The Sixth Sense: Facebook See’s Dead People

It’s no secret that there’s a lot of dead people on Facebook. One of Bigleys favorite past times is treating his dead friend's profiles like the YouTube comment section of an old Nelly song. For example, I have a dead friend named Barry. Now, Barry passed away in a horrific zip lining accident back in 2010. That’s why I go to his profile every few months to post my respects on that picture he has of him blackout drunk at Jessica’s grad party. I like to comment things like, “Anybody still here in 2019? Can’t believe it’s been 9 years now. I can remember back when me and Barry used to get ripped roaring high on his porch while his Mom was out cheating on his dad. MISS YOU MAN!” Many people like myself use Facebook to honor and remember those who have passed. Recently, the journal Big Data & Society claimed that dead Facebook members will outnumber live ones as early as 2070. This got Mr Bigleys to start thinking about and researching the underlying issues. What I found was both exciting and shocking.

When Zuckerberg first created Facebook, the issue of deceased users was an afterthought. But, as Facebook has grown they’ve had to learn and make adjustments accordingly. One of the first issues that arose was when users began to notice that they were being suggested to send friend requests to deceased peers, friends, and family members. This caused distress and discomfort amongst many Facebook users. Bigleys questions that maybe it was because they had to relive the memory of unfriending their dead aunt, but I digress.

After these reports, Facebook decided to rebrand suggesting dead people in a fun and entertaining way. Through data and analytics, Facebook will now collect groups of dead users that you may know and put them into a fun category called “Remember Me?” The idea is based on the Spotify model of suggesting throwback music playlists. The same way you listen to the Spotify playlist and think, “Wow I used to love Chingy,” will be the same reaction to when you see Ol’ Psycho Tom pop up on your suggestions. Facebook also plans on releasing a ‘Discover’ section on top of that. That’s right, you guessed it: The Discover page allows you to find people that you may have used to know that have since croaked. Remember that kid you used to make stand naked in the middle of the locker room? Welp....

Interesting talking points were also brought up in the journal, Big Data & Society. A passage from an article states, “The personal digital heritage left by the online dead are, or will at least become, part of our shared cultural digital heritage, which may prove invaluable not only to future historians, but to future generations as part of their record and self-understanding.” Bigleys couldn’t agree more. To some, the back and forth between Ashley and Freddy about who gave who herpes can appear as just an immature exchange between two high school kids online. But to the ones that are close to the situation, that was Herpes Gate 2K11. It went down as one of the most important moments in our young history. No one went within 5 feet of Ashley or Freddy after that. There’s an argument to be made that taking down a Facebook exchange like that is equal to the Nazi’s destroying the art pieces during the war that we’ll never recover.

This is where we now shift to the controversial sides of things, something that Facebook should be used to by now. Old post shaming is something that has been around for years now. In every professional sports draft, we get some tweet(s) from a 1st round draft pick who said something offensive. Most recently, NBA first-round draft pick, Donte DiVincenzo, had an old tweet resurface from him, a soulless red-headed white man, quoting the Meek Mill rap line, ““Ballin on these n----s like I’m derrick rose!” Granted, he was 13 at the time, but age is not an excuse for hateful racism.

Of course, as we all know where there is demand, there must be supply. Famous social media accounts and websites like YourGrandpaIsRacist.com have been gaining major traction for going through dead people’s accounts to find, list, and CANCEL accounts that have had some questionable posts. Controversial stories of people being canceled and their reputations being tarnished have flooded into FaHoo’s mailbox. One specific email from a FaHoo reader came from a mother explaining how YourGrandpaIsRacist.com ambushed her son’s Facebook after he died of a freak Go-Karting accident at the age of 13. She says that Kenny was an all 'A' student, captain of the tennis team, and class president. After his death though, the old post, “Donnie is acting EXTRA GAY today. He ditched his best friend for his girlfriend,” caused YourGrandpaIsRacist.com to immediately throw him on the non-exempt CANCELLED list. Kenny’s mother says that since the post was uncovered, her sons legacy has been tarnished. She hoped to keep his Facebook up as a type of memorial for the young man but she soon found that his Facebook was being flooded with angry users. One user even commented, “You deserved it.” Another stated, "I hope you live the rest of eternity eating dicks, bitch."

So where does Facebook go from here? We hope that they continue to take the necessary steps to answer these hot topic subjects and solve the issues that they leave behind. To Bigleys, the answer is simple: just don’t say things that may be offensive. FaHooNews.com is based on this philosophy. There have been countless articles that I knew were just too much. That’s why when I die of a freak train accident, nobody will be able to go digging up old news stories that came off as offensive. My advice: Just be smart and don’t ever say anything. But not smart as in being dumb is a bad thing, because it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with being dumb. It’s not your choice that you were born an idiot. But also, maybe say something. If you don’t say anything that’s kind of appropriating a Mime’s culture. Then again I probably shouldn’t use the word Mime. That was a word that us American’s stole from the Greek word ‘mimos.’ Not saying that there’s anything wrong with stealing. I think felons should have the right to vote. Well, not saying that stealing means you actually stole enough to be a felon. But being a felon doesn’t make you any less of a person than the person who committed a petty crime. Not to say that you’re petty. What I’m trying to say is just, do what you got to do.

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