An automatic birthday reminder for a dead friend pops up on your phone. It’s a shock. Or worse: you get a Facebook message “from” that friend. They call you on Skype. They message your Gmail account. But it’s only a glitch, or a hacked account. It happens with surprising frequency. Silicon Valley is still catching up with how to secure, close or help pass on social media accounts once their owners die. It can feel outrageous to consider social media as it relates to death. The former seems so trivial, the latter so momentous. But social media accounts often contain the final vestiges of our self—our face, our interests, our friends, our voice. We work so hard to make our accounts reflect an idealized version of who we are; if we delete them, are we robbing ourselves of our most rose-tinted in memoriam? This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty-Eight Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 36 Just a Minute The trickery of online queues. Arts & Culture Issue 30 Cold Shivers The seasonal appeal of ghost stories. Arts & Culture Issue 49 Karin Mamma Andersson Inside the moody, mysterious world of Sweden’s preeminent painter. Arts & Culture Issue 49 Jenny Odell The acclaimed author in search of lost time. Arts & Culture Issue 49 Amalie Smith The Danish arts writer finding clarity between the lines. Arts & Culture Issue 49 Ryan Heffington Meet the man bringing choreography, community and queer joy to the desert.
Arts & Culture Issue 49 Karin Mamma Andersson Inside the moody, mysterious world of Sweden’s preeminent painter.
Arts & Culture Issue 49 Ryan Heffington Meet the man bringing choreography, community and queer joy to the desert.
