The Wake

Your life, your friendships, causes, groups and fan pages—even your death—all on a social network’s terms. Death is difficult enough. In America, there is an expectation that everyone has to have everything figured out when they die: finances, funeral arrangements, cancellation of magazines, etc.; faith, bills, insurance, the soul’s final resting place, and who will care for loved ones. To this, I submit to you, we now must add the obligations that web 2.0 bring us.

In the summer of 2009, in Chippewa Falls, Wis., three young men lost their lives. …

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I was walking through the living room the other day and my roommates were flipping through the channels. A show came up, and I was forced to stop, sit down, and watch for approximately 10 minutes. What caused this change of planned activities was what was on TV. It was a new reality show on MTV. Now, my abhorrence of MTV and reality television in general would normally cause me to avoid this situation. However, this show was so ridiculous that I had to sit down for fear of passing out. Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. REALLY? The premise of …

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The entertainment media has been flooding the Internet with postulations of Patrick Swayze’s imminent expiration. It has been confirmed that the man has pancreatic cancer. But in reading some of these stories one would think the ink is already dry on the poor man’s death certificate. Most of the early reports were based on an unverified report by the usual beacon of truth, the National Enquirer. It turns out he’s actually responding well to treatment, and may have years left.

I understand that our culture has a morbid fascination with death. But, is this where we are …

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