[DiamondSmiles]

*WTF? Funerals just aren't expensive enough!*

Business Offers Fake Mourners For Funerals
5 hr ago |By Curtis Cartier of MSN News

Worried about a funeral not having enough grieving attendees? One UK business has you covered.

Rent-A-Mourner offers fake mourners for funerals

Funerals are sad enough affairs without worrying about whether enough anguished guests will show up to share the grief. To that end, Rent-A-Mourner, an Essex, UK-based business offers trained grievers who will attend any funeral -- for a fee, of course.

Staff briefed on deceased

As the Sun, Telegraph and Inquisitr report, the Rent-A-Mourner service costs about $68 per mourner, each of whom commit to a two-hour shift. The actors are given a rundown of the deceased’s life story so they can handle themselves upon questioning from other family members.

Owner Ian Robertson tells the Sun, “Our staff will meet the client beforehand and agree, ‘the story,’ so our staff will either have known the deceased professionally or socially. They will be informed of the deceased’s background, achievements, failures etc. so they can converse with other mourners with confidence.”

Not required to cry

Robertson says his business draws inspiration from Asian and Middle Eastern countries where he says hiring grievers is much more common. He notes that, “The Middle Eastern way is to provide wailers – crying women – as opposed to the quiet, dignified methods we use.” Robertson says his mourners aren’t required to cry, but are more there to swell the number of attendees.

According to a sales pitch on the business’ website the service is for people who, “need to increase visitor numbers or introduce new faces,” at a funeral. Business is booming, Robertson says, claiming a 50 percent increase in bookings over last year, with 52 funeral schedulings this year.

[emission]

entrepreneur

[Cthulhu]

This is nothing new. They used to do this in Victorian times, you could pay to have mourners or provide a luncheon if you were concerned that your funeral would be devoid if mourners.

[DiamondSmiles]

I go to funerals to network and count mourners personally.

Kind of like a modern, "Harold & Maude."

[GregK]

[pankajsharma]

:face palm: facepalm:facep alm:f acepalm

[gatagato]

In some southern regions of Italy there are the so called "prefiche", professional mourners who actually cry like desperates, tearing their hair out, tearing their clothes off, scratching their cheeks, and chanting a death wail, with strophe and antistrophe. Wouldn't you cry desperately 24/7 if you looked like this?


They are descendents of the professional mourners of the ancient Rome (lugubris eiulatio), but the habit is of Greek origin (lamentations were traditionally performed by professional women and female family members), it was also in use in the middle east, and, more in general, in the Islamic world.


In Greece, Solon instituted curbs against the use of professional mourners, and Plato banned hired mourners two centuries after; he condemned "the extravagant manifestations of mourning" and stressed instead composure as "a sign of pride and self-sufficiency": he also noticed that in grief we often pity not the lost person but ourselves. "How will I cope with the adversities now that you are gone?"
In other words, paid or not paid, he thought that they were a bunch of hysterical women to stop as soosn as possible, and since he couldn't slap in the face all the hysterical women of Greece, he perma-banned them. "A good man who is brave will bear calmly any loss of relatives or friends."

Bonus image: a compilation of women with hysteria under the effects of hypnosis


But in many areas still the lack of display of grief (no matter it's real or fake) is considered a sign of lack of sensibility, lack of respect etcetera. The best solution is to NEVER go to funerals.

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http://oldnews.aadl.org/node/133407#
http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/cam..._3.2.html#s147
http://www.uri.edu/personal/szunjic/philos/republ.htm
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1521963
http://camena.e-humanities.net/porta...atabase=CAMENA

[DiamondSmiles]

Originally Posted by gatagato ↗

In some southern regions of Italy there are the so called "prefiche", professional mourners who actually cry like desperates, tearing their hair out, tearing their clothes off, scratching their cheeks, and chanting a death wail, with strophe and antistrophe. Wouldn't you cry desperately 24/7 if you looked like this?

Thanks for the information, gata

A misprint, or the interpretation of the death announcment of my older brother, lead me to be disappointed in how few people were at his service, but, I never thought of hiring people.

I'd pull that hood over my face, lol! At least I'd still have good skin then.

[petedeamon]

There are individuals that have little to show for life other than their death and for that we ask for payment!!!

[azcar]

Must be for the living