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Thread: Staten Island Advance - Is there life after death? 4/25/06

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    Staten Island Advance - Is there life after death? 4/25/06

    [size=18px] Is there life after death? For MySpace users, the answer is yes[/size]
    By Elise McIntosh, Staten Island Advance

    A newly launched site, MyDeathSpace, serves as an online memorial to those who have died, often at too young an age.

    Teens are immortal, so they tend to believe.

    With the newfound freedoms that come with adolescence, matched with an innate desire to rebel against Mom and Dad, many teen-agers take on the "I am invincible" mentality: Alcohol will not impair their driving skills; drugs will never lead to harmful consequences; playing with fire or guns will not end in disaster.

    But, this is just an illusion, a product of their naiveté and inexperience.

    With news of fatalities involving young victims regularly making headlines, teen-agers need to get it in their heads that they are mere mortals, just like the rest of us. Concerned, loving parents attempt to disguise this warning through the umpteen "be careful's" they spout off before the carefree teen dashes out the door on a Friday night. But, the message, packaged in what is perceived by teens as a nagging -- albeit loving -- way, is often ignored by young know-it-alls.

    POSSIBLE SOLUTION

    Fortunately, there may be a more effective way to get teens to grasp the "life is fragile" message -- or at least that is what Mike Patterson, founder of the new Web site, MyDeathSpace.com, hopes.

    Launched in mid-December, MyDeathSpace is a spin-off of the mammoth social-networking site, MySpace.com, which attracts over 65 million users, mostly adolescents and young adults, who can post personal profiles filled with photos, blog entries and comments for others to view.

    In a similar vein, MyDeathSpace is a site that collects the profiles of deceased MySpace users and links them to news stories, obituaries or blogs that detail their lives as well as how they died.

    In an e-mail interview, Patterson wrote that MyDeathSpace is "a cross between a news site and an online memorial to those who have died." By allowing visitors to link up to the former MySpace user's account, MyDeathSpace is "almost like an obituary extension, showing a closer look into the lives of the deceased.

    "An obituary might be four or five lines of text with no pictures, but with MySpace, everything the dead person was into or was interested in is right there," added the 25-year-old San Francisco resident.

    EDUCATING THE YOUTH

    The majority of the people featured on Patterson's site are young, which is not at all surprising since it is indicative of the tech-savvy generation who uses MySpace.

    Hoping MyDeathSpace will educate adolescents, Patterson explained that one of his aims in creating the site is "to show that teens aren't invincible and that the consequences for not using their heads don't just affect themselves, but friends and family members" as well.

    "Hopefully when teens visit the site, they read the articles that go along with the deaths. I hope they come away with something that will in turn save their life or at least show them that they need to drive more carefully," he said, adding that the majority of deaths in that age group listed on the site are due to automobile accidents.

    One example of an automobile-related fatality featured on the site is Death No. 90 -- Mariana Edkins. The 18-year-old Annadale resident was killed when the car in which she was riding was hit by an alleged drunken driver on Jan. 9. Surviving loved ones submitted her profile, as well as an Advance news article, to Patterson to feature on the site.

    DEALING WITH DEATH

    Scrolling through the profiles and photos of happy, smiling people known to be dead is haunting, morbid and even a bit voyeuristic. However, it can't be considered so much more in ill taste than consistently checking out and reading the Advance's obits.

    ....

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    Re: Staten Island Advance - Is there life after death? 4/25/06

    Im from Staten Island & was friends w/ Mariana & she died on my bday..So sad

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