The new American way of death

Morbid curiosity and ridicule have replaced respect for the deceased at MyDeathSpace, where your life is an open book -- even when you're 6 feet under.

By Jamie Pietras

Read more: Death, social networking, Life, myspace

July 31, 2007 | Shielded by a January fog, 13-year-old graffiti writer Ari Kraft sneaks through a dilapidated chain-link fence to tag railroad signal boxes. Later that afternoon, the hum of rush-hour conversation aboard the eastbound Long Island Rail Road train to Huntington, N.Y., is pierced by the sound of screeching brakes and an exploding spray paint bottle. Kraft, trying to rush across four sets of tracks to make it to a Sabbath dinner with his mother, only makes it across three.

The next day, as the shock of the tragedy sets in with Kraft's tightknit community in Rego Park, Queens, the teenager's picture appears on a Web site called MyDeathSpace, along with an article about his death and a link to his MySpace page. Kraft's information is featured in a gallery of similar real-world fatalities on MyDeathSpace, which connects its audience not only to news about recent deaths, but to the MySpace pages of the deceased. Just below the cartoonish skull logo and tombstones that are prominently branded on its front page, the site promises "one death or suicide an hour."

Most of the victims listed are in their teens or 20s, and each is memorialized according to the same standardized format: with an unattributed news story, an obituary (or in some cases, a blog entry that details the circumstances surrounding the death), a photo of the victim, usually culled from a once-active MySpace account, a link to the MySpace page, and a discussion board link at the bottom.

When a person dies, his or her MySpace page and its assortment of photos, blog entries, songs, videos and other digital ephemera becomes a de facto shrine to the deceased -- teenage life's trivialities, dilemmas and existential crises packaged and displayed as a neat narrative.

That narrative may continue well beyond death if victims have left their message boards open to the public, as friends, family members and even strangers add comments to the page. (MySpace's default configuration allows comments to be posted without a user's preapproval). The MySpace version of one's life story even has a soundtrack, depending on whatever death metal, hip-hop or emo track users choose to embed in their profile. For some, it's a form of reality-based entertainment, of the most morbid variety. MyDeathSpace's avid fan base scours the news for recent tragedies and keeps the site current by submitting deaths for consideration.

By evening, total strangers have already visited Kraft's MySpace page and begun chiming in on his discussion board. The conversation begins with an indignant salvo.

"Come on," writes a person identified only as "andrea0121." "I know when I was 13, my parents pretty much knew my every move. I certainly wasn't hanging out on train tracks spray painting shit. Here's my lesson for the day kids, DON'T PLAY ON F'ING RAIL ROAD TRACKS."

Another user, "Dopey," is intrigued by the items Kraft's friends have been posting on his public message board back at MySpace. "[Kraft's] mother is Israeli-born, his name is Ari, and his friend says 'RIP Nigga.' I'm so white, and so old, and I so don't get it. Sigh."

Things get cruel quickly. Not even two days after his death, a MyDeathSpace user writing under the moniker "Morbid Curiosity" (real name Terisa Davis) offers up a joke. Many graffiti writers are known by the pseudonymous "tags" they spray on walls and other public areas. "I think I found his tag: 'Dead,'" Davis writes in sparkly, glitter-painted font. Getting the comment past the forum moderators ostensibly responsible for removing offensive content from MyDeathSpace wasn't difficult in this case: Davis is a forum moderator, one of five who volunteer their time patrolling the message boards.

A 15-year-old girl who claims she was a friend of Kraft's tries to muster up a defense. "His death, just like any death should be respected and because he isn't here to stand up for himself shouldn't be criticized," she writes. Brave and earnest as she may be, she's not likely to sway any opinions. Forum members had already ridiculed her for misspelling "jaywalking" in an earlier post.

"If someone told you that life is fair, they lied," another moderator who goes by the name "daybreakdisdain" finally tells her.

"Life as a whole might not be fair," the young girl writes back. "But other people can make it more tolerable."

MyDeathSpace is the creation of Mike Patterson, a 26-year-old San Francisco paralegal who holds a bachelor's degree in English from UCLA. Patterson claims he created the site to teach teens a "lesson" about risky behaviors, especially when it comes to driving automobiles. The idea came to him, he says, after reading about a Bay Area murder in which a man killed his wife and two daughters before committing suicide. He wondered if the two girls had MySpace pages. They did.

An early incarnation of the site (on a LiveJournal blog Patterson maintained) attracted between 3,000 and 4,000 users (as well as intermittent complaints) over the course of its four-month life cycle. If Patterson's motivations were altruistic, he revealed them in peculiar ways -- site graphics included a melodramatic photo of a white, middle-aged man being strangled; a tag line read "Myspace Deaths! We need to cut back anyway." Bringing his active readership along with him, Patterson launched MyDeathSpace in January 2006.

Today, MyDeathSpace claims more than 8,000 registered users. Registration allows members to receive notification of new deaths by e-mail, chat electronically with others, and most important, post on the discussion boards. Others sign up to become premium members, which grants them access to new deaths 24 hours before they become publicly available, as well as "no ads or popups while browsing the forum."

What began as a platform for virtual rubbernecking took on new significance after the massacre at Virginia Tech University. The tragedy offered a glimpse of a new meta-reality: 17 of the victims had MySpace profiles, which mainstream press outlets eagerly scoured for information.

No organization was better equipped to handle MySpace-trolling duties than MyDeathSpace. The next morning, the New York Times blog was pointing traffic toward the site, described as specializing in "respects and tributes to the recently deceased MySpace.com" members. Tens of thousands flocked to it, and hundreds signed up for accounts, which allowed them to post in the discussion forums. Unable to handle the increased bandwidth, the server crashed.

Thanks to the work of its dedicated readership, MyDeathSpace had the most up-to-date list of Virginia Tech victims, scooping the mainstream press. "I don't want to say it was creepy, but it shows that a lot of people know about MyDeathSpace if they're actually submitting victims they know personally or friends of friends before it was mentioned in news outlets," Patterson says.

Next page: If you leave behind a lively MySpace page, your death may become fuel for ridicule