Who Will Update Your Facebook After You Die?
Don't worry, there's an app for that.
Our own death is arguably one of the most important events in our lives, so it's understandable that you might want to post a Facebook status about it. In the past, this might have been slightly difficult due to obvious reasons, but thanks to the new Facebook app If I Die you can fulfill your most morbid digital fantasies by leaving a status update from beyond the grave.
Wilook is the Israel-based company behind the app, who got developing after CEO Eran Alfonta was suddenly made aware of the fragility of human life when two of his friends almost died in a car crash. "We all have things to say and don't necessarily have the audience with the patience to hear us," observes Alfonta. "Actually we all want to leave something behind, we all want to leave a stamp behind us."
After installing the app you choose at least three Facebook friends to act as trustees, who in unfortunate circumstances are given the task of verifying your death. When it is confirmed that you have indeed crossed the great divide, your pre-recorded videos or messages can be published all at once to your Facebook wall, or released on a designated schedule for as long as you have messages to send. What you record is up to you - the creators recommend a simple farewell, a favourite joke or the revelation of a long-kept secret, though you could also threaten to haunt anyone who de-friends you just because you're dead, or attempt to impartially distribute your FarmVille acquisitions (first one to click 'like' gets five meticulously harvested cherry trees!)
People have been leaving notes and videotapes in anticipation of their own deaths for years, so this app isn't really anything controversial. We are all, in the end, mortal, and do you really want your last ever status update to be a link to a YouTube slideshow of wide-eyed kittens posing next to various types of fast food?
Words: Hannah Ongley
