Is the UK suffering from mass hysteria?

[User135644]

The Queen's passing is sad and seismic and the funeral will be a special occasion.

However, people genuinely seem to have gone mad.

I'm starting to think it really is a class issue. I'm seeing this too. The less, um... fortunate are the ones attention seeking and drawing 'RIP LIZ' in the window, whereas people with... fuller lives have better things to do.

Could you be any more condescending? I doubt you’ll have too many people following you over the barricades when you hold ordinary folk in such contempt…

Paddington and marmalade sandwiches?

You've got to wonder about someone who can see two slices of bread gummed together with marmalade on a pavement, and somehow interpret that as an affront to the poor.

"When someone died in the family often they were laid out at home and friends and family visited the house to "pay their respects" and sat with the deceased."

A lot (most?) households- Protestant and Catholic- in Northern Ireland do this. Both of my parents and my grandparents had open coffins at the house the evening before the funeral. Are we archaic/weird/hysterical/ghoulish/attention seeking?? At the funerals of both my parents , on the way in, people were queued out the church doors down the driveway through the gates and along the footpath at the side of the road to shake hands with us. Totally normal here.

Pople queue for stranger things. When I was a teenager in the 90s people would queue outside HMV all night if a big album was getting released. Sure they could've just stayed in bed and bought it the next day anyway. I've queued, then stood at, sporting events in the cold and the wet for hours when I could've got a better view watching it on telly. I've been to see concerts when I could've just played the CD at home and I've paid good money to see stand up comedians when I could've just bought the DVD after or watched their stuff on Youtube free.

But, you know "highly social species in social bonding behaviour shocker" OMG sheeple, etc

The queuing all night and day is misleading. There is a figure of about 400 thousand people. All being interviewed. Ignoring the fact that 59 and a half million arent! Plus people who have spoken to her for a few mins/seen her walk by are being interviewed. Just seems overkill now .the funeral yes ,but no doubt hours and hours over the weekend into next week as well

I'm sane.
But I'm from t' Norf.
We're forgotten about up here, so no need to do remembering in return.

Funnily enough I can understand that. Maybe the parents were huge fans of the queen and maybe had expressed a desire to meet her some day.

So I can imagine that their bereaved child might out if sentimentality want to fulfil that wish even if they are not royalist themselves.

But yes, I do think the collective mourning and everything it includes has scaled the heights of ridiculousness now.

You've reminded me of the queues when a new Harry Potter book was going to be released. Children and parents excitedly waiting late at night outside waterstones to get their hands on it and read it from cover to cover. No one said they were hysterical. It was a lovely moment in time . This is another moment in time.

Nope. I haven’t seen mass hysteria. Can you give some examples? I just see people paying their respects by visiting the queens coffin. Which is in no way mass hysteria.

Nobody I know cares that much to queue.

It's quite strange to be fair. It wouldn't surprise me if she wasn't actually in the coffin.

Also, if you want to see a people consumed by true hysteria, maybe you should Google the footage of the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Gruesome.

It's scary. Like a form of mass psychosis.

much the same as the people whinging about it all.

It's a very personal thing. Leave people to do what they feel is right for them, while doing what you feel you need to. That's all that is asked of any decent person, isn't it?

Everyone is different, and how fabulous is that. Some people turn themselves inside out trying to get tickets to Glastonbury . Other people spend money they don't have on football matches abroad. They don't care how far they will have to travel, how cold and tired and skint they will be. They just want to be there.This is a moment in history. It is a different and more sombre moment but it is a moment and some people want to be part of that , no matter the physical and financial cost. They are the ones in the queue. If someone else doesn't want to watch it on TV, take part in it for real, they don't have to.

Nonsense. I can totally understand the release of a new book in a popular series causing mass excitement before audio books and kindles etc. were in use.

re; death practices. Yes, Ireland is very different to England in that way, I think.

You're going to have to give specific examples of this 'mass hysteria' you're describing. I don't know anyone who's done anything remotely crazy due to the queen's passing.

I think travelling miles and queuing for 9 hours to nod at a body in a box is crazy.
Is it a religious thing? I honestly find it very unnerving.

I'm not a royalist at all but I haven't seen anything I wouldn't expect to see at the passing of a monarch, in a you know, monarchy, where some of them seem to enjoy quite a bit of popular support.

I get that you're not excited. I'm not excited either, but it's pretty easy to get your head round really

I found todays AIBU post about everyone having afternoon tea particularly insensitive when fucking food banks are closing on Monday. Some of these kids leaving school today won't eat properly till Tuesday yet others are moaning that Waitrose has run out of Dubonnet... a 21st century version of 'let them eat cake'.

But at the same time I can understand your perspectives, but should all of society, put the brakes on life, until all people are at an acceptable level ?

Your comment is a perfect example of people being told that if they are not queueing and weeping they are whinging.

almost 1am in the morning and I can’t believe people are queuing for hours in the cold with their babies to see the Queen lying in state.

It's quite strange to be fair. It wouldn't surprise me if she wasn't actually in the coffin.

Exactly what the lady on the till in Iceland said!

The woman in the paper complaining her 7 year old has been waiting in that queue for 15 hours deserves looking into as much as the bloke who went for the coffin. What sort of parent puts their child through that?

The queue is now 24 hours and people are still joining it?? 😮