Saturday, December 11, 2010

Facebook-based Obituary: Marvelous? Or Creepy?

One of my Facebook Friends (Janice Harayda) posted a FB link to a Washington Post story titled "A Facebook story: A mother's joy and a family's sorrow."

Along with the link, Janice implores the Washington Post: "Please don't barge into my Facebook page after I die and annotate my posts (as) you did this poor woman's: http://wapo.st/keepout. The result may be moving, but the technique is morally creepy."

Your thoughts?

2 comments:

Alana Baranick said...

Here's Nieman Storyboard's take on the piece:
Facebook as a narrative

Jade Walker said...

I find nothing creepy about sharing public posts. So many of us are defined by the people we know and love -- in person and online.

While the practice of creating a moving story about a woman's last days using a simple narrative and Facebook comments is hardly new, seeing the Washington Post do so was a bit surprising. Most mainstream media fail to grasp the way social media is enmeshed in people's lives.