Maybe not the best thread title in the world. And yes it's a FB thing! And yes I know I can block/delete/hide feed, but this is just symptomatic of a thousand things that are genuinely irritating quite bizarre in my little world.
Right. I do realise I am not the worlds most empathetic person. I don't invest emotionally in things that do not involve me nor particularly affect me. That doesn't mean I don't understand or acknowledge, I just refuse to go along with mob rule.
I live quite near Woolwich. On Saturday night, I was toying with popping down very early in the morning to pay my respects (by early I do mean at 5am when the area would be desolate) and my friend said "come with me at 10". I knew there was a march planned, so I declined, having absolutely no desire to be caught up with the masses on a rally that may or may not turn nasty. I have strong memories of any rally in the name of Stephen Lawrence being hijacked by the NF and turning into a bloodbath, again all to local for comfort.
So my friend went by herself. And proceeded to plaster pictures of the flowers, teddies, boots, t-shirts, flags and so forth all over face book. A little while later, when she'd had a couple drinks there were posts "raising a glass to Lee Rigby, forever in my heart, I'll never forget you" and the posts were progressively more garbled as the night went on.
Point being, she doesnt know the man, never met the man, doesnt know anyone who ever has, has no interest in politics, the forces. It's like a collective social morbidity. A need to latch onto someone elses grief and make it your own. It's so Diana-esque.
I will visit war graves, but in my little world, it would be thoroughly undignified to take photos like holiday snaps. It's a place for quiet contemplation, giving silent thanks and above all acting in a dignified manner.
I do feel the same about public floral tributes with car crashes. Graveyards are the place for this sort of thing, not heaped on the verge, causing a back log of rubberneckers wondering who was wrapped round that particular lamppost recently.
AIBU to wonder what ever happened to the back bone, stoic outlook and stiff upper lip that Britain was founded on?
It's called "Collective Mourning Sickness" and I think this sums it up: Carol Sarler, writing as a guest columnist for The Times, noted that "this new and peculiar pornography of grief" is sometimes called a 'tribute', "the cruder truth is that ersatz grief is now the new pornography; like the worst of hard-core, it is stimulus by proxy, voyeuristically piggy-backing upon that which might otherwise be deemed personal and private, for no better reason than frisson and the quickening of an otherwise jaded pulse
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AIBU?
Genuinely perplexed. More vent than AIBU.
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HollyBerryBush · 27/05/2013 08:42
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