When Tragedy Strikes...

I think I've ranted on here before on the same topic. However, no one reads this blog so I think it's fine.

One thing that has bothered me for years now is false sympathy. Or perhaps put-on sympathy is a better term. We all know it when we see it: the "I changed my facebook picture because I support insert-cause-here" phenomenon that happens within a few hours of a tragedy occurring. This will prevail for perhaps a week before everyone forgets what happened.
It's a topic that was touched on in one of my classes this semester (about the Holocaust), and it's one that I disagree with most people on. I find memorials to be distasteful in almost every instance. They cause people to behave how they feel they should behave instead of making it okay to not cry over people we never knew. The brotherhood of mankind is an important thing, but I think it's offensive to people legitimately experiencing tragedy or hardship to feign interest for a few days before letting the issue die.
Anecdote: I went to see The Dark Knight Rises when I was living in Germany this summer, so opening night was about a week later than US opening. So we were all well aware of the shootings that took place in Colorado and a tiny bit worried because we went to the English-language cinema in Munich (unfounded; Germany is crazy safe). Before the movie, someone whipped out a bottle of schnapps and suggested that our group all take a shot in memory of the shooting victims. Everyone else did that, and I stood there and mumbled something like "no, I don't do sentimental crap." (Which everyone understood. My general lack of sentiment created a summer-long debate: am I missing my heart or my soul? I prefer heart because then the song "Tin Man" applies to me. And I do love the Avett Brothers. Tangent to the tangent: schnapps are basically rubbing alcohol anyhow. Nein, danke.)
To clarify, I don't have a problem with people having an emotional reaction to a horrible situation. What I have a problem with is that everyone must post these feelings on social media. You're not friends with those people...it's nice that you're praying for them, but keep it to yourself. Prayer is supposed to be with you and God, and perhaps the person you're praying for. I'm not a sentimental person, so people publicly sharing their need to mourn for those they don't know strikes me as fake. Perhaps they truly need to create a facebook status about an event to feel better. I would say that facebook doesn't help anything, but the Arab Spring started online...so what starts there can change the world.

This happened today as well.

But because the important thing is to realize that we are alive, here is a German band called Slut singing a song from Die Dreigroschenoper that's been stuck in my head a lot recently.