After the recent death of Michael Jackson (and the numerous celebrities that decided to follow), I started thinking about internet celebrities; celebrities the news doesn’t care about, but some people do. Normal people aren’t featured in the news every time they die, but internet celebrities aren’t normal people. They’re half celebrities, and only half the world cares about them. But unless they have friends or family that know about what they get up to online, however, none of their fans are going to know they’ve passed away, are they?
For example, what happens if the people close to them don’t know their passwords to their Twitter, Facebook, Youtube or other social networks to alert their followers, friends or subscribers? And what happens if they don’t get the right one. There’s no point uploading a video to Youtube or posting a Tweet saying they’ve passed on if none of their fans know about their account on that site. For example, what if their relatives think they still use Myspace when they moved over to Facebook a year and a half ago? They may alert Myspace, but no-one would know since they all use Facebook now. Even worse, what happens if they don’t even think to tell the internet? What if they don’t even know they go online and have all these fans and so on? The internet may never actually know that one of it’s icons, celebrities or heroes has passed away.
Now I’m no internet celebrity, but I know there are a few people online who would be interested to know that I’ve died. That’s why I’m going to prepare myself by leaving instructions in my will so that the unlucky relative or friend left responsible for filling out my wishes can get it absolutely perfect; I don’t want a single aspect missed out. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Forums, Blogs. Not a single one left uncovered.
But I want to do something different. With this internet orientated age, I want people to remember me and visit my sites long after I’m gone. In fact, I’ve already decided that I’m going to have my URL put on my Gravestone so people can see it and visit my site. I may even have my email address put on there with an auto-reply set up to tell people how I’m doing. Something along the lines of:
“Thanks for contacting me, but I am dead. Yep. Dead. The ground’s a little chilly, but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s like a holiday that never ends, I guess. Anyway, all is well. Saw Granny the other day. She’s good. We had a chat about the family. Anyway, talk later… Must get back to decomposing (it’s certainly a welcome change!)”
I think I may also link my coffin with Twitter. People are integrating all sorts with it these days. Toilets, houses, seats, lights, fridges, beer kegs and so on. I think a Twitter-Coffin may be the next logical step. I’d update people with random, disturbing comments about how I’m feeling (such as “Got an itch on my leg but not enough room to reach and scratch it in here” and “A family of woodlice has decided to make home in my kidney. I can feel them wriggling. Ugh.”). My hopefully grieving family can then follow me and see what I’m doing. It would be a right bundle of laughs… except I’d be dead. But point remains.
That’s all a little too boring for me, though. I want the first Social Funeral. Basically, my death would be internet-minded from start to end. If I die on camera, I’d have the video uploaded to Youtube, followed by a “My Last Memories” video, made with footage from the hospital, preferably uploaded with some lovey-dovey iMovie theme that has generic music over the top (like an iPhoto slideshow). This would inevitably then lead to a “My Funeral” video, which would take best bits from the funeral (and after-party) and compress them into a 3 minute highlights video. Best bits from speeches, lots of shots of my sobbing family (from multiple angles to really drive home), a couple of shots of people’s reactions and so on. Not to mention the drunken moments from the after party that those involved will want to forget, but will be treasured for eternity in the inter-cloud somewhere.
There would also be a live Twitter stream, written from my perspective in the coffin. I would make comments like “Oh no. Dan from work is speaking… Never really knew the guy. Quite boring. Why did he wear a yellow tie to my fricken funeral?” and “I hope Gran’s incontinence doesn’t cause problems for her during her speech… It’s happened before!“, rendering me the narrator of my own funeral.
Eventually, these Social Funerals would end up spawning memes along the lines of “ONOES MY FUNERAL IS A MEME” that consists of a ‘motivational poster’ image with a picture of the deceased and a LOLCATZ-style caption simply stating “LOLZ I R DED NOW“, including the person’s name and life-span underneath. I think it could really catch on. That said, I would just be happy if my death was turned into a T-Shirt of some kind. Whether it be my last words or how I died… I’m not sure yet. But that would keep me happy.
