{"id":32493,"date":"2012-04-06T17:14:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-06T17:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/04\/06\/lost-in-cyberspace\/"},"modified":"2012-04-06T17:14:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T17:14:52","slug":"lost-in-cyberspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/04\/06\/lost-in-cyberspace\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost In Cyberspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

dangatorium<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

By Bill DIxon<\/a><\/p>\n

As I scroll through the deceased\u2019s Facebook page, this is what I find:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe missed you in social studies today \ud83d\ude09 Luv u always!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201csmokn phat blunts in heven im sur :)\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cwhat about prom lol! awww were goin to miss you\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a car accident. She wasn\u2019t\u00a0wearing\u00a0a seatbelt or maybe she was. It doesn\u2019t really matter. The universe spun the giant globe and brought its finger down with a thud over the Ventura Boulevard exit on the 405. Then, zap.<\/p>\n

The universe doesn\u2019t flinch before giving the globe another spin.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m scrolling through a dead person\u2019s Facebook feed, paging through hundreds of comments. Some are nice. Some are\u00a0thoughtful. Some googled \u201cgood quotes about friend dying,\u201d copying and pasting their greeting card sentiments onto the\u00a0improvised digital\u00a0memorial.<\/p>\n

But most were written as if she wasn\u2019t even gone. A profusion of \u201csee you later :)\u201d and \u201cLOL you\u2019re going to miss homecoming! c u soon!\u201d, completely detached from the reality of the situation. Maybe the relationship they had with the girl stemmed from a place of total detachment. Maybe the totality of their\u00a0relationship\u00a0resided in the text messages, tweets and status updates. Maybe they would have been just as surprised to see her on their doorstep yesterday as they would if they saw her on their doorstep today.<\/p>\n

To me this would be like going to a funeral, walking to up to the casket and knocking on it, \u201cSteve, I know you\u2019re in there. You owe me 40 bucks, asshole, and I\u2019m not letting them bury you until I get that\u2026Father O\u2019Connell, get your hands off me, I know he\u2019s in there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not interested in writing an \u201cin my day\u201d critique of\u00a0contemporary\u00a0American youth culture because, ultimately, I think they\u2019ll be fine and I\u2019m not removed enough to feel\u00a0nostalgic\u00a0about something that happened less than a decade ago.<\/p>\n

But this does raise the question, what is going to happen to me when I die?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean an afterlife, who cares about that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about my Facebook page, Twitter account and my writing. What if my last status update is something like \u201cNo seriously, who let the fucking dogs out?\u201d or some snarky quasi-intellectual remark like, \u201cIn conclusion, i\u2019m avoiding cliches like the plague.\u201d What if that\u2019s the last thing on my internet headstone, carelessly carved into digital granite at the top of an online presence I spent so many years so carefully curating.<\/p>\n

I also have concerns as a comedy writer. What if my family decided to read some of my work at the church service as posthumous tribute to my illustrious comedy writing career? What if their favorite work I did was some horrible celebrity hit piece for a college humor website?<\/p>\n

I cringe imagining my grandmother speaking to a crowded church with\u00a0mascara running down her face, her voice reverberating through the chapel, \u201cLindsey Lohan is looking for a personal assistant. Really?\u201d Choking back tears she turns the page in her hand, \u201cLindsey Lohan doesn\u2019t need a personal assistant, she needs a fucking AA sponsor\u2026now I would like to read a verse from the book of Romans\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I scroll back to the top of her Facebook page and click the box to write a comment. I watch the cursor blink in the box for a moment. I click out of the box. Now, grey text appears:<\/p>\n

\u201cWrite something\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I open a word document on my desktop and begin typing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I scroll through the deceased\u2019s Facebook page, this is what I find\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dangatorium: By Bill DIxon As I scroll through the deceased\u2019s Facebook page, this is what I find: \u201cWe missed you in social studies today \ud83d\ude09 Luv u always!\u201d \u201csmokn phat blunts in heven im sur :)\u201d \u201cwhat about prom lol! awww were goin to miss you\u201d It was a car accident. She wasn\u2019t\u00a0wearing\u00a0a seatbelt or … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lost In Cyberspace”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9138,9137],"class_list":["post-32493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-as-good-humor-should-be","tag-funny-yet-thought-provoking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}