This comment reminds me of Status as a Service by Eugene Wei.
"Some people find status games distasteful. Despite this, everyone I know is engaged in multiple status games. Some people sneer at people hashtag spamming on Instagram, but then retweet praise on Twitter. Others roll their eyes at photo albums of expensive meals on Facebook but then submit research papers to prestigious journals in the hopes of being published. Parents show off photos of their children performances at recitals, people preen in the mirror while assessing their outfits, employees flex on their peers in meetings, entrepreneurs complain about 30 under 30 lists while wishing to be on them, reporters check the Techmeme leaderboards; life is nothing if not a nested series of status contests."
Some status games are better than others. ie when the game requires some common good to be performed, or the mastery of a useful skill. Some status games reward things that only drag us down
As an aside, when people point out virtue signalling (I'm taking it as an analogue of status games) without adding some analysis my first assumption is that they are virtue-signalling to put others down or make others seem shallow (or themselves deep). The cornerstone of western morality is Jesus and he was quite the "virtue signaller". Point being that the observation on it's own is uninteresting without saying something about the context or consequences of a behaviour. There aren't many things that are /purely/ virtue signals (or status games) and those that are, are quite obvious.
Jesus spoke about humility and dying for your beliefs, which he did. Martyrs don't need to signal their virtue (or social status), they do the virtous thing.
Status is a public display of desireability. It doesn't have much to do with virtue, but everyone wants it anyway.
Don't blend those two concepts, they are separate. People who make a public display and performance out of their virtues, 'virtue signallers' miss the point. You do it in humility before God.
People who don't show off their status, get little benefit out of it.
"Some people find status games distasteful. Despite this, everyone I know is engaged in multiple status games. Some people sneer at people hashtag spamming on Instagram, but then retweet praise on Twitter. Others roll their eyes at photo albums of expensive meals on Facebook but then submit research papers to prestigious journals in the hopes of being published. Parents show off photos of their children performances at recitals, people preen in the mirror while assessing their outfits, employees flex on their peers in meetings, entrepreneurs complain about 30 under 30 lists while wishing to be on them, reporters check the Techmeme leaderboards; life is nothing if not a nested series of status contests."