One of the saddest things I’ve ever seen on the internet was a Facebook status. It was for a girl who said something to the lines of, “WE GONNA GET OUR PARTY ON!”, and then at the bottom, someone had commented that she died in a drunk driving accident. And sure enough, she had.
Facebook, in between bouts of trying to find a profit-making business model, has decided the potential to memorialize a Facebook page. Get it bronzed, if you will, as your own personal section of the internet. Like, last week, when a girl was killed by a truck on the north side of Chi, friends made her Facebook into a memorial. Now you can make it official.
Facebook requires you to fill out a form with the basic information, but you must submit a proof of death. Such as an internet article. And it’d be really, really hard to fabricate internet articles saying that someone died.
Oh, Lord, this is just going to be used for inane prankery, isn’t it? Just submit your friend’s death, link it to a ready-made article on a website, and bam, legions of crying relatives and mothers. Oh, humanity.
Also, I think it’s creepy. Facebook would probably just try to use your dead relative to sell banner space.
yeah, way too creepy … if a family or friends want to memorialize their friend, there’s got to be a better way than Facebook. And I’m not normally a Facebook hater, I use it, I enjoy it and would probably miss it if I stopped. But turning it into an obit? Eh … I really hope that’s not necessary.
Also, as you mentioned, it would be way too ripe for pranks
Sad. I still get a friend suggestion for an acquaintance of mine who passed away a year ago… if they could fix that bug before memorializing pages, that’d be great.
Facebook is a good place to share your views and it has been a very good site for all the socialising people to meet and have fun, but obituaries will not be a good option to have at a place like Facebook.
Facebook is a great way to memorialize people whether alive or not. We are going to do it for my father as a way to compile tributes and stories that he can read now. My brothers and I are also making his casket which is a theraputic and sacred way to face a natural event. Inflated fear of pranksters should not stand in the way of a great way to memorialize someone. dd