It's not specific to this place. It's an effective persuasive argument technique. Say you want to praise Apple for something. Since praising Apple to Apple fans is preaching to the choir, your target is people who are not currently huge Apple fans. So, you begin by saying "hi, I am one of you, a person who isn't a big Apple fan." Now that you've established yourself as a member of the in-group, you drop your argument, "this aspect of Apple is good." Maybe you qualify it with "pretty good" to keep from tripping any alarms.
Note: that's not to say that the speaker is being in any way deceptive. People naturally evolve and reinvent more effective speech patterns, often unconsciously.
I think it has a second persuasive characteristic, which is simply to contrast with the claimed baseline.
This second characteristic really grates on me when it comes in the form "I don't even know anything about X and even I know this is bad!" -- wherein people somehow leverage their lack of credibility on a subject as a source of authority.
But I think it works because it makes the claim bigger by changing what it's being compared to.
It isn't technically virtue signing since it's meant to be persuasive.
The post further down (well, up now) that's calling attention to the fact that the guy should replace his helmet because he used it (something that is common knowledge for most people young enough to only have worn single use helmets and is literally printed on the helmet and packaging) is a better example of virtue signaling since it states something basically everyone already accepts as fact and is only tangentially related to the article in the first place.
Unfortunately, the term virtue signaling has taken on a political meaning so you can't say it and expect the internet even if you mean it in the technical sense.
Note: that's not to say that the speaker is being in any way deceptive. People naturally evolve and reinvent more effective speech patterns, often unconsciously.