The rise of vaccine virtue-signalling

I’ve bemoaned the ‘no Tories please’ line on dating profiles many a time. Closed-minded and over-used, it’s a banal way for university freshers to virtue signal their wokeness. It’s a phase many go through, and, more’s the pity, do not all grow out of.

But as of late, a new, equally lacklustre profile-essential has emerged — one’s Covid vaccine record. Across the pond in the USA, where I’m currently based, twenty-somethings seem set on flaunting their team Pfizer, Moderna, or one-shot Johnson & Johnson credentials. And this begs the question of why?

Because, to be quite honest, few things would make me swipe left faster.

Take Payne, a 23-year-old financial journalist, whose Hinge profile reads ‘I take pride in… my covid vaccine’. Are his accomplishments so few in number that getting an injection is noteworthy for him, or is he genuinely proud of the fact he’s rolled up his sleeve, joining the likes of millions of other vaccinated Americans? Either way, it’s a no from me.