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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

#121
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can give you a special Deceased account: https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143

From the link you posted: > Anyone can send private messages to the deceased person Not sure what Facebook intends by offering this since no one will be able to log in to the account to read them.

I have sent plenty of Facebook messages to dead friends and family. I know that no one reads them, but it makes me feel better.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#122

I've long thought that somebody should write an app called "recycle me" for folks, like me, that post a lot on social media. It could just run your posts again in a loop, much like TV does reruns. If you had ten years or more of posts, it might even accomplish something like a poor man's immortality: you'd always be interacting with people, even people that weren't alive when you died. One can even imagine this being…

After playing with CleverBot for a while a few years ago, some colleagues and I created a clone that we chatted with, training it for months.

Chatting with it now is a lot like chatting with one of us. Granted, it doesn't always make sense, but the style of responses comes through.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#123
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can give you a special Deceased account: https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143

From the link you posted: > Anyone can send private messages to the deceased person Not sure what Facebook intends by offering this since no one will be able to log in to the account to read them.

Well, at least someone at the NSA might read it.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#124

As 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.

A story from a friend: His friend died and all of his accounts went silent along with some grieving notes. Then, a few months later, the deceased's account was compromised by a spammer. Posts from a spammer posing as a dead friend is about the worst kind of spam I can imagine.

A similar thing happened to me on steam. A friend who was much older than myself stopped playing games when he had his third child and we lost touch. His account stayed inactive for around 2 and a half years before it was taken over by someone. Unfortunately what was a reminder of an old friendship is now a banned account with a default avatar and a ridiculous name. It's sad that the account will always be tainted now. It was exciting to think he'd come back, only to investigate and find out it wasn't him.

Now that the account is banned I don't know if I'll ever be able to reconnect with him.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#125

  Around The Corner

  Around the corner I have a friend,
  In this great city that has no end,
  Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
  And before I know it, a year is gone.

  And I never see my old friends face,
  For life is a swift and terrible race,
  He knows I like him just as well,
  As in the days when I rang his bell.

  And he rang mine but we were younger then,
  And now we are busy, tired men.
  Tired of playing a foolish game,
  Tired of trying to make a name.

  "Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim
  Just to show that I'm thinking of him",
  But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
  And distance between us grows and grows.

  Around the corner, yet miles away,
  "Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."
  And that's what we get and deserve in the end.
  Around the corner, a vanished friend.

  -- Charles Hanson Towne

I've had this happen to me. And it really hurts. Partly from the reality of death, and partly because it's so easy to play the what if game. What if I'd called any of the many times I thought about doing so? How would things have been different?

As far as I know, there are no do-overs. So make a point of keeping in touch with the people you care about.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#126
post #71

A very close friend died. I knew she died, she died while she was on the phone to me. I had my cell phone (to her) in one hand and my landline (to the police) in the other. They were saying "ask her about landmarks! Ask her for her address!" and she was saying "oh ho ho! You won't get it out of me that easily". The online stuff is a bit hard for me to deal with. She had a friendster page, but not Facebook. There's a…

> A very close friend died. I knew she died, she died while she was on the phone to me. I had my cell phone (to her) in one hand and my landline (to the police) in the other. They were saying "ask her about landmarks! Ask her for her address!" and she was saying "oh ho ho! You won't get it out of me that easily". As someone who has been in the same situation (though in my case my friend survived), I am very sorry for…

[deleted]

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#127

Sadly, 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.

This was my first thought. If someone dies and you don't know until two years later, they weren't actually your friend. Or maybe, Facebook just has their buttons labeled incorrectly.

Your whole life you meet new and interesting people. Some you're close friends with for a while, but life takes you your own separate ways. When you meet years later, often you wonder how you were friends. But a few, you can pick up the conversation just like it was yesterday. They're still close friends - it's just the contact that's intermittent; life gets in the way.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#128

This is why Facebook/Social networks cannot replace real life interactions. Maybe they weren't as close of a friend as you thought? If you don't hear from someone for two years and never make a phone call to reach out/or spend them with them, it sounds like they were more of an acquaintance than a real friend. I quit facebook back in April, and I can say that my friendships with true friends have been getting stronge…

How is one related to the other? If it is true that he wasn't as close of a friend with the guy as he thought, what does that have to do with facebook? Without facebook he might not have had any interaction with the guy at all. How does quitting facebook help in that situation? I know in my situation there are lots of people on facebook that I wouldn't know anything about what they were doing if they weren't on facebook.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#129
post #122

I've long thought that somebody should write an app called "recycle me" for folks, like me, that post a lot on social media. It could just run your posts again in a loop, much like TV does reruns. If you had ten years or more of posts, it might even accomplish something like a poor man's immortality: you'd always be interacting with people, even people that weren't alive when you died. One can even imagine this being…

After playing with CleverBot for a while a few years ago, some colleagues and I created a clone that we chatted with, training it for months. Chatting with it now is a lot like chatting with one of us. Granted, it doesn't always make sense, but the style of responses comes through.

For people who post online heavily, I don't think this is as far away as some might believe.

Sure, it's not going to convince folks you're still alive, but it might provide entertainment to the great-great-great grandkids, let them know what you were like.

Re: A friend died nearly 2 years ago. I had no idea

#130

As 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.

A story from a friend: His friend died and all of his accounts went silent along with some grieving notes. Then, a few months later, the deceased's account was compromised by a spammer. Posts from a spammer posing as a dead friend is about the worst kind of spam I can imagine.

A friend of mine passed away rather abruptly. A year and a half later his last.fm account started showing him as playing music, and this was picked up by facebook through some app. A friend of his had turned his old sound system back on (he was a DJ) and was using it, having no idea it was scrobbling the tracks back.

Much better than a scammer, but still kind of a weird experience.

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