Signal your virtues
Virtual signalling is often used as an insult, but it’s good to signal your virtues, actually.
A few months back, I read a story on Bluesky from a hispanic woman who’s immigrant mother got lost in the city. Her phone ran of battery, she didn’t speak much English, and she had no idea how to get home.
She approached a young woman with bright blue hair who was able to use her phone’s translation app to get the mother’s address and help her get home.
When the daughter asked how she knew she could trust that person—as an immigrant in a country like the US in these scary times—she said “because of her blue hair.”
I recently had a conversation with a hispanic friend of mine about this, and he mentioned that progress flags, “all are welcome here” signs, and so on let his family know they’re safe in an area.
It got me thinking about how important—essential even—virtue signaling is.
To that end, I decided to get backpack and sew some fun patches on it. I’m bald AF, so dying my hair is out. I tried painting my nails recently. It was a fucking disaster! And I need a backpack for transporting groceries with my bike anyways.
While I found myself gravitating towards “eat the rich” and “punch nazis” type patches, I decided to go with mostly ones that spread more joy instead.
Looking at them, I don’t think there’s any doubt what my political leanings are.
They let vulnerable people know they’re safe with me. And just as importantly, they let the wrong kind of people know they’re not.
Bonus notes
- Sew Anastasia has a great, short YouTube tutorial on how to sew patches on a packback without going through the inner lining.
- I bought all of my patches on Etsy from (hopefully?) Indie shops.
- The Progress Flag patch is even more vivid in real life than it looks in the photo. It’s also thick as hell, and took forever to sew on!
- I take my backpack with me basically everywhere, now, so this gets a lot of use!