Condolences sites and threads

SA14 wrote: I'd suggest they're more violent now and in greater numbers.  Did anyone here, or know many friends who swore or threatened teachers with violence? Or knew teenagers who were arrogant towards the police when simply asked for their name and address?

Once a monkey wrote: KID A wrote: no.6 wrote: Hands up who had any genuine sympathy for the rough sleeper who got kicked to death in Swansea? And who got more upset about a celebrity they've never met? I guarantee that some forum members will be thinking "what rough sleeper in Swansea?" yet tributes get posted about "celebs".     I don't really see this point though. Tom Maynard was a famous cricketer. His sad deathw as all over mainstream news channels. Just because people (me included) didn't get to hear about the rough sleeper tragedy in Swansea, it doesn't mean that we wouldn't have felt any sorrow had we heard the news. I think, hope, his point is that the death of the homeless man in Swansea warranted far greater public reaction, debate and indeed outrage. But because he was a homeless man, and we don't like to see such things as a society, it gets ignored. Yet the fact that someone is a celebrity, despite the fact that they may have contributed significantly to their own death or possibly put others at risk, warrants outpourings of sympathy when, in truth, they perhaps deserve less than the homeless man who perhaps never had a fair chance in life and died a horrific death. The latter should prick all our consciences, but generally doesn't.   Personally, I'll contribute to certain threads on here if I wish to share a memory of something that person did, or is famous for, i.e. Grav. However, personally I feel no need to express an thoughts on young Maynard as, if I'm truthful, I'm not actually bothered. I feel sympathy for people who lose children but, as posted above, there will have been far greater tradegies yesterday which will have gone unnoticed.   I suppose my point is that being a celebrity doesn't actually entitle you to more sympathy/empathy than the next person, so I fail to grasp the need to express condolensces for someone I've never met, who never influenced/inspired me and perhaps who died undue somewhat unusual circumstances. Likewise, I never commented on the Robin Gibb thread, no doubt a great musician, but not my cup of tea.

LLANDRE wrote: We all came in to the world the same and we all leave the world the same. We are all equal. We will all be liked and disliked in varying degress by various people. We will all have made mistakes.

Edited by dr_martinov - 20 June 2012 at 2:39pm

Wow, loads of debatable topics being raised here, but sticking to the original question.

A great post Dr Martinov , exactly my point when i raised the question on Tom's death(but with far better spelling)...To put it in a nutshell programmes of the reality tv genere , have basically the more tallentless , outrageous and shallow a person is , then the bigger chance a nobody has of making a lot of money ...the problem this is harder to achieve each time and the message it sends out to young people is dont bother trying , just be a tw@t and you can make far more money

I think 95% bullshit is being very generous to us, far nearer to 100% I'd have said 

dr_martinov wrote: Speak for yourselves, lads. Or am I the 5%?  Cheese, re medium: I think it's just a need to pass the information on to a social group, i.e. it's basically a subset of gossip and a desire to have a discussion about the events. So is actually fulfilling a similar function as threads on pies, albeit centred on a far more serious topic of conversation. A negligent referee choking to death on a scotch egg whilst having dinner with Gavin Henson, and the WRU being culpable for the event, could be the best thread ever on here. I take it back about being in the 5%.

You make a good point. Any lengthy conversation with friends can veer between very serious topics and the totally trivial - but this does not mean that the 'serious' topics are in any way trivialised, IMO. It's just the nature of human conversation/communication that we tend to jump from one topic to another - which is why threads can sometimes end up going completely off topic.

As for 'condolences' - I would not comment on anyone I hadn't heard of, or had no interest in. I expressed, briefly, condolences for Tom Maynard, as I knew of him by reputation. I'd possibly say more about someone I knew more about, if I had an opinion.

The question about the homeless person is rather different, as I don't suppose any forum member had heard of him; in that case, we'd be commenting on the circumstances of the death, rather than the individual - a different matter.

Obviously, in some cases (Maynard, Winehouse, Houston) people might well be tempted to comment both on their sorrow (if they feel any) and on the circumstances. Surely, though, it can't be right to rejoice in anyone's death unless they are truly beyond the pale - I suppose Bin Laden qualifies here.


Edited by aber-fan - 21 June 2012 at 3:11pm

No matter who the individual is, the death of anyone, through any circumstances affects many