I don't recall exactly when I heard the term "crocodile tears" but it, for sure, wasn't used in a positive light. Not long after I came to know that "crocodile tears" are used to refer to fake sorrow, complete with tears:

Crocodile tears (or superficial sympathy) is a false, insincere display of emotion such as a hypocrite crying fake tears of grief. — Wikipedia

To accuse someone of shedding "crocodile tears" is to hold him/her guilty of quite a severe moral transgression - that of faking sadness when, in fact, it's entirely possible that s/he could actually be ecstatic at whatever is the tragedy.

Prima facie, this take on tragedy and our response to it makes moral sense but if you make the effort to give it a decent overhaul, you realize that to ask someone to be genuinely sad and cry their heart out is to demand that that person be actually sad - bear the full brunt of a tragedy. Isn't this, to wish that someone feel real pain, itself something highly immoral? Reminds me of sadism with the only difference being that those who want genuine sorrow from people as opposed to mere crocodile tears don't derive pleasure, as the sadist does from the same, but are only content or something thereabouts.

Given all what I've said, don't you think crocodile tears are better than genuine weeping? In the former case, the people concerned aren't actually sad so, :up: and in the latter case there are people experiencing real suffering so, :down:

What say you?