Isn't death weird these days?

asstroasstro 1,754 Posts
edited February 2014 in Strut Central
I found out a few hours ago that an old girlfriend of mine passed away over the weekend. Only 39, supposedly heart failure or something like that. I hadn't seen her in probably 15 years but we had kept in touch via email and Facebook like most people do these days, I last heard from her about a week ago. It's blowing my mind a bit that I can go back and read our correspondence and text messages and it's like she is still here. We've touched on this here at SoulStrut before when Monty and Matt Africa and Breakself passed, but fuck, the modern world makes mourning weird...

  Comments


  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    Words With Friends on Facebook ocassionally suggests I start a game with my friend who died of a heroin overdose a few months ago. A couple of years ago, Facebook kept telling me on the right bar that another friend who had died of cancer likes Medjuul dates. Death in the social media sphere is indeed a strange thing.

  • Sorry to hear about your loss.

    I agree, it is very strange. I know a few people who have passed away whose FB pages still exist. Mutual friends are always posting stuff on their wall like "'Member when we used to sing along to this song?" It kinda bugs me, but of course it's such a sensitive subject that I don't say anything. I know it's a coping mechanism of sorts, but still...I can't really get with it.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    It's only going to get stranger.....I read an article about how people will be able to have holograms made of their deceased loved ones in the not too distant future.

    Sorry for your loss Asstro.

  • A good friend of mine was killed by a reckless driver. In the time that followed his Facebook page has become an ongoing memorial with friends and family posting testaments to his greatness and songs he loved/remind us of him. The only time it felt weird to me was when I created an event and FB asked me if I wanted to invite him. I actually considered doing it! If for no other reason, just to feel like his spirit and memory would be present.

    It is really weird though

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Very sorry for your loss.

    To me, people keep using social media as an excuse for their weird tendencies that used to only come out in other ways.

    Yes, it's facebook that made you a douchebag. Of course you weren't already like that.

  • JectWonJectWon (@_@) 1,654 Posts
    Sorry to hear about your loss.

    This reminds me of a possibly abandoned but interesting project afterlyfe.me. Essentially, it looks at your behaviors on whatever social networks you feed into it and then creates a ghost version of you that continues to post after you die.

    http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2011/1/15/on-becoming-a-virtual-ghost.html

    The above is an article about the project from one of it's creators.

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    JectWon said:
    Sorry to hear about your loss.

    This reminds me of a possibly abandoned but interesting project afterlyfe.me. Essentially, it looks at your behaviors on whatever social networks you feed into it and then creates a ghost version of you that continues to post after you die.

    http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2011/1/15/on-becoming-a-virtual-ghost.html

    The above is an article about the project from one of it's creators.

    That is seriously messed up.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Sorry for everyone's losses.

    And yes.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    DB_Cooper said:
    JectWon said:
    Sorry to hear about your loss.

    This reminds me of a possibly abandoned but interesting project afterlyfe.me. Essentially, it looks at your behaviors on whatever social networks you feed into it and then creates a ghost version of you that continues to post after you die.

    http://shwood.squarespace.com/news/2011/1/15/on-becoming-a-virtual-ghost.html

    The above is an article about the project from one of it's creators.

    That is seriously messed up.

    I dunno brah... I mean, it could explain a lot of posts here.

    Maybe everyone here is some kind of advanced Out-of-Office, designed to distract me from the fact that I am the last human on Earth.

    HARV! HARV??!?!? ARE YOU THERE BUDDY?1?!1!1?1??!

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    Srs doe, I got jokes in my email from dead friends. I haven't got the heart to delete them.

    It can't be any weirder than walking into a library and knowing nearly all the words therein are by folk who are long gone.

    Or NZ's yard.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Halfway decomposed me says: YES! ALWAYS, BROTHER!

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    J i m s t e r said:
    Srs doe, I got jokes in my email from dead friends. I haven't got the heart to delete them.

    It can't be any weirder than walking into a library and knowing nearly all the words therein are by folk who are long gone.

    Or NZ's yard.

    I don't know???I just don't want to be opening teh Facebooks and reading status updates from my dead friends and family. Kinda harshes my social media experience. I'M TRYING TO PLAY WORDS WITH FRIENDS OVER HERE, MOM. PLEASE TO STOP REMINDING ME OF YOUR DEATH FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE KTHNXBAI.

  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    When Obamacare hit, I like a lot of people i'm sure, started getting TONS of junk snail mail for people that had previously lived at my address form insurance companies.
    This is due to insurance companies buying bad/old lists of names of potential customers, etc.

    I was complaining to a neighbor who has lived in the neighborhood 20+ years and mentioned one of the names that kept getting mail.
    He told me that the guy died in a pretty horrible car accident in the 90's.
    Dudes name somehow got picked up by some other mass mailers now I constantly get junk mail for a dead man.
    Kind of spooky.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    mrmatthew said:
    When Obamacare hit, I like a lot of people i'm sure, started getting TONS of junk snail mail for people that had previously lived at my address form insurance companies.
    This is due to insurance companies buying bad/old lists of names of potential customers, etc.

    .

    They are sending dead folks mail because they voted in the last election.

  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    mrmatthew said:
    When Obamacare hit, I like a lot of people i'm sure, started getting TONS of junk snail mail for people that had previously lived at my address form insurance companies.
    This is due to insurance companies buying bad/old lists of names of potential customers, etc.

    .

    They are sending dead folks mail because they voted in the last election.

    No.
    But I appreciate the effort.

  • JectWonJectWon (@_@) 1,654 Posts
    Early in my tech support days I got a call from a widow who was trying to recover deleted voice mails that her deceased husband had left for her.

    She was incredibly nice and you could tell that she desperately wanted to hear his voice again even if it was on some "hey honey, I'm headed to the store..lemme know if you need me to pick anything up, love ya'" type shit...

    There was nothing I could do for her. Fuck...haven't thought about that in a while.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    JectWon said:
    Early in my tech support days I got a call from a widow who was trying to recover deleted voice mails that her deceased husband had left for her.

    She was incredibly nice and you could tell that she desperately wanted to hear his voice again even if it was on some "hey honey, I'm headed to the store..lemme know if you need me to pick anything up, love ya'" type shit...

    There was nothing I could do for her.

    NSA has 'em.

  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    I had no idea break self had died. This is the first I've heard of it. What happened?

  • asstroasstro 1,754 Posts
    Gary said:
    I had no idea break self had died. This is the first I've heard of it. What happened?

    http://www.soulstrut.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/71555/

  • parenparen 537 Posts
    DB_Cooper said:
    Words With Friends on Facebook ocassionally suggests I start a game with my friend who died of a heroin overdose a few months ago.

    Firstly, sincere condolences on recent and distant losses; there's no timeline for grief. A couple of years ago after a good friend died, while reminiscing and drinking, I decided to point out the absurdity of the residual-self left behind through WWF - Facebook integration via a support ticket to Zynga. They made it all better with a few 'coins' (See below).

    These days, when I encounter my friend's remaindered flickr or instagram or xbox avatar or what have you, it tends to make me smile just to have have those small glimpses back into his life. It is odd though, to be sure.
    Attached files

  • dukeofdelridgedukeofdelridge urgent.monkey.mice 2,453 Posts
    Death's always been weird. Weirdest thing I can think of.

    /deepthottz

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    An older couple ive known for a while gave me a cart full of old vinyl last summer.

    They were friends of my pops back in the day when there was this "Bourgie" Black group of 30 somethings who played Tennis in the community.

    I got to know them when Z'Novia's (Soul food restaurant that would let me bring my laptop down and rock) opened up in my building. We'd chat all the time over wine and shit.

    Just found out she passed away recently, when my neighbor asked why I wasn't present at her funeral.

    Fusk.

    Glad to have a part of her collectron.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts


    More and more tools to deny our humanity...making it easier and easier to not be humane.

  • Options
    JectWon said:
    Early in my tech support days I got a call from a widow who was trying to recover deleted voice mails that her deceased husband had left for her.

    She was incredibly nice and you could tell that she desperately wanted to hear his voice again even if it was on some "hey honey, I'm headed to the store..lemme know if you need me to pick anything up, love ya'" type shit...

    There was nothing I could do for her. Fuck...haven't thought about that in a while.


    Kind of along the same lines, after my brother passed away I called his cell number a few times just to hear his voicemail message. Eventually a girl answered the phone, and that was that.

  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,885 Posts
    Someone wrote a song about this a while back...



    I hope it doesn't happen to me.
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