Self consciously public displays of sentiment revolt me. There's always something coercive and unnatural about them. A kind of mob smugness that sanctimoniously implies if you're not with us, you're a cold, unfeeling creep. Let me give you one example of how this has worked in history.
When that high class good time girl Diana Spencer died because her chauffeur was a stoned drunken speeding fuck, the boo hoo mob went into hysteria hyperdrive. Flowers, tears, cheap sentiment, pop 'stars' recycling lame songs, infotainment nobodies photogenically boo hooing into microphones, cheap arsed women's magazines peddling schmalz, hand wringing and chest beating... oh, it was all so terribly concerned...oh so dreadfully sad... all so boo fucking hoo... sentiment commodified, all played out to the sound track of big business laughing all the way to the bank...
But the really nauseating bit was the pressure on the Queen (the mother in law for Christ's sake!!) to "prove" she cared. No uglier sight than that of the mob forcing it's way into a private person's interior and trying to colonize it with their sickly McHappyLand pop culture sentiment. If I'd have been Queen Elizabeth, I'd have gone out on the balcony and given the crowd the one finger salute and told them to fuck themselves in no uncertain terms...or simply barfed on them...
Has anyone read Shakespeare's "King Lear"? A senile, vain, stupid king banishes the daughter who truly loves him because her integrity and sensitivity preclude her from making a sham parade of her feelings in order to satisfy his grotesque vomit inducing egotistical neediness. Eventually, the old man is stripped of everything: title, friends, protectors, castle...by the daughters who had obligingly declared their undying love...
As for me? I understand very very well that when someone does the "prove you care bit" they are only trying to fuck with me... only trying to establish some kind of domination or make a parade of their own worthless, hollow sentiment to gain attention...Go bleed your sham conscience all over someone else...I'm not your audience. Boo fucking hoo.
