Honoring those who cross the digital divide
By Erik Hogstrom TH Staff Writer
http://www.thonline.com/store/view.cfm?id=JiZNLz7AZVLltICgz3Dz3D Sunday,October 28, 2007
Section: B, Page 11
You arrive at the story of Matthew Stegman, murdered last year in a Des Moines graveyard. Then there is the story of Jacob Burling, the 21-year-old Upper Iowa University student from Carthage, Ill., who died in a 2005 vehicle accident in Fayette, Iowa.
Maggie Kamysz? Her profile is here. The 28-year-old died of a suicide this past August and her tragic story - she stepped in front of a train after allegedly killing her daughter - and her archived MySpace.com page are both found on MyDeathSpace.com.
Clicking through the links on MyDeathSpace, a Web site spotlighting the deaths of people with MySpace pages, feels like strolling through a virtual cemetery, with links to newspaper obituaries and MySpace profiles serving as cyberspace grave markers.
"If people choose to have a digital life, on MySpace or YouTube or Facebook, it is not inconceivable that they, or their friends, should prepare for a digital death presence as well," said Alan Garfield, chairman of the Computer Graphics and Interactive Media department at the University of Dubuque. " MyDeathSpace is not morbid nor creepy. It completes the circle of life for a certain kind of member of the digital generation."
Friends of the late Megan M. Rahn Olson continue to visit the MySpace page for the Blue River, Wis., woman who died at age 22 after an alleged suicide attempt in March.
"A million words would not bring you back, I know because I've tried. Neither would a million tears. I know because I have cried!" wrote a friend identified as MystiChani.
Permission to use the profiles is not requested from MySpace, which is not affiliated with the site and did not respond to requests for comment on it. MySpace said in a statement it handles deceased members' pages on a "case-by-case basis" and does not "allow anyone to assume control of a deceased user's profile." Profiles can be deleted if that's requested by family members.
"I find that MyDeathSpace is a great page for mourning the loss of a friend," said Chelsea Steinback, a 19-year-old Dubuque resident and Computer Graphics freshman at the University of Dubuque.
"Having mourned for a friend before, I feel that this is a great way to feel as if that person is still with you and it lets others relate to your loss. It's also a good Web page because I think it reminds you that you aren't alone in the loss of a friend."
Mike Patterson, a 26-year-old paralegal from San Francisco, created MyDeathSpace in December 2005, after finding the MySpace pages of two teenage daughters who were slain by their father.
He began linking other obituary subjects to their MySpace profiles, and MyDeathSpace was born.
"I'd come across these stories where teens would be ending up dead or killing themselves, or killing others," he says. "And more often than not, when I looked them up on MySpace, they had profiles."
MyDeathSpace matter-of-factly catalogs each death in headline format: "Belford Ramirez (19) died after being stabbed in the neck outside of a Burger King." Clicking on a link provides a detailed description of the death, usually culled from a news article or blog and a link to the deceased person's MySpace profile.
The site even charts death geographically on a digital "death map" of the continental United States, using black skulls to signify victims.
Not everyone appreciates the need for a virtual graveyard.
"I think a Web site like this is useless because when someone does unfortunately pass away, their MySpace or Facebook becomes a memorial to them," said Brent Roeder, a 21-year-old University of Dubuque senior from Guttenberg, Iowa. "We don't need another Web site to forward us to the original Web site."
- The Associated Press contributed
