I have a friend who died a year ago and I still keep her in my Gchat. I don't want to remove her.
I have a friend that died 11 years ago and still have him in my address book and have a birthday reminder for him too.
A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
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Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#42Sadly, this is a byproduct of a passivity in relationships that seems to be more pervasive in the Facebook era. You don't need to reach out to your friends anymore, instead, we just consume each other's broadcasts.
And before Facebook, people's reach to many of their friends was exchanging a postcard once a year.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#43This reminds me of what I saw a couple weeks ago on Facebook. I saw a friend's birthday popping up on FB. Then messages to that friend sending wishes of happy birthday and good health, peace, and everything else people wish you on your bday, started popping up on my timeline. The problem was: she died two months ago. I didn't know exactly how to feel about that... The funny thing is that this happened in a small town…
I'm fine with acquaintances that don't really correspond with me when my birthday rolls around. However I explicitly don't wish anyone a happy birthday over facebook. If it's someone that's important to me, I will make it a point to either text them, call them, or otherwise arrange to meet up with them in person. Otherwise, I leave it unsaid.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#44I had the same thing happen with a friend of mine who had moved. Her and I kept in touch periodically, and we'd always catch up and complain about the dumb shit going on in our lives.
I hadn't heard from her in awhile, and her not responding back via text messages was always weird. I then checked out her facebook and saw all of the wall posts and lost my shit.
What I wouldn't give to just have five more minutes to complain about the dumb shit one final time.
Now and again, I see stuff related to her show up on facebook and I just kind of stop and think for a bit.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any suggestions on how to actually do this?
http://www.deadmansswitch.net/ is what I wrote years ago to do it. Make sure your messages don't scare people too much, in case you forget to check in/don't get the emails, though.
One thing that always kept me awake about this idea is the fear of false triggering.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#46As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.
When my girlfriend died I could not bring myself to remove her from my friends list. She is still there. Her beautiful smile looks at me nearly every day. Some days I am glad to see that little profile picture of hers and others it is painful. Her family could have the account closed I guess but I think they feel the same as me and closing it is like deleting a little part of what we have left of her :(
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely there are people between "Friends whose lives you are involved with on a day-to-day basis" and "Acquaintances that mean nothing to you". Friendship doesn't need to be a black-and-white concept; there are close friends and there are distant friends.
I agree. Now change the tile of this article to, "A distant friend died two years ago and I didn't know about it." And no one clicks.
I don't see the point of this. Isn't distant friend a subset of "friend" as a group? This seems unnecessarily cynical about the title of this post.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#48Sadly, this is a byproduct of a passivity in relationships that seems to be more pervasive in the Facebook era. You don't need to reach out to your friends anymore, instead, we just consume each other's broadcasts.
I disagree. Modern communication, such as Facebook, email and phones enable us to maintain friendships over time and distances that previously was unrealistic. Twenty years ago, this would have been an instance of "someone I used to be friends with died." The difference here is that because of the modern communication available, there's an expectation that we can maintain the relationship over time and distance, even if we only catch up a few times in a year. In the past, these people would be more likely to disappear from our lives entirely.
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#49As one of the older folks on HN, I can tell you that death in the age of facebook is strange in that even when they are gone there's still a "there-ness" to them thanks to left over accounts. Its almost like at any moment, a tweet will pop up or an update to a wall... Perhaps that's the 21st century version of seeing ghosts.
I wonder if there's a way to set up a "I'm dead" message that would post when you're dead. I dunno, maybe have an app check the SSN/NID status to be 100% sure, then post a prerecorded message...
They can give you a special Deceased account: https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143
Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea
#50My mother passed just after I graduated from high school in the late 90s and although it was pre-FB (et al) and she wouldn't have been into social networks, I do wish there was something that recorded who she was...her moving about, her voice, something. A bunch of her friends ransacked her house for her things, which I was told they (my mother and them) had previously agreed upon in the case of her death, and so when I got there, there was almost nothing left of her things. I can't remember her voice anymore so, in that sense, having a FB profile of hers wouldn't do it for me but a Youtube video would. That would be nice.