I stumbled upon an article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal (Jan 4,5 2013) titled Life and Death Online: Who Controls the digital legacy. It is a story of a teenager who died and her parents were fighting to get access to her online presence like emails, social network site accounts and so on.
Around the same time, after death of activist Aaron Swartz, there is an ongoing conversation on AIR about a pdf memorial for him. This subject also stuck in my mind because just a week back there was a discussion about online bereavement, memorials, and presence after death and related research on the AIR listserve.
I had not thought of my online presence as my legacy or memorabilia that my family might want as a keepsake. I most definitely had not thought about the legalities concerned and the need to add instructions for handling my various online presence as part of my will.
One reason for not thinking about it is that the thought of death and related practicalities has not been the foremost in my mind right now. Secondly, the idea of keepsakes from and memorials of dearly departed is not something that is culturally obvious to me. My friend showed me a watch that was given to her by her aunt as a keepsake after her death. I have read in novels and seen in movies and in TV series that people keep items of their departed relatives and friends as keepsakes. I have seen many deaths as I grew up but do not remember any practice of keepsakes. There is no custom of burial so no tombstone to visit, the ashes are thrown in the river so no keepsake urns on the mantle piece.
I wonder if it is the difference between the attitude towards death - the idea of moving on after a death vs. keeping memory of a person alive after death. Then I think of all the rituals we have for dead ancestors. The yearly food donation my parents make for my grandparents on their death anniversary. May be it is just a different way to remember.
Around the same time, after death of activist Aaron Swartz, there is an ongoing conversation on AIR about a pdf memorial for him. This subject also stuck in my mind because just a week back there was a discussion about online bereavement, memorials, and presence after death and related research on the AIR listserve.
I had not thought of my online presence as my legacy or memorabilia that my family might want as a keepsake. I most definitely had not thought about the legalities concerned and the need to add instructions for handling my various online presence as part of my will.
One reason for not thinking about it is that the thought of death and related practicalities has not been the foremost in my mind right now. Secondly, the idea of keepsakes from and memorials of dearly departed is not something that is culturally obvious to me. My friend showed me a watch that was given to her by her aunt as a keepsake after her death. I have read in novels and seen in movies and in TV series that people keep items of their departed relatives and friends as keepsakes. I have seen many deaths as I grew up but do not remember any practice of keepsakes. There is no custom of burial so no tombstone to visit, the ashes are thrown in the river so no keepsake urns on the mantle piece.
I wonder if it is the difference between the attitude towards death - the idea of moving on after a death vs. keeping memory of a person alive after death. Then I think of all the rituals we have for dead ancestors. The yearly food donation my parents make for my grandparents on their death anniversary. May be it is just a different way to remember.
