I was interviewed for a high school newspaper in response to the following entry:
http://mydeathspace.com/article/2007/06/18/Courtney_Parker_(15)_died_from_injuries_sustained_ in_a_hit_and_run_accident
[size=15pt]Myspace Mourning[/size]
http://my.highschooljournalism.org/ca/granitebay/gbhs/
By: Kealy Jaynes
At approximately 9:50 p.m. on Jun. 13, Granite Bay High School freshman Courtney Parker was struck by a hit-and-run driver as she was walking with a friend down Auburn-Folsom Road.
Two hours and twenty minutes later, a message appeared on her MySpace profile:
“Whats going on!!! Please be ok. I LOVE YOU GIRL.... Be strong.”
As the night wore on and through to the next day, messages continued to flood Parker’s comment page, a total of 66 appeared in the first twenty-four hours.
Friends and family posted their goodbyes, sharing memories and expressing their love for the fifteen year old girl from “crazy town, California.”
***
Jun 14, 2007 9:43 AM
Courtney
this is to hard for me to write in past tense because your not gone. you cant be court...you are such an amazing person your cute little laugh,and your crazzy attitude,the way you make everything positive and make everyone laugh! you are with me and everyone else....i love you!!! o my god court come back please
-missmeliss
***
According to Granite Bay area Family Counselor Kim Frederickson, the immediate attraction to Websites such as MySpace following the death of a loved one is not an uncommon trend, and can in fact be a valuable aspect of the mourning process.
“(One of the) benefits of turning to the internet,” Frederickson said, “(is that) it’s very immediate. Teens can actually initiate and organize themselves and start the grief process right away.”
Different in many ways from more traditional outlets for coping with death, social-networking Websites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com host an ever-increasing number of members who use the site as a place to connect with others.
According to a Dec. 2007 study conducted by the PEW Internet and American Life Project, nearly 55 per cent of teens who use the internet have created a profile on such a Website.
These profiles are personalized with pictures, videos and blogs, creating an online identity that lives on even after the user themselves no longer does.
“It’s a new medium, it’s progressive, but it can be a really appropriate place (deal with grief),” Davis-area teen bereavement counselor Joni Beckner said, “What a wonderful forum for people to share memories or ideas or support for one another.”
***
Jun 18, 2007 12:59 AM
Goodnight courtney... get alot of rest because today is your candle light memorial. Hope you like it! xoxoxo Love you.
- sheeva.THE PERSIAN.diva♥
***
Given online connection they had with Parker during life, it is no wonder that grieving friends and family turned to Parker’s MySpace profile to cope and commemorate her after her death.
“It sort of represents her,” friend and sophomore Erica Azevedo said, “She always used to go on it.”
Since Parker’s death in June, over 1,000 comments have been posted on her profile, a number that continues to grow on a daily basis, transforming the page into a virtual eulogy addressed to Parker, herself.
For sophomore Camille Bartos, writing to Parker via MySpace was once a daily activity.
“It felt like I was still talking to her,” Bartos said, “It seemed like maybe one day she would comment back, even though you knew (she couldn’t.) It just helped I guess.”
***
Aug 5, 2007 8:40 PM
i miss you.
i went to six flags today with some friends.
i made me think of that one time we went when i came to visit. gosh.
i miss you soo much.
iloveyou more then ever.
you little sis jessie.
-JESSIE [[rip court]]
***
Parker’s profile is not the only area of MySpace that has been memorialized in the months following her death.
Her name and likeness continue to live on across the profiles of her friends: display names and headlines profess love, proclaiming all different forms of “RIP Courtney,” and thousands of posted pictures and video clips offer a celebratory glimpse of the life and spirit of the lost teen.
“My whole ‘heroes’ section was on her,” Bartos said, “It’s just pictures of her and there’s a letter to her telling her how much I love her.”
Friends have also used MySpace as a way to pay tribute and mourn collectively, through ‘groups.’
Founded Jun. 14, the day after Parker was hospitalized, the group R.I.P. Courtney Parker, is described as being “designated to remember Courtney Larren Parker, a beautiful and amazing young lady who will be missed and loved dearly!!”
The group’s 45 members post forum topics and pictures, using it as a means to share memories as well as information, such as the details regarding fundraisers to benefit Parker’s family or the ordering of remembrance bracelets.
This community dynamic is a vital part of the grieving process for teens and young adults, and is one of the reasons that social-networking sites prove such an effective tool for bereaved teens, Frederickson said.
Beckner agreed, stating, “What I’ve found with teenagers is that one of the most valuable ways to work through the death (of a loved one) is in a peer situation, with peer support.”
Like any trend, however, on-line grieving has both benefits and risks.
While the social-networking can be a valuable tool, it is important that it is paired with genuine, human connection as well, Frederickson said.
“I think there’s a lot of benefit to Facebook and MySpace,” she said, “but if there was a teenager who only did the internet site and didn’t have a real person to talk to that could be a problem.”
***
Aug 19, 2007 9:19 PM
hey court..tommrow school starts. haha spanish 1 again..its not going to be the same with out you.. i wonder if we would of had it together..i miss you soo much. its going tobe so hard going to school with out you..i miss you so much and i cant imagen how hard its going to be not seeing your smilly face in roberts room.
i love you and miss you
-Skyy
***
Outside of member-generated memorials on social-networking sites such as MySpace, a number other online resources exist to electronically immortalize the dead.
One such Website is MyDeathSpace.com.
While not affiliated with MySpace in any way, MyDeathSpace compiles publicly available information, including obituaries and news articles, to create a “global resource for MySpace.com member obituaries.”
The two-year-old Website contains over 5,000 listings of deceased MySpace users, mostly teenagers and young adults.
“We put basically a face behind an obituary or an article that you might read in the paper,” Website founder, Mike Patterson said.
The Website’s archives include a picture, as well as the location, cause of death and MySpace URL of every deceased member posted.
Unlike many other online obituary archives, however, MyDeathSpace is not intended to be a memorial site.
While friends and family members of the deceased often post comments commemorating their loved ones in the forum section of the Website, the site itself was designed to be more of “an educational tool,” Patterson said.
Most posted deaths, including Parker’s, involve vehicular collisions of some kind; other reoccurring themes include drug or alcohol overdose and suicide.
“It’s actually supposed to be sort of an eye-opening experience for teens,” Patterson said, “Most of the deaths on the site…are, in my mind, easily preventable.”
***
Jan 13, 2008 2:51 PM
babe...seven months??? it seems lyk years...i miss you so much whyy you of all people??...ughh baby girl i miss you so much...i need you...we all need you...i miss you babe...come bakk...i love you Courtney Parker
-Michelle[[he.was.my.everything..]]
***
Now, nearly eight months after Parker’s death, friends and family still turn to her MySpace page for comfort and to connect to her memory.
Smiling out from pictures with friends and giggly videos of cheer practice acrobatics, Parker fills the screen, suspended forever in a virtual reality, but her spirit lives on just below, as page after page after page of comments perpetuate her memory through the love and tears of those who knew her.
April 18, 2007, 7:14 AM
Life:
Don't follow the path you were told to follow, don't life the live you were taught to live, creat the path you want to follow and live the life you want to live..Be happy in life and love to the fullest...life comes and goes to fast to regret , so let the past be past and enjoy the future.
-Courtney Parker
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