Vulture signalling heralds rise of snark

Suzanne Harrington delves into the psyche of ’The Do Gooder’ to fin dout what they’re all about.

Amid the library of parody Ladybird books for grown ups, there is one called The Do Gooder, which focuses on people who run marathons and jump out of small planes at weekends. “To make this eccentric behaviour seem less like a cry for help or the beginnings of a substantial personal crisis,” it reads. “The do gooder does it for charity.”

Although the Do Gooder book was released to coincide with Comic Relief – not to mock the event, but to support it – it still parodies what has become known as virtue signalling.