The Deceased on Facebook

Well folks, said to say that this will be the final blog of this semester and probably the last blog from Dangerous Digital Communications. Yes, I know you are devastated. My loyal fans have read my blog through the good times and the bad times. But, we aren't quite done yet. This week's topic: the deceased on Facebook.

I know that in Titus's blog he had wrote about the memorial privacy setting on Facebook. Having unfortunately some Facebook friends over the years pass away, I thought that this was a good tool for their pages. It is kind of sad to see the picture of your deceased friend in the corner of your home page with a block of text that says "reconnect with him/ her."

I was asked myself after the first person I had die on facebook, "What the heck is going to happen if facebook doesn't die in 50 years and it is just filled with dead people?" Well, as a couple years passed I lost a few more friends on facebook and noticed a trend. People would start making groups on facebook in honor of their lost friend. They would use this group to discuss memories of the deceased or even to communicate with them in a way. I would say this is a good tool to mourn over a lost loved one.

However, lately these groups have been run differently (at least with my facebook friends). The last friend I had pass away had a group made for her hours after her death. It was made by the classmates of her little sister. I don't know about you, but I think that this could have been made by a person closer to the deceased. I saw another group where the creator spelled the dead person's name wrong.

What do you think will happen? Do you think that Facebook will last long enough that we can look at a whole generation of people's memorial sites? What do you think of these groups? Are people making memorial groups just to say they made a group with a bunch of people?

I KNEW IT!!

Hate to say I told you so......No, not whatever Tiger Woods is in the news for. I haven't gotten around to caring about another sport star's personal problems yet.

I don't know when it was, but, a couple of months ago in the class discussion board (I think.) I remember saying that there would be a time where people would update their relationship status to "married" on Facebook during the wedding right at the alter. I thought that it would be a new tradition like the couple lighting the candle. Well, I was surprised when I was browsing through Reddit (which is turning out to be a great source for blog topics) and saw a link to a video. In this home video, you see a couple getting married. Right after the rings are exchanged the groom pulls out his cell phone and his new wife's cell phone. They start typing away and the minister announces that they are updating their Facebook statuses.

Now, this was just done for some laughs as the youtube video's description says "This was just done to be funny - we really don't Facebook THAT often :)." Apparently no one knew about this plan except the groom and the minister. What I find funny about this is that people will now do funny things at their weddings just to be Youtube stars. "What, Zack? Who does things at their wedding to get on Youtube?" Well, there's the wedding party that had the extravagant wedding entrance, numerous versions of the evolution of dance, and the people that did the Thriller.

I am more surprised at the people that will do things during the actual wedding. I think it is kind of tacky to do things during the wedding. I think that is a time where things should be serious. However, I am all for the choreographed dance numbers videotaped at the reception. What do you think? Do you think that updating Facebook statuses will become part of the ceremony in more weddings? What do you think of doing things at your wedding to make youtube videos?