Internet After Death

[bd648]

So today i suddenly re-re-remembered one of my favorite webcomics that i had stopped reading due to lack of updates ( it's called Blip http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/Blip ) and i decided to check it out again.

When I had last read it it was likely around 2013 and there hadn't been any updates for about a year. I tried to find it this time and it turned out that not only had the site been shut down due to an expired lease but also there had been no updates by the author (sagedono) on any account of theirs in about the same amount of time they stopped updating. Really my only two ideas are that either sage died or decided to leave all of their accounts at once without saying anything about it. That got me to wondering, if somebody dies on the internet without having any connections to people they know, outside of whatever it is that they use to connect to people in the first place (a game, IRC, etc), what would happen?

basically: what happens to your internet persona when/if you die?

[valiums]

It dies.

[Bamyasi]

It goes to Internet Heaven/Hell.

But you bring up an interesting point about disembodied personae.

[Jon]

you kinda just gotta say goodbye to yourself

[SrsSam77]

A near perfect image of who they presented themselves as is left, the problem is currently really big on facebook where a lot of fb accounts of dead people are left open because they A) had no one to take it down or left no info on how to get in and take it down.
I find it really fascinating that for the first time in human history we can consume the thoughts, knowledge, and actions of regular people around us even after they have passed on. And not things like books, diaries, or photos; but stupid stuff like "just got back from the urologist :DDDDD"
Not all of it is inane sure, and maybe we had just as much info as in the past, but the staying power of all this information is astounding.

[valiums]

Like having perfect mummies in the house rather than decaying junk in a cemetery somewhere.
Here's a dead woman on the couch; there's a dead man forever opening the fridge.
The digital world is profoundly absurd.

[rtil]

there is still decay in the digital world, things like link and reference rot. and eventually all websites go down, along with all their data. at that point all that's left are snapshots or archives.

[Bamyasi]

Is there Life After Internet?

[cipher]

if you die on the internet do you die in real life ???

[Bamyasi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgj4GjqCFlY

[Stu4U]

i surf
i die
i surf again