MyDeathspace.com; it's like a car accident--- I can't look away

[MilwaukeeMike]

An MSNBC article talked about a website that has popped up on the "internets" that lists the location, picture, news article, and myspace link too thousands of recently dead teens and adults all across the United States.

(They use a Google map and overlay it with black tombstones and skulls for accidental/ suicide/drug od deaths and red icons for murders)

http://www.mydeathspace.com

At first I was horrified and appalled by the notion of a website categorizing and showing the myspace pages of deceased people. Yet, some strange, morbid, curiosity swept me and almost forced myself to view the website. (The same curiosity that causes 3 or 4 hour backups behind car accidents.) I spent hours lurking through the website, reading the articles explaining how they died. (I'm not a person who gets off on other peoples pain/suffering/death) At one point, I even cracked a joke (In my head) about a certain male individual who had a 4' by 6' piece of concrete fall on his head at a construction site... (I-E - The hard hat didn't help him)

So what is wrong with me? Or is nothing wrong with me? I can't figure this one out. Could society be so cautious about mentioning the death of others that we must see it/read about it to relieve some internal morbid desire?

Honestly, I have no problem with the website as they do not copy the myspace page, merely link to it. I guess what I am trying to ask is how beneficial to our society is a website like this?

Maybe it’s the forerunner in future electronic graveyards.... Who knows...

[Complexity]

I've no interest in visiting that site.

[Tricky]

So what's next? YourDeadClassmates.com?

[Ripley Twenty-Nine]

FaceMortalityBook.com

[cyborg]

The information already exists on the Internet - it's just being presented in a way that is more likely to twinge a more powerful emotional reaction to it.

It has a visual impact emphasising how death permeates our lives that the same information in small and disassociated chunks does not.

[Cheesejoff]

Even worse: www.deathclock.com

Enter your details and it calculates how long you have left to live..

[Tony]

I've known about this site for awhile. I consider it a way to pay homage to those in our society, who happen to have myspace pages, that have recently died. Some of them are pretty sad. :(

[Boo]

Even worse: www.deathclock.com

Enter your details and it calculates how long you have left to live..


Apparently I died April 4 2002.


Maybe that's why I'm so tired all the time.

Being pessimistic instead of sadistic adds 20 years to your life.



Boo

[Just thinking]

Even worse: www.deathclock.com

Enter your details and it calculates how long you have left to live..

Yeah, right. Details?

I'm a non smoker, normal outlook with a BMI at 23 and it has me kicking off at 73? What about the fact that 3 of my 4 grandparents lived into their 90's (two past 95 and the fourth died from an accident)? My mom is well and active at 77 and it asks nothing of my physical lifestyle.

[Cain]

True story. I learned from a friend that a guy we knew -- a real ahole -- had a site on the Internet. He was some aspiring male model or something (as far as I know his site has not been active for a couple of years; I assume he's bagging groceries at VONS now). I guess a little more back story is necessary. Although he's the same age as me, he was a grade behind. Another friend, very smart, also one year younger decided to run for class something-or-other in order to pad his activities resume. Now, since I was/am an America-hating communist, in those days a group of us earned a measure of notoriety for doing something as shocking as refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance. For the ultra-conservative white kkkommunity this was a real shocker that sent phone calls and letters home, teachers demanding essays, and so on.

Now because I am senior I did not get to attend the speech assembly where everyone gets up and says, "I'm popular, vote 4 me!!!" I'm also one of cynical cool kids, so I never would have attend anyway. Now this guy, the aspiring-male-model/inspiration for Zoolander gets up and what does he do? What does he do? He requests everyone stand so he can lead them in the pledge of allegiance! It's a stunt almost too absurd for words, especially in those pre-Bush days. So my friend lost.

When I discovered I could write a comment in this guy's guestbook, I really let him have it. Then one of his hanger-ons, let's call him Matthew, started talking about Christ, loving Jesus, all this crap. I knew him vaguely through his sister, who had known since elementary school. So I let that guy really have it too, and we did a brief back and forth before I lost interest. All of this was anonymous verbal abuse was very amusing at the time. Fast forward a couple of years I discover, via myspace, that this Matthew kid had suddenly died. His myspace page was so funny because it talked about how he was an aspiring actor, his sister was his hero, and he loved Jesus. I think he was flexing his arm in his little thumbnail picture (he was kind of pudgy, so it's difficult to tell). I thought the irony was a bit gratuitous.

I immediately sent an e-mail to the friend who sent me the initial URL. In a morbid, Seinfeldian way I titled the e-mail "Winner: Me." Gmail preserves it:


Remember when you told me about Jason Whorebrook's website, and I posted in his guest book as Mike Hawk? And then that Matthew [edit] guy defended Whorebrook? I'm browsing the increasingly addictive Myspace and I get to [our high school] group. I look through the archives and there's a thread about how this Matthew guy died last March. Clearly the winner is me.

He wrote back: "That was some serious winnage there."

So, you see, this mydeathspace page sounds fantastic. Too bad it's not loading.

[Joppy]

The information already exists on the Internet - it's just being presented in a way that is more likely to twinge a more powerful emotional reaction to it.

It has a visual impact emphasising how death permeates our lives that the same information in small and disassociated chunks does not.

That's how I feel about that site. Instead of just a name in a news article, by linking to the myspace page, the dead is humanized and made to feel tragic.

Not to be a bastard, but why is there quite a few deaths involving cars catching fire after hitting trees? It's the cars catching fire part that I wonder about.

[MilwaukeeMike]

True story. I learned from a friend that a guy we knew -- a real ahole -- had a site on the Internet. He was some aspiring male model or something (as far as I know his site has not been active for a couple of years; I assume he's bagging groceries at VONS now). I guess a little more back story is necessary. Although he's the same age as me, he was a grade behind. Another friend, very smart, also one year younger decided to run for class something-or-other in order to pad his activities resume. Now, since I was/am an America-hating communist, in those days a group of us earned a measure of notoriety for doing something as shocking as refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance. For the ultra-conservative white kkkommunity this was a real shocker that sent phone calls and letters home, teachers demanding essays, and so on.

Now because I am senior I did not get to attend the speech assembly where everyone gets up and says, "I'm popular, vote 4 me!!!" I'm also one of cynical cool kids, so I never would have attend anyway. Now this guy, the aspiring-male-model/inspiration for Zoolander gets up and what does he do? What does he do? He requests everyone stand so he can lead them in the pledge of allegiance! It's a stunt almost too absurd for words, especially in those pre-Bush days. So my friend lost.

When I discovered I could write a comment in this guy's guestbook, I really let him have it. Then one of his hanger-ons, let's call him Matthew, started talking about Christ, loving Jesus, all this crap. I knew him vaguely through his sister, who had known since elementary school. So I let that guy really have it too, and we did a brief back and forth before I lost interest. All of this was anonymous verbal abuse was very amusing at the time. Fast forward a couple of years I discover, via myspace, that this Matthew kid had suddenly died. His myspace page was so funny because it talked about how he was an aspiring actor, his sister was his hero, and he loved Jesus. I think he was flexing his arm in his little thumbnail picture (he was kind of pudgy, so it's difficult to tell). I thought the irony was a bit gratuitous.

I immediately sent an e-mail to the friend who sent me the initial URL. In a morbid, Seinfeldian way I titled the e-mail "Winner: Me." Gmail preserves it:



He wrote back: "That was some serious winnage there."

So, you see, this mydeathspace page sounds fantastic. Too bad it's not loading.

Life is weird like that. I have the opinion that going through life “laughing at death” helps you live longer. I mean, we all die in the end, what’s the big deal.

[Beerina]

So what's next? YourDeadClassmates.com?

Near as I can tell, this would currently list about 6 people out of the 440+ gradumicating seniors from my class 23 years ago, though I don't know of the cause of any but 1, who died in a car accident before the 5 year reunion (whom I did not know.)

[Beerina]

Apparently I died April 4 2002.


Maybe that's why I'm so tired all the time.

Being pessimistic instead of sadistic adds 20 years to your life.



Boo

Apparently I died a few moths later on Dec. 18. May I be buried next to you?



BTW (and this doesn't apply to me, mercifully) a 400 lb. male smoker can apparently expect to live about 30 years, sadistically. I know three guys who fit this category, all in their 40s.