Society today exists within a level of technology greater than the human race has ever experienced. If the idea that “we live in public” with digital media remains true, it is then equally true that we even die in the public sphere. This assertion thus substantially modifies the relationship between the living and the dead; specifically regarding the mechanisms of mourning. In other words, as danah boyd states, “we are all authors of our digital biographies”; we are supposed to be also authors of our own tombstones.
The digital space provides an advancement in the modern dichotomy theorized by Baudrillard regarding the separation of the city as a place of the living and the cemetery as a place of the dead. He argues that what is typical in the Western Hemisphere is that the city and the cemetery must necessarily remain separated and distant to legitimize a taboo of death. The cemetery is demonstrated to be a place of segregation; a ghetto. more...