How To Have an Online Social Life When You're Dead 187
A wave of new companies are springing up to offer such things as virtual cemeteries, alerts to remind loved ones about the anniversary of your death, and even email services that send an alert to your sinful relatives in danger of being left behind when the Rapture carries you away. "People have a desire to perpetuate not only for themselves, but for their loved ones, the story of their lives, and technology has all these new great ways of doing that," said John McQueen, owner of the Anderson McQueen funeral home.
bad enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like they want to perpetuate the mourning process in order to assuage their own fear of death. I've seen people do some rather odd things because they, on some level, could not come to terms with their own mortality; this is tame compared to some. However, this may not be a gift to the loved ones at all; it very well may be a selfish burden. It's selfish because there is an (unstated) assumption in it that everyone's mourning process is the same and is compatible with this idea. Making assumptions like that about such personal matters seems to me like very poor taste. If that compatibility doesn't describe the bereaved then they may be placed in the unenviable position of disliking this service while at the same time feeling guilty about rejecting it. Besides, calling them "loved ones" implies that you and what you stood for are not so easily forgotten in their hearts and minds.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a terrible idea, but I think it's rather unnecessary. Certainly it should be done with a great deal of forethought and an awareness of these potential problems.
Petty (Score:5, Insightful)
My father just died on the 5th and I'm still torn over it, but the idea of... whatever the Hell this is supposed to be is just downright hilarious.
I miss him and he'll forever be in my thoughts, I won't need reminders of when he died or an artificial ghost of him to haunt the internet with.
Re:Step in the wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of e-memorial stuff is, in my opinion, stupid, because online stuff tends to be transitory("Yes, father, this webpage shall be your testament unto the last of days, or until some idiotic Bubble 2.0 firm blows their VC money.") and shallow("OMG, I can give facebook user "Grandpa's grave" a purple heart if I add the greatestgeneration_nostalgia app!"); but it isn't fundamentally different than the meatspace stuff, beyond the air of crassness that takes a while to wear off any new custom.
Re:bad enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Bits don't decompose, you can't eat them, and they don't burn. In cyberspace, bodies last forever.
FOREVER
This is just stupid (Score:5, Insightful)