It happens three times a year on my Facebook timeline and today was one of those days. A very familiar name popped up as a birthday reminder. Familiar but out of place. Out of place because Cindy is dead and has stopped having birthdays. The same thing happens on the anniversaries of the birthdays of Terry and Reg.
Attorneys, academics and privacy advocates have weighed in on our digital property after we die. Most come at it from an intellectual property or estate planning point of view. Fine if you a blue checked Twittere ofthe equivilent - someone whose name can be used to sell stuff after their gone.
Not that anything organic actually happens on Facebook but to the degree it does, it must surely be in how profiles of the deceased are used by their friends. As is our custom as humans who have been visiting grave sites for millenia, leaving flowers, notes and memorabilia.
Same goes on Facebook. Their profiles have become a diary of remembrance. Sweet. Funny. Heartbreaking. And a place to linger, perhaps a little too long. A simple click can take you on a journey that takes you back decades.
Facebook itself provides a way to report a dead friend and have their profiles memorialized officially - as if official is any more real on Facebook than organic.
One more thing. Happy birthday, Cindy. Miss you.
Not that anything organic actually happens on Facebook but to the degree it does, it must surely be in how profiles of the deceased are used by their friends. As is our custom as humans who have been visiting grave sites for millenia, leaving flowers, notes and memorabilia.
Same goes on Facebook. Their profiles have become a diary of remembrance. Sweet. Funny. Heartbreaking. And a place to linger, perhaps a little too long. A simple click can take you on a journey that takes you back decades.
Facebook itself provides a way to report a dead friend and have their profiles memorialized officially - as if official is any more real on Facebook than organic.
One more thing. Happy birthday, Cindy. Miss you.
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