‘Rent A Mourner’
Helps You Look More Popular At Your Funeral
Posted by CDFuneralNews
Hiring a professional mourner or training your staff to act
as professional mourners gained national attention when the practice was
exposed during the reality show ‘Best Funeral Ever‘. Now the Huffington Post
has taken notice.
From Huffington Post:
A crowded funeral is one symbol of a well-lived life, but
for those who have burned some bridges, one U.K. company has a solution to
boost memorial service attendance.
Rent-A-Mourner, based in Essex, England, hires out fake
mourners to local funerals for around $68 for two hours of grief, The Telegraph
reports. Actors stand in as friends of the deceased, adding numbers to the
crowd, said company founder Ian Robertson, who started the business last year.
To help the hired grievers fit in, the actors are briefed
about the life of the deceased so that they can talk to other funeral-goers as
if they had been friends, according to the company. “We will take your guidance
on how you would like us to integrate and mix with your other guests,” its
website states.
The idea is not new in other parts of the world. In some
African countries, China and Middle Eastern countries it’s tradition to hire
professional mourners who come to publicly grieve at funerals. In Ivory Coast,
the job is a sought-after career for some women, who can make make up to
several hundred dollars per day for their weeping services, according to a
Radio Netherlands report.
The New York Times even noted the practice as long ago as
1877, with a short item about the popularity of “professional weepers” in Asia.
The author envisioned that one day mechanical grievers could replace humans at
American funerals: “Probably we shall use steam mourners at no distant day, for
it is the firm conviction of the average American that whatever is worth doing
at all is worth doing by steam.”
How To Seem More Popular At Your Funeral
A crowded funeral is one symbol of a well-lived life, but
for those who have burned some bridges, one U.K. company has a solution to
boost memorial service attendance. Rent-A-Mourner, based in Essex, England,
hires out fake mourners to local funerals for around $68 for two hours of
grief, The Telegraph reports.
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