Obit Research

Besides what we’ve already discussed on this blog in terms of Facebook “memorializing” the profiles of deceased users, there’s another way that the dead are being remembered on the social network — with public groups set up to remember a particular individual.

This differs from the memorialized profile in two key ways.  First, these groups are impromptu, created by friends or loved ones after the individual has passed away, as a means of socializing with others that may have known the deceased.

Second, and I think more important, is that they are generally publicly accessible, whereas memorialized profiles are only accessible to those that were previously confirmed friends on Facebook.

What this public accessibility means is that people who may only have just joined Facebook, or old friends that may have lost touch can participate in the memorials.  These users would be locked out of the memorialized profile page, which, in a very real way, defeats the purpose of calling it a “memorial” at all.

Here’s one example of a Facebook group created as a memorial to a deceased user:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=175462972576&v=wall

Alina beat me to the punch in pointing out the rather broad coverage devoted to the new Facebook “recommend” functionality and the deceased.

According the The Guardian, it seems that Facebook actually has a mechanism for dealing with profiles of the dead.

“‘When someone leaves us, they don’t leave our memories or our social network. To reflect that reality, we created the idea of ‘memorialised’ profiles as a place where people can save and share their memories of those who’ve passed,’ explained Max Kelly, Facebook head of security, on the company’s blog.

But what does it mean, that an account gets ‘memorialised’? The contact information and status updates are removed, and the profile is set private. No one can log into it any more. Only Facebook friends can locate the profile via search and leave posts on the wall for remembrance.“

Apparently, this mechanism isn’t well known,  or perhaps well implemented, since Facebook is still recommending that people re-connect with dead friends.

Of course, there is a simple solution to the problem of … expired … accounts on social media networks.

If you plan to have birth date data in a user’s profile, build in a data structure that allows you to note the death date as well, and ensure there is a mechanism for a friend or family member to update the account with death information.  Furthermore, integrate the idea that a user might pass away from the beginning of the design process.

It also might be beneficial to check new entries to the Social Security Death Index or a similar publicly query-able data source to get information on those who have died that may have been member of the site.  Sure, that adds administrative overhead, but if you are saving your clients even a little bit of grief in the long run, it’s a worthwhile investment of resources, I think.

Should this be standard operating procedure for all social media sites?  Feel free to discuss the idea in the comments.

I really ought to save this one for my “favorite obit of the week” this week, but I simply can’t resist mentioning it.

Elizabeth Clare Wulf, a.k.a. Elizabeth Prophet died last week, and rated an obit in the NY Times this weekend.

Elizabeth Prophet was the founder of a church called “Church Universal and Triumphant,” which, as far as I can tell, seems to have been a conglomeration of a bunch of different religious aspects from a variety of traditions; she mixed her Christianity with her Buddhism, a little theosophy, and, from the sound of it, a little bit of greek mythology for good measure.

She got some press in the ’80s for predicting a nuclear doomsday due to war with the Soviet Union, and she made that classic mistake of cult leaders and actually named the date of the apocalypse.

Read more…

I’ve been working my way through a rather thorough examination of the more sociological aspects of obituary writing, and it seems clear that we can learn quite a bit about some of the more difficult-to-spot assumptions that a culture makes.

Though there seems to be a general feeling among obituary editors that the medium has democratized substantially, particularly since the early ’80s, it turns out that it doesn’t seem to be true, in the aggregate. Obits today are still primarily about men, primarily about cultural producers/professionals (writers, artists, etc.), and primarily about those in the dominant social class.

A particularly telling quote from their conclusions in a chapter called “The Social Value of Death,” from the book The Obituary as Collective Memory, by Bridget Fowler:

“We are compelled to argue -outside certain clear-cut lines of universalistic achievement such as sport -that the editors are still unconsciously affected by the common patterns of action, speech and lifestyle by which an elite recognises itself. It is elite membership -and the cultural capital that accompanies it -that preserves the subject from the judgement of being ‘boring’. In other words, studying obits is one route into today’s status classifications, the ordering of symbolic capital. Such social classifications are still profoundly determined by the accidents of great wealth, or negatively, by forms of class racism. They disqualify from serious consideration those who have not been educated at great schools or the higher-ranking universities and those who do not work at the most esteemed of national institutions.”

I see on my Yahoo Pipe of obituaries that Mr. Magic, an old-school hip hop pioneer and DJ, has moved along to join his ancestors.

The NY Times obit on him is quite thorough, save for one element.

While his accomplishments as an early cheerleader for the hip hop aesthetic are enumerated, his career path plotted, and personal details revealed, what we don’t get is an immediate sense of the music that was such an integral part of his life.

From the NYT piece:

“Mr. Magic, born John Rivas, was the first host on commercial radio to devote a program exclusively to rap when his “Rap Attack” began broadcasting on WBLS-FM in New York in April 1983. Disco and funk were then fading, and rap was emerging as a rebellious new art form in the streets, housing projects and parks of New York City.

But many radio stations and music executives were wary of the frank explosiveness of the new music. Mr. Magic played a role similar to that of Alan Freed in popularizing rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s.

‘Magic was the guy who carried a flag for the music on the radio, exactly as Freed had done for rock ’n’ roll,’ said Bill Adler, a former director of publicity for Def Jam Recordings.”

Fine and good.  But isn’t it richer to know that it sounded like this:

Well, I think that makes it more interesting at least.