by Beth Diane Bradley

“If you are reading this, I must be dead.”  It’s the latest trend in social media sites … a Facebook for the afterlife. Originating from the UK, a site called DeadSocial allows you to prepare on-going communication to be released after you die, by a designated administrator.

There are other sites that attempt to address the issues of managing digital property, but DeadSocial focuses specifically on communicating with family and friends, sort of like tweets from heaven.

It does have a valid purpose, besides supersizing the menu for all the vampires and zombies we know are lurking around in cyberspace. The intention is to take care of the electronic loose ends that have been “left behind.”

My reason for joining Facebook was to keep track of my young adult sons.  When they get too busy to call me, I can at least assure myself they are alive and well by stalking or, um … visiting their Facebook pages.

But now that I have DeadSocial at my disposal, I can tell my kids not to worry about their mother.  When I die, they will receive a nice evite to my funeral, complete with reminders to wear clean underwear and wash behind their ears.

The possibilities are endless as to how sociable one wants to be in the afterlife.  According to the site instructions, you can create ongoing greetings for every occasion so your friends and loved ones will hardly even notice you are gone.

I suppose you’d have to be a bit vague as to why you aren’t actually showing up at all those weddings and birthday parties. Perhaps simply stating that you are “just buried with work these days, and you really need to start thinking outside the box or you will never get out of the hole” would put an end to their curiosity.

The ability to send emails after you die also gives you an opportunity to say things you would never say while you were alive. You can kick up your heels because really, what can they do other than push delete, and that kind of already happened, didn’t it?

Like with anything online, there’s always the chance of a glitch in the system. If your cyber death accidentally starts before your real one, things could get complicated. You may wish you hadn’t told your boss what he could do with your job in such a colorful manor. Or your spouse might decide it’s time to cash in on “till death do us part” and run off to Figi with the insurance money.  Um, OMG! LOL?

I think I’ve decided to pass on DeadSocial, at least until they get the bugs out. I really don’t mind if my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts rest in peace when I can no longer use them. If you agree, click “Like” and Share.

BDB