Very few people wearing poppies this year?

[YippieKayakOtherBuckets]

Anyone else noticed this?

I was in some very busy parts of London today and saw maybe half a dozen people wearing poppies in total. I’m watching Question Time now; the panel are all wearing poppies (the Plaid Cymru representative is wearing a red and a white poppy side-by-side) and at a glance I’d say less than a quarter of people are wearing them.

Is this primarily because of Gaza or did the trend start a while ago? Are people who used to wear poppies now choosing not to? I know this probably sounds very journalisty but I’m not, I promise. I’m really struck by what feels like a dramatic cultural shift in the last ten years or so.

I used to wear a poppy every year, thinking about my grandparents’ wartime experiences as I did so, and feeling a vague ‘never again’ sentiment.

But then it got weird. Poppies stopped being a discreet symbol and became metal, plastic, diamante. Giant poppies got put up each year in our village square. Benches in the shape of WW1 soldiwrs got installed wround the county. A crochet soldier has been tied to a tree!

And instead of solemn sadness at the 2 minute silence the atmosphere seemed celebratory, almost ‘yay war’.

And so I don’t wear one anymore because it doesn’t seem to be about remembering the last war it seems to be about getting everyone pumped up for the next one. 😔

I haven't been anywhere to get a poppy. Just been at work all week.

I stopped wearing them since it became performative, when I was chastised for being disrespectful by not wearing one (it was on my cardigan which I had removed). I give to plenty of charities by means of time and donations so I cannot be bothered with virtue signalling.

This is really interesting. Thank you for your thoughts.

Ive bought 4 and have forgot tl put them on_/lost them/not wearing the right coat (ie polyester that would be damaged).

But i think as wwii becomes a more distant memory it will be less relavant as modern wars dont impact the public lile they did in thr early part of 20c

I think it's lack of loose change and the kind of costs and jackets people wear. The old style pipes with pins used to be ready to fix in suit buttonholes or through wooden coat fabric but you wouldn't put one through a waterproof or down jacket and the self adhesive ones fall off!
My Dad was attempting to keep one on a fleece jacket with difficulty yesterday!
Also it's generational, older people lost people they actually remember, my Dad lost his older brother, younger people feel less connected, it's more abstract to them.

I suppose on some level any visual symbol is performative. I can completely understand the slightly contrary impulse to stop doing something once you realise that others have noticed and are making judgements.

I find ‘virtue-signalling’ an empty phrase. How can you distinguish between a genuinely virtuous poppy and a virtue-signalling one?

I wear the little pin without fail every year but no idea where the accompanying poppy has gone.

😂 I quite love the idea of people quietly expressing remembrance with a discreet dressmaker’s pin, poppy long since disappeared!

I’ve been in 3 different schools this week and nearly all the children had either a poppy or the dread snap bands. Some had hand made (eg knitted) and some had little pin badges (one had an arsenal one!) most adults were also wearing one. I’ve made one this yr as I always lose the paper ones and just donated online.

I think time is passing, and the wars that meant something to the older generations are getting more remote, which is just the way of the world. Wearing poppies to commemorate the first and second world wars is a bit odd for people who don't remember anyone who lived through them. I certainly don't feel the need to feel one to commemorate more recent wars.

Also, DH is Irish and never wears them; his reasons opened my eyes slightly.

I was in the City yesterday and I noticed this. There was a poppy seller on Cheapside but I'd say mostly tourists buying. DH was sceptical but I'd say there has definitely been a shift.
I used to wear one as a matter of course but don't feel the same now; I can't quite put my finger on it

ETA that in previous years I've seen plenty of poppies worn in the City

I think this partly explains my surprise - I work in schools and that is one setting where poppies continue to be ubiquitous. I probably haven’t been in London on a working day in November for 10+ years so the shift is perhaps more noticeable to me.

I wear mine on the 11th. I don't understand why everyone wears them for weeks beforehand (it's like having Xmas decorations up in November!!!!!!?)

How is it outdated? What a strange outlook.

Outdated? Respecting those that died is outdated?

I don't think it's outdated at all, of course; but for me, there's a huge difference between commemorating the ordinary men who were forced into fighting in the World Wars - who must surely all be virtually gone by now - and the way it's become about people who willingly choose to become soldiers and fight whatever wars the government send them to.

I don't think it's just Gaza per se, but I think that more people are starting to question the default narrative now that 'every time British military sent in to a conflict = we are the noble goodies fighting evil'; I think an awful lot more people have now picked up on the nuance of this, probably largely helped by the internet and not purely having to rely on a few mainstream news outlets telling you the 'facts' and expecting you not to question them. Blair was also likely a tipping point for many people in this.

I think there's also the practical factor that most poppy sellers are elderly themselves, and I don't know how many younger people are stepping up to take on the task; so the existing volunteers are obviously not going to be with us forever.

I think this as well. 'London Poppy Day' is the 2nd November. Sorry but 'Poppy Day' if there should be such a thing is the 11th November.

We dilute everything by dragging it out. And the sparkly, embroidered, beaded, enamelled stuff... I really don't get it.

A week or so before 11 November has been my understanding all my adult life. What about the majority of years when Remembrance Sunday isn’t on the 11th itself?

It’s the assumption that if you aren’t wearing a poppy then you haven’t donated, and also if you are wearing a poppy then you have donated.

Charlene White got lots of abuse for not wearing a poppy. For me the poppy is meaningless. It’s not a sign of respect nor remembrance. You don’t need a poppy to do that.
Virtue signaling isn’t an empty phrase, it has meaning when people are chastised for not wearing or are forced to wear a poppy. The poppy becomes the focus and the wearer is saying ‘look at me, I’ve done the right thing’ when actually it means nothing.

This ⬆

When the Poppy Appeal was first launched, WW1 was widely considered to be "The Great War to end all wars".

The poppy started as a symbol of collective appalled sorrow at the horrors of WW1 and a determination that it would never happen again. It has become an annual insincere apology to the families of service personnel who are repeatedly sent to die in the USA's overseas squabbles. I say "insincere" because when someone apologises sincerely, they take steps to avoid repeating their wrongdoing, which the UK is clearly not doing as our govt continues to send service personnel to wherever the US tells them to.

And instead of solemn sadness at the 2 minute silence the atmosphere seemed celebratory, almost ‘yay war’

And so I don’t wear one anymore because it doesn’t seem to be about remembering the last war it seems to be about getting everyone pumped up for the next one.

This too. The poppy, along with Armed Forces Day, has become an aspect of everyday militarism to get us to accept war instead of rejecting it.

They have/are. The guy I bought mine from had a card reader.

From All Souls (2 Nov) until the 11th or Remembrance Sunday, whichever is later. That’s what I was taught, anyway.

I usually buy one every year but haven't this year because I haven't been anywhere that sells them. I've not sighted a single poppy seller and the shops I've been to haven't had any on the tills. I just don't have the time to remember to go online and buy one!

I always made an effort and wore a poppy but the Middle East problem has made me less motivated TBH .And I don’t really know why..maybe I have given up on humanity 🤷‍♀️

I think it's a natural and healthy response. When I was a child, veterans of WWI were still alive, and there were families who were actively grieving those losses. When I was a young adult, there were people genuinely remembering those deaths.

But, more and more, the war that made the poppy a symbol is passing into history. It's so disrespectful to the memories of those very real young men who died, to act as if they're still part of living memories. Let them go.

Earlier this year, my neighbour who used to read the roll call of the dead died. He was into his nineties, and the war he's remembering is WWII. He read out those names with real emotion. No one else is going to read those names with the same feeling and care, because no one else knew them as people.

It's not right or respectful to carry on a tradition when the human emotion has gone out of it.

I think the time has come for us to give up on poppies as a symbol, and to think about something that doesn't become an empty gesture.