When Kindness Has an Audience: The Cost of Likes

  Welcome to the Conant Code in todays episode we discuss social media kindness. and address the question if you're helping someone, why put it on Facebook? You're doing it for likes and validation, not out of kindness. Her question sent me down a rabbit hole a brief, sharp investigation into what happens when kindness gets an audience.

We tell the scene like this: someone films themselves handing a sandwich to a stranger, another posts a selfie with a donation check, a long caption announces a covered grocery tab. It's not always malicious, but it's familiar. Psychology gives it a name virtue signaling  and our brains give it a reward: dopamine, the same spark for winning, sugar, and love. When doing good starts to feel like winning, the act shifts. The rush can become the point.

History offers a contrast. Carnegie stamped libraries with his name, Rockefeller built foundations legacy projects meant to outlast a lifetime. Social media offers something different: likes that evaporate in 48 hours. Legacy builds a future for others; likes build a moment for you. And when helping becomes performance, the center of gravity moves from the person in need to the person with the camera, training everyone to see assistance as transactional.

That shift matters for business, too. Brands launch charity campaigns and sustainability initiatives that live only as press releases and photo ops. Real trust, however, is built quietly in consistent behavior, not in curated announcements. The best companies don’t advertise values; they live them until customers and communities tell the story for them.

The episode closes with a simple test: before you post, ask yourself is this for them or for me? Because true kindness doesn't need an audience, and real leadership is proven when no one's watching.

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