yeah for some reason we harshly judge people who donate or help people in any way. if they do it in the open we tend to interpret it cynically as a publicity st

yeah for some reason we harshly judge people who donate or help people in any way. if they do it in the open we tend to interpret it cynically as a publicity stunt, writing off the good they did as merely a fortunate side effect of their publicity seeking. but if they do it anonymously we praise them for their generosity and charity. we openly wonder and speculate who these good people might be, but if that info comes out at any point we start having second thoughts about a particular benefactor's motives (hold on, maybe the whole anonymity thing was part of the plan all along!). so yeah, it's not so much you being wrong, it's more us being wired the wrong way.