Empathy. You see what happened to someone, you understand that you could have been the one, and so you leave something nice because that's what you'd like to be done if it were you.

Why do you think this happens? — Vera Mont

Why do people pay more for celebrity endorsed products. Because someone "important" or socially valuable did it. Or even just because the next random guy did it. It just feels right. We are natural followers.

Is it confined to a related group of cultures or is it world-wide? — Vera Mont

Yes. Very simple division that is frowned upon here to discuss. Two camps. The "all that you ever did or can experience is between your first breathe and last" and those who think a bit more freely. Or unrealistically, some will say.

Do you do this yourself - follow the procession on screen, or leave flowers and messages at the site? — Vera Mont

No. I would if I thought it would alleviate some burden for someone worthwhile. But I don't currently, no.

What do you think about the practice? — Vera Mont

It is beneficial. No harm can come about. Unless a certain variety of plant life ceremonially used happens to be endangered or a major road closure happens to disrupt a local or regional economy to a significant degree.

How do you feel about it? — Vera Mont

Depends. Good, I suppose? Art is unnecessary. It serves no utilitarian purpose in the most scrutinizing definition of the word. And yet it often does more so than things that inherently do.

It is beneficial. — Outlander

Who actually benefits? In what way? That's what I really wonder: what people get out of leaving what turns into litter in a day or two on some street that has no personal meaning for you, and what good comes to anyone because a bunch of strangers did that.

About 40 volunteers and 15 groundskeepers--some wielding cellular phones so they could talk from one garden to another--started sorting the millions of dust-caked flowers, cards, toys and votive candles left by mourners from across the country.
.....
90% of the flowers were dead or dying; those were taken in flatbed trucks to the Kensington Gardens leaf yard, where gardeners will compost them for mulch to be used in Kensington Gardens and other royal parks.
Messages, cards, drawings and the numerous paintings of Diana left among the flowers went in sturdy white boxes to a storage facility in nearby Regent’s Park, where dehumidifiers will dry any wet papers.Since the day after Diana’s death, the groundskeeping staff has been working 16- and 18-hour days. Some have canceled vacations. One staffer came back to work the day after his wife delivered a baby.

I can see this: she was a cult figure. The people truly felt a personal connection to this image and a personal loss when it was erased. Presumably, the non-perishable stuff is still in those sturdy cartons waiting to be displayed again. Like this stuff:

Historians Preserve Memorials After Mass Shootingshttps://www.npr.org/2016/09/04/492629594/historians-preserve-memorials-after-mass-shootings

This is a bit more problematic. People were upset that something bad happened where they live. But this happens the US all the time; you'd think the novelty would wear off.

For each of the last three years there have been more than 600 mass shootings - almost two a day on average.

And they're still sad and laying flowers, not mad as hell and marching on Washington to demand the disarmament of their crazy fellow citizens.

Art is unnecessary. — Outlander

How does leaving funeral flowers on a grave or on a sidewalk become art?

Empathy. You see what happened to someone, you understand that you could have been the one, and so you leave something nice because that's what you'd like to be done if it were you. — Moliere

I wouldn't like strangers to leave stuff that will turn into garbage almost instantly, that some other strangers than have to clean up... maybe cursing me the whole time, because I'm not a cult figure. If they wanted to remember me - for whatever inexplicable reason - I can think of more positive ways. If they want to bring flowers, I would prefer they give them to lonely shut-ins or unvisited hospital patients who are still able to appreciate it; if they want to bring stuffed toys, I would prefer they give those to needy children in the Christmas toy drives. If they want to spend money, I would prefer they give it to the Red Cross or something worthwhile. (Not the mylar balloons - there is no excuse for those.)

Why do you think this happens? — Vera Mont

For some, I think it's a proxy for grief in their personal lives, just like it can be easier to talk to strangers about personal troubles.

Is it confined to a related group of cultures or is it world-wide?

I don't know, but I suspect it's more wide-spead than not.

Do you do this yourself - follow the procession on screen, or leave flowers and messages at the site?

Nope.

What do you think about the practice?

I haven't given it much thought.

How do you feel about it?

Nothing expect I hope it's cathartic or helps those who need such public rituals.

Until 10 years ago, roadside floral tributes were virtually unknown in Britain. Now there are parts of the country where you can't go half a mile without seeing them.

Make that 30 years, because this is from a Guardian article of 2005.

It's not a traditional part of either of my cultures. It doesn't seem to have been widespread before the turn of the present century. Does anyone know when the practice began?
The first instance https://www.delawareonline.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/2015/12/08/35-years-ago-john-lennon-shot-fans-mourn-beatle/76978718/ I recall is 1980, outside the Dakota, after John Lennon was killed. He was another icon, whom many people considered a personal loss, even though they had never met him.

People, hundreds of people who had no personal acquaintance with any of the casualties, leave heaps of flowers, candles, greeting cards, stuffed toys and balloons at the site of the lethal incident. — Vera Mont

Most sites of typical mourning that I've encountered are not that big and if they are big it relates to the notoriety of the deceased, or what their passing represents or evokes in strangers. When a community loses a beloved hero, there is a show of great mourning. Sometimes the tragedy of the case and subsequent news coverage can bring various communities together. Urban mourning site might be quite different in this respect, with more contributions.

A local case that spring to mind was about a mother rental cleaner who was randomly beaten to death in front of her child by some meth addicts. It was so sad and I could see why strangers could be moved to contribute to a street memorial. Another involved a missing child presumed dead at the hands of her foster parents. Both of these cases were extensively televised, which no doubt generates a chain effect of gossip/discussion/participation.

Am not likely to ever leave something at a pop up memorial. Would be more interested in visiting the graves of famous authors/scientists to see what is left there.

Most sites of typical mourning that I've encountered are not that big and if they are big it relates to the notoriety of the deceased, — Nils Loc

or the notoriety of the incident: mass shootings with many casualties, terror attacks, egregious police violence, twenty-car pile-ups - that kind of thing. Yes, I believe the media very much play up to these expressions of collective emotion; dwell on the memorials with tender long close-ups, zero in on the tear-streaked faces... cinematic demonstrations of a solidarity people don't actually share. They put down their offerings, stand in the crowd and sway along with some mournful music, then wipe their eyes and go their separate ways, never again inquiring after the orphan left behind, or what they can do to prevent the next tragedy.

Why do you think this happens? Is it confined to a related group of cultures or is it world-wide?
Do you do this yourself - follow the procession on screen, or leave flowers and messages at the site?
What do you think about the practice?
How do you feel about it? — Vera Mont

I found the public grief over the empty Princess Diana absurd. This was the first time I was aware of this kind of OTT phenomenon. I would probably pop it under the category of public hysteria or a type of social virus. And unsurprisingly there was only a modest reaction to her death after the first anniversary.

From a more banal perspective, I tend to think that we've been living in a new age of romanticism, with cults of personality and public displays of success/celebration/grief/loss/rage a tawdry aspect of a particular urgency to share personal stories and feelings with the rest of the world. The talk show (Donahue, Oprah, Dr Phil, et al) probably helped to establish the model. The internet, of course, allows us all to wallow in bubbles of orgiastic, self-regarding paroxysms of anger or grief.

I found the public grief over the empty Princess Diana absurd. — Tom Storm

Yes, they did really invested in that fairy tale, didn't they? An ordinary, and not very bright girl became a huge international icon just by contracting a bad marriage. But they genuinely did buy into it! They really seemed to think they owned a piece of her. It's not so much the tributes I wondered at as the cleanup. That crew seemed just as genuinely reverential of the garbage as they had been about the princess image.
I suspect romanticism is too generous an assessment of our times (I'm thinking of the art and literature of the late 18th century); I call it maudlin commercial sentimentality. People seem to have rejected reason, perspective, any sense of proportion in favour of raw, undisciplined emotionalism.

I call it maudlin commercial sentimentality. — Vera Mont

Yep - I think this is what romanticism looks like when it has collided with marketing and post-modernism. :wink:

People seem to have rejected reason, perspective, any sense of proportion in favour of raw, undisciplined emotionalism. — Vera Mont

Agree, and this is one of the key characteristics of Romanticism.

Agree, and this is one of the key characteristics of Romanticism. — Tom Storm

Then why can't we express it in the quality of art and literature those other Romantics? How come our version is so tawdry and vulgar?

Actually I think this kind of emotionalism is really an attempt to share in something like the community and interdependence of a tribe. Loss of nature and harmony with the elements probably does play a part, just as it prompted the Romantic movement, but there is also a human loss. I think we feel the void where genuine connection should be and try to fill it from a pool of ersatz fellow-feeling, just as we try to fill the void left by life-satisfaction from an ocean of consumerism.

Then why can't we express it in the quality of art and literature those other Romantics? — Vera Mont

I don't see why we would. Every era has its own spin on things.

This is an era which elevates the subjective and the 'authentic' and feelings and nature in quite similar ways. It don't matter that Game of Thrones, Marvel or Star Wars now stand in for great poetry or novels.

This is an era which elevates the subjective and the 'authentic' and feelings and nature in quite similar ways. — Tom Storm

OK. 'Elevate' strikes me as odd in juxtaposition to fake authenticity, but I think I see what you mean.

There's a great 2010 book on the question of culture's obsession with authenticity called The Authenticity Hoax by Andrew Potter. By elevate I simply mean to privilege - people venerate and privilege the things they consider to be authentic and eschew that which they consider to be mass-marketed pap.

By elevate I simply mean to privilege - people venerate and privilege the things they consider to be authentic and eschew that which they consider to be mass-marketed pap. — Tom Storm

Yes, I get it. Just struck me as ironic.

I call it maudlin commercial sentimentality. People seem to have rejected reason, perspective, any sense of proportion in favour of raw, undisciplined emotionalism. — Vera Mont

Does this same assessment apply to folks that go to musical concerts or sports games? How much of culture then can be judged so? Few might call a PGA golf tournament an example of undisciplined emotionalism, but it is arguably as absurd if not more so than a pop up memorial.

Few might call a PGA golf tournament an example of undisciplined emotionalism — Nils Loc

I've never seen the audience weep at a golf match. Soccer fans are more demonstrative, and yes, that form of tribalism is certainly part of that nostalgia for belonging. To a considerable extent sport-fans' displays are also amplified by the media, just as political rallies, and public mourning rituals are. (The media exploitation of genuine grief is not part of that phenomenon, but does set up a model for the fake displays.)

but it is arguably as absurd if not more so than a pop up memorial. — Nils Loc

Degree of absurdity doesn't figure in my assessment; I'm looking for motivation.

Arguably some cases of media coverage of public mourning are beneficial, insofar as it encourages more meaningful kinds of charitable support for those affected by the loss. Though this wouldn't seem to apply to celebrities and heads of state much of the time.

This maybe a stretch, but maybe some of the outpouring of emotion over Diana's death was related to having some good reason to love her character. She was a humanitarian, or at least played one on television. What else can one affiliated with the monarchy do to serve (or to appear to serve) the public? This kind of virtue signaling has tangible benefits in the promotion of charity.

Just saw some ultra nationalist folks mourning the loss of Prigozhin. Imagine if he was as beloved by the public as Diana, and not in the way North Koreans mourned the loss of their former head of state, Kim Jong-il (as if it were one's civil duty to do so).

Arguably some cases of media coverage of public mourning are beneficial, insofar as it encourages more meaningful kinds of charitable support for those affected by the loss. — Nils Loc

That's possible - at least in the case of shootings and road accidents. But I'm pretty sure that isn't the media's prime motivation.

As for 'loving' national icons and sports heroes - that's not love as we as we experience love in our personal lives; it's idolatry, a form of worship. That is shaped by the image they present, or that is presented of them by publicists and journalists. Diana's image was all warm and cuddly; a nice girl embodied a fairy tale from our childhood: people identify with that. As also with athletes who achieved the fame and fortune so many children dream of.

What's much harder to comprehend is the adulation of psychopaths and monsters. Do they also represent the childhood dreams of their followers? That's a terrifying thought, given the number of followers they attract.