Here are some excerpts of an article that explains what I mean by 'recreational grieving' (see also the Reagan Rapture thread):
Report slams 'recreational grieving' trend Ostentatious displays of public mourning such as the outpouring of grief in Britain after the 1997 death of Princess Diana have become a "cheap emotional fix" replacing real emotion, according to a new report.
The report by leading political think-tank Civitas says people are kidding themselves in the way they display their sorrow.
It says the British have shed their traditional emotional reserve to indulge in "recreational grief" for dead celebrities and crime victims, so as to feel better about themselves.
This sort of "grief lite" was "undertaken as an enjoyable event, much like going to a football match", the Civitas group charged in an 80-page report.
Within days of Diana's death in a car crash in Paris, the streets outside Buckingham Palace in London were carpeted in thousands of floral wreaths.
A similar tumult of emotion was uncorked by the murders in 2002 of schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, a case which transfixed the nation.
The mourning for Diana was indicative of an age "characterised by crocodile tears and manufactured emotion", the report's author, Patrick West, wrote.
He says the only statement people are making in mass grieving is what nice people they all are.
"Ostentatious caring allows a lonely nation to forge new social bonds," he said.
"Additionally, it serves as a form of catharsis."
He noted that immediately after her death, Diana's memory seemed likely to live forever.
"Yet, on the fifth anniversary of her death in August 2002, there were no crowds, tears or teddies. Diana had served her purpose. The public had moved on."
The murders of Holly and Jessica exemplified another phenomenon, the report said, that of "grief tourism", as busloads of visitors arrived in the schoolgirls' home town to show their sorrow.