Sunday, December 15, 2013

Left and Leaving

Dear Mark,

Quick question for you.  I have three friends on my Friends list who are, umm, deceased.  Suicide, all three.  (You know that stage of life you're going through now, at 29, where all your friends are getting married?  In a couple of years they'll all be having babies.  Five more years after that you'll go through divorce season, and then, probably, a season of suicides.  You might not understand what I'm talking about for a little while, but if you can imagine what I'm talking about, maybe you can steer me in the right direction now.)

The thing is that I don't know what I'm supposed to do with deceased friends.  Their accounts remain active as ever, as if nothing had happened at all.  Maybe their families don't know how to deactivate the accounts, or maybe they like to pretend, at least in this small way, that their loved ones are still here.  Status:  Dead.

It seems wrong to Unfriend the dead.  Doesn't it?

But as it stands, I receive Notifications from the dead when other hapless people post things on their Walls without realising they are talking to people who have died.  Hey Mike, how's TO so far?  And birthday wishes, oh god, that make me green.  And most ghoulish of all, viruses with no one to delete them:  Wow!  I lost 18 pounds Jason!  For the past few weeks I have lost a lot of weight.  I have been using these new Rasp-berry drops I saw on DrOz.  It really worked for me, let me know how well it works for you.  Take a look at this site, type in without the spaces --->  www. EzRasp. com

I guess you didn't think about stuff like this when you were envisioning your project.  Well, I don't blame you.  I didn't think about things like this when I was 23 either.  I don't even really want to think about it now, except that Notifications keep reminding me.

Interested in what you would suggest here.

Thanks,
Lisa

2 comments:

Secret Agent Woman said...

I have a FB friend who died recently, from breast cancer. Fortunately, she'd given her password to her sister who posted abut it, so there's none of that ghoulishness. And I've left her on my friend's list for the same reason - it seems heartless to de-friend someone for dying. Maybe instead of prodding you to fork over details like where you've worked and your relationship status, they should prompt you to give a trusted friend your password for just such an event.

mischief said...

Unfortunately, even though family members have posted about their deaths on their Walls, other people continue to post without reading back. I guess some people don't bother reading other posts, just focus on what they want to say. Sort of mimics life, doesn't it? I like the idea of giving a password to someone trusted to allow that person to deactivate the account.