Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Not an entirely new profession. In the past, this sort of thing used to happen more often with funerals and professional mourners; now that has well and truly gone in the West.

There is an anecdote in Naples 44 about how the narrator's "fixer" in Naples had had a side gig as an "uncle from Rome" at funerals. By turning up in the right suit with the right accent and social graces this would enhance the social status of the deceased.

There used to be something of a market for "professional token Westerner" in Chinese events. I've no idea if that's still a thing.

View on HN

> There used to be something of a market for "professional token Westerner" in Chinese events. I've no idea if that's still a thing.

About ten years ago, my wife and I visited China (with private guides). We were in a medium-sized town -- don't remember which, but might have been the one with the panda preserve. We had lunch scheduled at a local restaurant in town.

The restaurant was on the second floor. As the elevator went up, we heard a thumping sound like a bass drum. The elevator opened and we were in the middle of the start of an elaborate wedding. It seems that the restaurant was booked for this wedding, but we still had seats off to the side.

It was just coincidence that we got there just as things were getting started. As we made our way around the outside of the room, we happened to pass the bridal party.

As we were passing, the bride-to-be stopped us an graciously thanked us for coming to her wedding (in English) and said they were honored to have us.

It was very surreal. The wedding itself was like a mini rock concert with many people on stage at various times -- including (I remember) two women in white dresses rocking out on electric violins.

Oh man that's hilarious. Your tour group hornswoggled you into being the token Westerner, and you paid for the privilege!

Possibly near Chengdu, Mianyang?

I'll agree with others, this was unlikely to be an accident. But hey, you were entertained and they got to show off their English!

It was _probably_ Chengdu. That would be funny if it was on purpose!

My father was cremated last year. He had no friends at the time of his death. The undertakers had extra staff on hand to watch the service and fill the empty chairs. Professional mourners are still active in the west, at least in the north of Ireland.

> My father was cremated last year. He had no friends at the time of his death.

Something that often happens with men: they tend to (on average) not be as big social butterflies as women, and so any past friends they had fade into the background/disappear. It takes time/effort to keep relationships going.

"Why most men don't have enough close friends"

* https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/why-most-men-don-t-have-eno...

"Men have fewer friends than ever, and it’s harming their health"

* https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23323556/men-friendship-lo...

"Men’s Social Circles are Shrinking"

* https://www.americansurveycenter.org/why-mens-social-circles...

"Men struggle to keep friends — and it’s hurting their mental health"

* https://globalnews.ca/news/6112225/male-friendship-mental-he...

"More than 1 in 7 men have no close friends. The way we socialize boys is to blame":

* https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/newsletter/2023-10-10/more...

Also, with people having fewer children (if any), support structures toward the end of life are getting smaller and smaller.

Macabre though it may be, I've often thought about submitting a YC proposal for a startup that provides professional executor services for those who are facing death alone. Demand is only going to increase as time goes by and, as many internet articles show, it can be difficult to find an executor that one trusts if they have a small social circle.

Just to clarify for everyone (because I totally misread this the first time):

  Executor - A person officially appointed to carry out your will after you have passed
  
  Executioner - A person officially appointed to carry out your passing

As the executor of my dad's estate, he would have fun with the similar words and call me his ex eh cuter.

Thanks for reminding me of our shared joy of words. :)

R.I.P. Dad.

There have to been fatal mixups regarding this. Maybe not as bad as "inflammable".

I will never not be upset with the world for deciding that flammable and inflammable are synonyms

although in both cases, Trust is very important.

> a YC proposal for a startup that provides professional executor services

There are law firms already doing this. From a quick search of my area (Toronto, Canada):

* https://www.millsandmills.ca/areas-of-practice/wills-estates...

* https://ontario-probate.ca/estate-administration-executor-se...

* https://mcdonaldestateservices.ca/services

Seems odd to make that a VC-backed entity. That said I think the most important aspect is knowing the service will be around when you die. Updating wills, plans is expensive, and if someone has dementia etc and this goes bust because 90% of “startups” do, then that’s a real problem.

But just imagine all the "growth hacks" you could do, both to increase the dearly departed clientele and the amount of profit you could extract from them!

That's a tough market to break into. Pretty much everything servicing people past the age of retirement is already set up to suck out maximum amount of wealth from their "customers" before they pass. GGP's best chance is to simultaneously expand and capture the younger side of the market. To move fast, they might need to break some things, ignore ethics, laws, or basic human decency here and there - all par for the course for a modern VC-backed startup.

In the UK, some solicitors and accountants already provide this service.

They don't market it as "facing death alone" though, they market it more as "giving the family time to grieve" and "getting complex paperwork right"

Lawyers already do this. What would you have as a value add?

An app!

Almost every law firm already offers this. What would you bring to the table? Counselling on the prospect of facing death?

hmu

Apart from this issue, which is certainly important, almost anyone can end up without friends at the end of their lives if they outlive their friends and have no opportunities to make new ones as they get older.

He was a paedophile and a serial sex offender who alienated most of his friends and family, dying with more enemies than friends. Sexual violence is also more prevalent in men and it's important to remember that so we can be more responsible parents and educators for young boys.

Male friendships are existentially dangerous to the State. No wonder they are mysteriously disappearing.

Interesting comment. By what mechanisms would you suggest the disappearing is being carried out by the State? The State is threatened by power, obviously love and friendship are powerful things, but there aren’t in actuality any political efforts that are overtly targeting male friendships that I can think of. Maybe fbi infiltration of men’s rights groups and boys clubs like proudboys, MS13 and the freemasons?

One of my bosses was a high ranking mason. I asked him about the Freemason conspiracy theory stuff. He told me he’s not sure “who’s infiltrating who” in regards to the relationship between masons and other groups like who you mention.

Yup, when I go I expect it will just be my kids there and my wife. Same situation happened when my dad died, just us kids.

I had a bit of the opposite experience when an ex-colleague passed end of last year. About 25 of us from one company he worked at showed up to the wake and it was slightly awkward to tell the family and friends who we were and what connection we had (he hadn’t worked there for about 9 years and I was the only person who still worked at the company, but we all turned out because we genuinely cared about him).

But talking to his wife and family in the receiving line was super-awkward. I hope they found it at least epsilon comforting.

I had a similar experience when a co-worker passed. It was awkward, but I do hope the family felt something positive from seeing that a part of their loved one's life they don't normally see also cared for him.

Why was it awkward? Because there were few enough family & others that it was dominated by former colleagues from one seemingly random employer?

No; in a 2 hour wake, there were probably 150 or more people in total. The awkwardness was mostly having to explain "yeah, you've never met me and he hasn't worked with us for almost a decade, but hey, here we are..."

Not awkward at all. I'm sure the family was touched that you still thought about him after all those years.

My 27 y/o nephew passed away last year. He worked at a mid sized tech firm and many of the folks from the firm showed up at the funeral. His parents really appreciated the folks showing up. So, yeah, not awkward at all.

Probably more common than you think. I worked at a 150 person startup for my first job. About five years later one of the guys got into a motorcycle accident and died.

About 50 of the people that I used to work with showed up to his partner's house for the "wake". We were the majority of the attendees. It turned into kind of a reunion for us as well.

His partner genuinely appreciated how much we all cared for him even so many years after not working together.

RIP Chuck, we still miss you buddy.

(One of my favorite Chuck stories that any time he started at a new company, he would always set the variable part of the MAC address on his workstation to C0FFEE)

This also happens just in general; the staff of the funeral home often attends the service just because they'd have nothing else to do and need to assist with transfer to the hearse, grave, etc.

It's only really noticed when it's a small service.

In the USA if you're a veteran or veteran associated the local VFW will send out a color guard to attend.

I'm sorry for your loss.

How many staff vs other attendees?

I don't see the value of that scenario. Who is saving face?

Presumably it's for the benefit of the survivors.

Going to your dad's or your husband's funeral would already be pretty depressing. For it to be a poorly attended funeral would make it even moreso, for some folks.

Especially if you're big on the idea of the deceased living on in the memory of all the people whose lives they touched. Or if the deceased actually had a great many friends, but lived to an old enough age their friends predeceased them.

Plus, if you're going for the type of funeral with lots of hymns and singing and prayers and suchlike, a few more voices can help things along.

And while you might strongly suspect the surviving relatives are all indifferent to the funeral being poorly attended, it's not like you get a do-over if it turns out on the day they're less stoic than you imagined.

I seriously doubt the family of the type of person that would have nobody attend their funeral would be surprised by that fact, and would probably be wondering why they showed up at all themselves.

This is such a callous statement.

Maybe all their friends already died. Maybe they just were never social outside of their family.

Whatever the reason, nobody should have to go into a relative’s (or, really, anyone else’s) funeral and see it empty. That’s going to do nothing but twist the dagger of the death more.

And how would you feel if you were to find out that the funeral director tried to gamify the funeral by having seat fillers? That's even more insulting that someone tried to pull one over, and feeds directly into the stereotype that funerals try to gouge the families.

I would certainly be happier than seeing absolutely nobody on top of grieving for a loss.

As someone that has had to grieve alone, I don’t think you understand the comfort that comes from having somebody there.

Also, this is most assuredly a service they'd be providing. Nobody is going to be "gouged". Nothing is being "gamified". Nobody is "pulling one over". Those are all based on an assumption that this isn't part of a planned process, which literally every part of a funeral is.

Yes, it's very true in my experience with undertakers that they are very respectful even in business matters. They ask you if you would like something but there's never a sense of pressure, and they're very accommodating to alternatives. I've also found them to be very professional and efficient in operation in a way that is itself a comfort in difficult times.

But I wanted to say that you're quite right that it's very helpful to have someone to hear. The people who live on with memories of the departed need to have their stories heard.

There were about 6 staff and about the same number of attendees including myself, that was his brothers, sisters and son.

His brother organised the funeral and accepted this offer from the undertakers. His brother is a practicing Christian. I had the impression that the numbers were mostly inflated to save the minister from the shame of giving a memorial service to someone so few people wanted to remember.

Maybe it's just the Christian thing to do.

Professional token westerners (white monkeys) are still a thing in China. The government has even started hiring them for propaganda purposes.

https://youtu.be/0HGgzK2yVX4?si=D_XIp8f2siDTo9ow

Per your last point, I worked at a very very very large Korean company for a while (In Korea), and when they had a meeting with the EU they would make sure they had some "흰 가구" (white furniture) - I found it quite amusing personally, others not so much.

That's been around for a long time. In ancient Rome, hired mourners were basically expected of anyone of any real social status.

The professional mourners included actors who wore masks of the deceased and any prominent ancestors, and imitated their mannerisms and speech to the best of their ability.

"DEI with Chinese Characteristics"

Your comment is down voted, while the comment above calling people of a certain race "monkeys" is upvoted. That says something about the crowd here.

Reminds me of the images of George W Bush as a chimpanzee. Didn't see any more such images when he got his successor.

> the comment above calling people of a certain race "monkeys" is upvoted

If you're referring to nradov's comment, 白猴子 (lit. "white monkey") is a commonly used term in China for a token Westerner.

"DEI with Chinese characteristics" is hilarious, downvotes are probably just reflexive anti-politics.

Surely you know that the history of using "monkey" as an epithet is extremely charged? It is not a neutral term.

Only regionally. In the global context, it's quite neutral.

People in Asia use "monkey" as a cutesy word for kids, to highlight that the kid is strong/healthy and can climb well.

Why do you think I mentioned that hackers are upvoting a comment calling people of a certain skin color monkeys?

I look forward to the day where I can call a black man a monkey and it only be considered an insult instead of a racist insult.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com