I don't want to sound uncaring or anything, but is anyone else sickened by the mentality of collective mourning and public grief that seems to infest modern British society? Or am I just a bastard?

It's like there always has to be some cause which the feeble-minded public can express tearful solidarity for - what it is doesn't matter much, as long as there is some outlet for this open expression of sadness, which usually has to be quantified by some material act like lighting candles, sobbing in large groups, or most recently, releasing balloons!

This channelling of self pity annoys me so much, because it seems pointless and ungenuine, and is invariably stirred up by the insincere media. The headline of The Sun today read 'We Feel Your Pain' - the point is, the vast majorty of us really dont! At all! It seems as though the followers of this grief cult want to feel this pain, for what reason I don't know, but the truth is that they never will understand the tragic things that are going on ALL THE TIME, and yet still feel the need to almost celebrate their false compassion.

I reckon herd-like religions have no small part to play.

Well said. This whole missing girl thing is really doing my head in. It's always the hypocritical populist masses as well, led by shitty tabloids. It's all a big fat ploy to make money.

People need to sort out their priorities.

The thing that gets me about the little girl thing is that the parents actually left 3 kids in a hotel room, on their own, at night, when their was the choice of putting them in a creche. I mean seriously. What were they thinking?!

Yeah if you put money before your kids safety then you really should be wondering if you should have had them anyway!

Not that i wish the kid harm or anything, but they were just asking for trouble.

People are always going to make a fuss when it's issues that are closer to home.

I agree. You get all these idiots latching on and being sympathetic as if it's some sort of fucking fad. Whenever something like this happens, the media always makes it out like it's the only thing tragic thing occuring at the moment.

I also get annoyed by things like people using that black Virginia Tech ribbon as an image, as though they were personally afflicted by that event.

Yeah, it only gets reported if it happens to an ENGLISH person (omgz!).... wtf?

More people die every day because of 'great' britain screwing their country over at some time or another....

And yeah, I totally get you James, whats the fuckin' point?

I think the biggest laugh I've had this year has been BBC news reporting that the local microlight society have been out searching for this missing toddler...


What the hell are they doing?! From the air.. looking for a toddler!

"There she is, lets go down!"
"Oh no, that's just a different little girl. Up we go again!"

Metalbrew Stu wrote:I think the biggest laugh I've had this year has been BBC news reporting that the local microlight society have been out searching for this missing toddler...


What the hell are they doing?! From the air.. looking for a toddler!

"There she is, lets go down!"
"Oh no, that's just a different little girl. Up we go again!"

What a farce.

James wrote:I also get annoyed by things like people using that black Virginia Tech ribbon as an image, as though they were personally afflicted by that event.

Oh god, yeah. For weeks after the event people were still sobbing and bemoaning and writing tribute songs for the victims. It's 33 people! Israel kills that many before breakfast! That's a daily turnover in Iraq! But no, American lives are clearly the only ones worth missing.

You're absolutely right, this culture of false pity is horrific. We did it after 9/11 when my school enforced a minute-long silence on the anniversary for three years in a row. I like to call it the pity circlejerk. These people only go through the motions of loss: they cry crocodile tears so that they can feel as if they have partaken in the excitement of the event.

Still, I wouldn't say it's quite as bad in Britain as it is in America. We seem to be quite a resilient people. After 7/7 we shrugged it off and went about life as per usual. The Americans would do well to learn from that.

Summed up my feelings perfectly.

What I did find weird though, was that they made a huge fuss about that shooting in America. But the same (Albeit on a lesser scale) happened in Loughborough or something, where some guy shot his girlfriend and others (Or something like that, can't remember the exact story) it's like they didn't want create a moral panic or something.

The BBC News website is really pissing me off - for the last week the Madelaine story has been one of the top headlines every day, even if nothing significant has occurred!

If you look on the page today, the story basically says "family still searching for a second weekend". Of course they fucking are!

I don't see why we need to be constantly updated on this issue, or how many extra millions have been donated in reward money by rich people just trying to keep up face.

I bet there are loads of other children missing in the UK as well, but because this happened in Portugal, the media and the public feel like it's some crusade to claim back British stock.

This thread should've been called 'The Age of Good Grief', that would've amused me.

But I agree with everything. It pisses me off. People just want to feel good about themselves so they jump on the bandwagon of grief and pretend that they care about these things when really all they care about is making themselves feel important. Of course these things that happen are very bad, and it does piss me off when I hear about the shit that people do in this world. But when people act as if they have been personally affected by it just because it makes them feel good, it's actually kind of sick. Take Princess Diana for example. How many of the people who went to her funeral do you think actually cared about her while she was alive? I'm sure her family appreciated the sign of respect, but if I was closely related to her, I would've been kind of pissed off at all these people who knew nothing about her and who never really cared about her coming along right at the end just to make themselves look good.

Cunts, all of 'em.

Well said Jon, I was going to mention Diana as well.

And the most stupid thing about that example is that most people who went along to that were probably those who buy the tabloid magazines constantly to read about the royal family in very nosey detail, therefore fuelling the paparrazzi who killed her!

You could almost say it was like a murderer attending their victim's funeral!