What happens when we die? No one really knows, but now we all know where are Myspace pages are headed.
As if Myspace hasn't been getting enough press lately, I stumbled across this rather macabre piece developing in the world web we like to call wide www.mydeathspace.com, a nice, developing, catalog of the deceased of whom were faithful Myspacers at one time or another.
I understood the allure of Myspace from the very beginning and never have really questioned the success of it, but I could never have imagined all the offshoots that would develop from it (not to mention all the re-occurring media attention). Immediately after the I saw the Taylor Behl story and profile on the evening news, I wondered how the deceased' profiles would ever be shut down and who would decide and investigate who was actually gone for good in these cases? (In essence, who would report the "dead users" list to Tom?) I guess no one does and the profiles don't ever get erased (save for the special ones that are offensive or entail cases under investigation). Although even that seems totally arbitrary as well- who's profile gets removed and who's does not. Some of them just change to a generic format of total fiction.
Jacob Robida was an angry 17 year old, who last February, went into a Massachusetts gay bar and made headlines for attacking patrons with a hatchet. His profile was extremely revealing in his lifestyle of misdirected anger and hatred. He was also a Juggalo, of which he was very proud. Now, the same profile looks like this. Notice all his generic friends and his fake hometown and ridiculous comments. Who on Earth takes the time to make such cover ups? Given that they are probably computer generated comments and people, it really makes you question Myspace and what it is; what is real and what is fake?
I guess that at the bottom of everything, nothing ever dies here in web world, and we are going to have to live with that. I just found out the other day that the only way to really make your Myspace profile "private" is to be listed as underage. For those of use who thought it would be neat to create our own, unchangeable URLs, we're stuck-uncovered; as far as I can see, or at least until we can find the time (or codes) to make ourselves generic fabrications.
4 comments:
this entry was really interesting to me. the myspacedeath thing is eye-opening. especially seeing the skateboarding death (be careful boys). i guess the internet does allow you to live on forever.
the fact that anything you put on the internet can live in google cache forever was one of the things that scared me into 14 year-old-dom on myspace.
i also think this was a dope entry. i like investigative-reporter-Brendan!
The news this morning had a story about a young soldier from Iraq who came home and posted a suicide note to a bulletin on MYSPACE. His close friends took notice and went to his house and found him too late.
Sad state of affairs. Googling your own name is scary - I was showing my friends how easy it was to find people on google - you can find your address, phone number, and I even found on government websites my own traffic ticket history! A ticket I got in 2001!
I think the celebrity myspace accounts are odd. They are all fake, I am sorry, but J.Lo is not blogging neither is Jenna Jameson or Pam Anderson. Someone made a fake BUS myspace and it was so weird, does someone really go on there and answer the e-mails and comment back to the fools who buy into the fact that they are real?
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