I think social media has more to do with it than anything else e.g. bored, boring and nosey people on facebook al praying for Muamba (I'd never heard of him before I doubt any of the people praying of him had either).

Compare Fabrice Muamba and Marc Vivien Foe, social media wasn't anywhere near as popular in 2003 as it is now, Marc Vivien Foe died and there weren't much of fuss, they retired his jersey number at City IIRC but had that happened now there maybe teenagers crying all over Facebook and twitter.

People seemed to be afraid of being rounded up on or bullied for holding an opinion, personally i'm past caring so don't usually go down the sycophant/emotion route unless that person has actually inspired me or grabbed my heart in some other way.

On the Hillsbrough thing, i view i have on why some Liverpool fans get so self righteous (i expect poop for this opinon) is to deflect slightly from their own fans being involved in a stadium disaster that killed 39 Italians and injured countless others and the shame that brought on the club and how they were seen by the rest of the world.
Liverpool as a a city has always seemed very defensive.


On the Titanic, WTF!
Personally i think James Cameron should shoulder some of the blame.

I'm also getting fed up of the road shrines popping up, i actually have in my will and i poop you not "If i die in a road related accident please do not leave flowers or make any kind of memorial where it happened, i don't want the random place i have died to be associated with my memory"

What a pain in the they are, I can just understand a grave although I have never visited anyones.

Why are roadside shrines a pain?

Why are they needed?

There a eye saw, don't get looked after, get in the way if development or maintenance is needed.

Imagine if everyone who died on the road had one.

Surely if it was the right thing to do, the reception area of every hospice and old folks' home would resemble the Chelsea Flower Show

shrines all over the every 3 metres where somebody once died, looking after all your desendents 'death spots', you wouldn't have time to work!

Imagine the up roar when in a few hundred years we have to build on graveyards because of the population.

Because the people that leave the flowers generally do not bother removing them when they wilt and die. The sight of a roadside shrine 3-4 weeks later is truly miserable and seems to me to defeat its purpose.

My personal point of view almost perfectly matches the above, hence the reason that I mention the date on page one, which in all probability most people had to go away and look up.

Ditto.

They also make our own opinions, views and emotions much more visible to the general public and to those around us than they ever were before.

The death of Diana for example, other than screwing up a pre-booked few days away in London by scheduling the funeral for that weekend, didn't particularly register on my emotional radar. I certainly didn't take the time to go canvass opinion on what other people's thoughts and feelings were.

These days I wouldn't have to go canvass them, as they would be spread all over the social media. Posting an alternate view to the majority (i.e. that she was a spoilt, attention seeking mentalist) would likely have got me lambasted, whereas at the time I could happily express that view and only those closest to me would know it.

How many of those who express sympathy, condolences or regrets regarding complete strangers on social media do so because they feel that's what expected of them, rather than actually meaning it?

You have a pretty dim view view of humanity of which you are a part.
People usually express condolences because they mean it. if they don't mean it they don't bother.
Simple really.

There are lots of mindless sheep out there incapable of rational, independent thought processes.
Of course there are.

One could of course argue that those that take this elitist view are themselves just sheep who like to feel superior, in a smaller, more select flock.
Not that I take that view.