A little over 2-weeks ago, a rumour was started that I was dead. Specifically, that I died while with Blerds at the NACA conference in Nashville. (For the record, Sean Flannery had a greater chance of death when he decided to “go for a swim” in the river that runs through the gigantic Nashville Convention Center and Hotel*.) People became upset. It spread so fast that even those closest to me believed that it happened. (My phone was off during the 30-minute incident.) Between email, cell phones, text messaging…and, MySpace, word travels fast. I was officially “dead” to several people for about half an hour.

This lead me to start telling the story on stage several. Which lead to me doing material about what happens to people on MySpace when they die. MySpace has 162 million members and change. People with accounts must pass away everyday. And it’s become quite an integral part of people’s lives. Would users still continue to post comments like:

“Hope you had a great death sexy!” (Combined with a tacky jpeg of glittery roses)

“Hey gorgeous! What’s up?!” Check out who’s looking at your profile with MySpace Snooper v.3.7

(A cartoon drawing of a bear with a boner having sex with a George Bush Sr.)

If you don’t have your settings adjusted so that you have to “approve comments”, they just go up automatically. So, would that happen? Would your MySpace account continue to live on after you’re gone? Is it bigger than your own life? Is it truly a separation from your person? An electronic representation of yourself, much more sturdy than your own flesh and bone? And if this is true, shouldn’t you try to leave a better legacy for yourself than posting a video of you puking up egg nog through you nose?

I also mused that MySpace should have a “Top Dead Friends” section on the homepage, so that everyone could judge just how truly popular you were on this planet, just how important you were, by looking at your past comments and the number of “friends” you had.

Well, it happened. Semi-confirmation of a death. The circumstances are still quite blurry. But ALL OF THIS IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING. Kind of sickening. Kind of sad. But happening none the less.

If you’d like, stop by www.myspace.com/richardjeni

*:
by Mike Burns

11/03/2007
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