Facebook funerals/memorials?

A "new" phenomenon, of a facebook memorial site, has prompted media attention in the last little while. As usual with these sorts of things, this isn't really or entirely new. There are some links to the past that are obvious and there are some things that are worth noticing. I've collected some of my thoughts here.

Photo by Randy Read http://www.flickr.com/photos/randyread/

What's up with facebook memorials? I have some thoughts, prompted by a media request this morning.

• memorializing a person after death is a human activity and predates language even; it is found in our most primitive ancestors
• memorializing in words is as old as language and some of our most famous speeches ("Friends, Romans, countrymen, I come to bury Caesar....") are of this genre
• kids (and people generally) are living more and more online, so it is not surprising that some of them die - and when that person dies it is hardly surprising that they are memorialized online.
• online memorials, unlike granite plinths, are easy to make and your "attendance" at the memorial is easy to leave (unlike a bouquet that you have to go out and buy, and you have to go to a graveyard somewhere - increasingly hard to do with so many people being cremated).
• one of the real things going on at funerals is, like any social gathering, "seeing and being seen." This famously prompted Yogi Berra (the baseball coach, not the cartoon bear) to say: "If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't come to yours".  In the context of facebook memorials, there is value in being seen to "attend" (leave a comment) on a site... something that doesn't necessarily accrue if you stop by a grave site and leave some flowers.
• quite often young people have a social network that is WAY bigger than the parents/friends realize. A lot of these people might not get invited to a funeral and only know about/or have an opportunity to come to a funeral. For these people online memories are the only option.
  

...r

Update: a poignant story on online memorials, from a person who lost their brother: http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/06/04/life-online-after-death/