I do not think I missed the subtextual meaning at all. I explicitly drew attention to the misuse of the term in my last paragraph.
The textual meaning is in my opinion more important, and more often than not completely lost on people. The term 'signalling' is a bit of biology/economics terminology and people aren't very familiar with it. The idea of cost-based credibility isn't expressed within the term, but must be learned beforehand. So they just say 'virtue signalling' because it sounds clever and it remains opaque to them...
Nobody need study biology or economics to immediately understand what people who casually invoke "virtue signaling" are communicating textually. And, as to the subtext, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism...
The textual meaning is in my opinion more important, and more often than not completely lost on people. The term 'signalling' is a bit of biology/economics terminology and people aren't very familiar with it. The idea of cost-based credibility isn't expressed within the term, but must be learned beforehand. So they just say 'virtue signalling' because it sounds clever and it remains opaque to them...