virtue signaling. Commenters feel content typing “heartbreaking” and “sending prayers,” as if these digital gestures alone can change the reality leagues away (Assalya). To them, 5-second performance activism is enough. They indulge in shallow empathy that ultimately does nothing but soothe their own consciences—convinced their likes, shares, and empty comments equal action. It’s as if watching a young man burn is bearable so long as it’s “boosted for the algorithm.”
Only now that he is dead, Shaaban al-Dalou’s GoFundMe is flooded with money, as donations well surpassed his initial 20,000 euro goal (Ahmed 2024). With much of his family deceased from flames, what good will this money now do?
Commenting meaningless prayers is not the only way performance activists make themselves heard: with over five billion global users on social media, reposting “infographics” on platforms like Instagram and Twitter is also a popular method of showing you care about the newest modern crisis (Petrosyan). Sometimes these posts help. During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, posts flooded the internet. Every other Instagram story advocated for awareness, for speaking out. Perhaps this era of digital activism was more forgivable though; quarantine in the United States made real-life protesting superspreader events. Even still, protesters protested. They used their real voice to speak up, and in the end, lobbying for legislation did more help than any black square in a celebrity repost ever could have. Now, real action cannot be limited to just the internet. To do so is a simple farce: activism is more than an infographic.
When it comes to this online virtue signaling, some even choose to share AI-generated images rather than real photos, keeping the raw truth at arm’s length. While Instagramers reposted the AI-generated image of Rafah—orderly rows of refugee tents nestled between mountains with the caption “ALL EYES ON RAFAH”—real innocent humans in Rafah burned and starved to death (Shamim 2024). The camps in Rafah were no scenic valley—they were disorderly clusters of death and famine—but reposters wouldn’t have known this (Tantesh et al.). The refugees were humans—not pieces of fake ‘art’. Performative activism makes tragedy entertainment—it makes tragedy mocking art. Though it may be justified that this DALL-E’s more digestible art evades censorship, we also evade the reality of the situation by directing attention to false art. For those on social media, posts like these are just sterilized pieces of content on a feed; for people in Rafah, for people like Shaaban al-Dalou, this is the line between life and death. Whose eyes are on whom? Where are our “thoughts and prayers” truly going?
Unfortunately, comments proclaiming sympathy do close to nothing for victims. What we need are donations for aid groups on the ground and posts that encourage pressure on governments to cease arms sales that fuel wars that inevitably harm more citizens than soldiers. While it may feel like there is little for us to do as young students, the least we can be are truly informed voices, not performance activists who flaunt uninformative reposts and trendy hashtags. Go to books, not social media posts. Go to history pages, not TikTok comment sections. It’s okay to raise awareness through social media, but only if this awareness informs action. We may be in Singapore now—where speaking up is harder and voices are more easily silenced—but our futures ahead of us are freer—a more forgiving path to getting involved, being independent, and making a change.
For those eligible to vote, note down which of your representatives cares. Who is willing to speak out in Congress instead of clapping for Netanyahu (Harb 2024)? Who is willing to lose votes to speak out for peace? Silence is complacency.
Shaaban al-Dalou’s posts are still up on social media. He asked many times: “Are you trying to keep Palestine in your mind?” He begged for people to persist, to never relent, to never “let Palestine become a distant memory.” Yet now he is a martyr and his story is another fleeting post.
The next time you’re faced with a “heartbreaking” post—ask yourself—will you scroll past with a sympathetic emoji? Or will you turn your sympathy into something that could actually make change?
References
Ahmed, Shaban. “Donate to Support Shaban’s Family Escape Gaza, From Despair to Hope:, Organized by Shaban Ahmed.” gofundme.com, 2024. https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-me-those-affected-by-the-war-in-gaza.
Assalya, Mohamed. “TikTok.” Make Your Day, July 6, 2024. https://www.tiktok.com/@mohamedassalya0/video/7388197272133078305
Harb, Ali. “As US Congress Cheered for Netanyahu, Protesters Gathered to Denounce Him.” Al Jazeera, July 24, 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/24/as-us-congress-cheered-for-netanyahu-protesters-gathered-to-denounce-him.
Petrosyan, Ani. “Internet and Social Media Users in the World 2024.” Statista, November 5, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/.
Shamim, Sarah. “What Is ‘All Eyes on Rafah’? Decoding a Viral Social Trend on Israel’s War.” Al Jazeera, May 29, 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/29/what-is-all-eyes-on-rafah-decoding-the-latest-viral-social-trend.
Shbair, Bilal, and Erika Solomon. “He Dreamed of Escaping Gaza. The World Watched Him Burned Alive.” The New York Times, October 20, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/world/middleeast/gaza-escape-burned.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20241025&instance_id=137842&nl=from-the-times®i_id=106977728&segment_id=181400&user_id=7931e6873d48af43ccf73966d0227c33.
Tantesh, Malak A, and Emma Graham-Harrison. “‘Bodies Everywhere’: The Horrors of Israel’s Strike on a Rafah Camp.” The Guardian, May 29, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/29/bodies-everywhere-people-describe-horror-israeli-strike-rafah-camp.