If you could continue with your social media presence after you die would you? This is a question I had after reading an article in the Huffington Post today Social Media for your Social Afterlife. A company called LivesOn has produced a computer program that will learn your likes, tastes and syntax by watching you on social media. Then in the event of your death this machine will maintain your social media accounts. You will be tweeting beyond the grave. Apparently lots of people have already signed up. But is this just a little too weird? And what is the point of social media anyway?
It got me thinking, why do I use my twitter, facebook and WordPress accounts? I use them to connect with other people. To interact and make friends, to have a laugh and to keep up with friends that are far away. Why do I want to do this when I am dead? There is no benefit to me, once I am 6 feet under, in keeping up relationships with people who are alive. Even if a computer was to run this blog and run it more effectively than me, even if a computer were infinitely more creative and made my blog famous, what would I care? I’m dead right?
So what about other people who are left behind? Would it be a comfort for the people who miss me to be able to interact with ‘me’ on twitter for example? I think not, I just think it would be plain weird. I am more than the sum of my twitter feed you know. I think my closest peeps, like my children, wouldn’t get much out of it but a sense of longing. They want their mumma to hold them and kiss the top of their head, and tell them ‘I love you’ like only I can. Seeing a retweet about the latest episode of Dance Moms isn’t quite the same. If you could program it to issue a happy birthday tweet on their birthday, or a random ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you’, that might be nice.
What about the rest of you? Well for people who don’t know me personally, who only know me from behind a computer screen I guess it wouldn’t be that different. But do you really want to have your twitter feed clogged up with random retweets from dead people? As if twitter isn’t crowded enough already. And more to the point, while a computer can learn everything about you, even what makes you feel, it cannot feel for you. It cannot have true emotion. When I read your blog posts and leave comments that are heartfelt, when I write blog posts that are raw and revealing, you are getting a little bit of my humanity. A computer can’t replicate that fully, as much as they may try. Human feeling is unpredictable, it is organic, and even if it can be ‘copied’ it will never be the same.
Is it just the next step in the bid to live forever? If we can’t have physical immortality, maybe we can be virtually immortal? Why not just transplant my brain functions into a computer that ‘thinks’ and ‘feels’ like I do and hey presto! Immortality! That sounds way out there but I don’t know if it’s far removed from the current LivesOn concept.
While I think I won’t be signing up for this anytime soon, there are lots of people who are. I guess the shiny beacon of immortality, even in a virtual sense, is irresistible to some. What do you think blog peeps? Would you like to keep getting posts and tweets from me once I am dead? Would you like virtual immortality?
I don’t get this at all. What’s the point? I don’t think social media is all the fantastic to begin with.
Yeah it’s odd isn’t it? But apparently people are signing up.
Not all people are all that bright.
Case in point – someone on facebook just asked if it plays your Farmville! Ummmm? I’ll bet she’s signing up
Wow. We’re doomed.
Ha! She’s going to be virtually immortal. We are totally doomed.
You know how each generation gets dumber? Wait until the internet is flooded with dead people. Ugh.
When you meet someone on line you will be saying “are you alive or dead?” followed by “and do you play Farmville? “. Leave a tag on your site that says “no I don’t have any bloody lettuces nor do I know what stupid word all your pictures are hinting at”.
PS look at me awake at 2am and all you USofA peeps are around! What fun!
Well, yeah. We all just woke up! LOL.
Yeah, there’s already a problem with bots on the internet. Just imagine how much worse it would be with this type of service.
Good morning America!
I have an exception. If it was someone like @FillWerrel who chose to be immortal that would be pretty cool. I mostly love his tweets. Or grumpy cat. I’ll miss grumpy cat. But could a computer do humour? Computers are glitchy. For example I found one of your comments in my spam folder today, wtf?
Mine? I am most certainly not SPAM. Every one of my comments is pure gold. Stupid WordPress.
I know! You’re a kick arse contributor to this very blog and it spammed you! How can I trust a computer to run the blog now? Seriously?
It isn’t even Judgement Day yet. What will the terminators think?
Ha ha! You crack me up!
*bows* Thank you, madame. I’ll be here all week.
Definitely would not like to live on as a virtual me! Is this serious? I am pretty impressed with your headstone though. Just a thought what if you die young and don’t get to spend much time with your children, could they still get to know you as they grow up?
Yeah it’s fully serious. But would they get to know ‘you’ or a computer simulation of you? Still I guess it’s something. They would get to experience my sarcasm and idiot rage in real time.
Steph,
As long as it is HAL who gets to know Le Clown’s style, all will be well…
Le Clown
Oh yes! HAL would do an extraordinary job, until he didn’t, and you found yourself drifting away, out in space with nothing but a space suit.
I just followed you on Twitter. I want to be sure that I get updated if you do decide to Tweet from the afterlife.
I followed you back just so I don’t miss any of your tweets from the after life. I wonder if my virtual self would be convincing? My tip off will be “Is it hot in here?” and then you will know where I’m tweeting from.
Yay, Twitter buddies! *Virtual high five!* Most of my afterlife Tweets would be like: Just met George Washington. He’s very tall.
My virtual high five was a little unco, I think I may have hit air.
I am so there! I mean, we could live forever. At least virtually. And isn’t living forever without getting old and decrepit the dream?
Sam I hope you don’t play Farmville?
Um, does Cityville count?
I don’t know what Cityville is? but Farmville drives me mental!
Ha ha. It’s just like Farmville, except it’s a city. You should check it out!
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
LOL. Somehow I knew that would be your response. I don’t even play cityville anymore but I used to be soooo addicted it wasn’t even funny!
Ha ha. At least I’m predictable
Nothing wrong with it. I used to think I wasn’t predictable, until my wife showed me I was. Ha ha.
Being just one cog in the vast industry that is the matticus kingdom, this decision has been taken out of my hands. When I’m gone the kingdom will continue on without me.
All silliness aside, which is hard for me to do, I would hope to have created something with my words that would endure long after I’m gone. To have written something that generation after generation looks to for guidance, support, entertainment… To have my name last through the ages… To acheive immortality through creating something that really mattered.
Drawn to movie quotes, as I often am, I find myself thinking of the movie Troy – the scene where Achilles is talking with his mother and she tells him that if he doesn’t sail to war he will have a family and be happy and his name will be passed down a few generations but in time he will be forgotten, but if he goes to war… This reference works a second way – think of Homer, who wrotes these stories how many years ago and we are still finding them valuable.
Wow, that’s really deep. Much better than leaving your Farmville to play against other dead-people-bots on Farmville for time immemorial. I guess my legacy at this point will be my children. I will hopefully send them out into the world as good people and they will pass on the lessons they have learned from me.
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