Asshole Signaling

A guy on twitter who, when cornered, describes himself as a troll (but one who really cares--it's just ironical!), jumped into a Twitter thread about how you should tell your friends that COVID-19 is actually, for real, dangerous.

"Ahm, doing it!" he trolled, "I tell 'em it's jest ah mild flu!"

When challenged by someone he hoped was a lefty, he rebutted with the "facts" about people in his age cohort (facts! See?) and considered the lefty pwnd. That was asshole-signaling. Anyone who was going around saying that COVID-19 is not-that-bad and then saying it because they're young and healthy (and they've done the reading--linking to WHO sites or whatever?)--that person is signaling they're an asshole.

It gets better.

The discussion of "What to call the virus" is another example of asshole-signaling. There are several names you could use that are, in fact, correct and in common usage: coronavirus, COVID-19, or even "a form of SARS."

Calling it "the foreign virus" (Trump) or the Chinese Coronavirus (Tucker Carlson) or The Chinese Virus (the GOP) and then defending it because "We've ahulways named viruses after plaches! Look ZIKA is ah place! Teh Spanish Flu!! See? See!?"

They hope the liberal will be pwnd while they shout out ot their white nationalist base (if they have a pulpit) or the various assholes on the Internet (if they don't). The fact that there is no readily explainable reason why someone would use this naming (combined with there being a very obvious push from the Trump White House to use the foreign-virus framing) is all the evidence you need.

Oh, what's that? You can't prove the speaker is prejudiced? Maybe he's just a hard core fan of geography? Yeah, buddy: virtue-signal to your fellow assholes.

The people who complain about the complaining are as-bad-or-worse: "Y U NO LET MUH IDEOLOGICAL CULTURE-WAR ALLIES DO TEH RACIST!??? Y U CALL THEM OUT??" is a kind of meta-whining that is all the weakness of whining without actually having a position you could be attacked on (you think! you're wrong!). It's being a cowardly culture-warrior.

Finally, if you are concerned about this virus . . . and you voted for Trump?

We've all gotta live with your terrible choices now. Just sit this one out, 'kay?