The deathbed is an inconvenient place to post your last Facebook update. At that point, you might have other priorities.
However, a new application for Facebook, called If I Die, gives people a chance to write their final status update in advance. Hopefully, long in advance.
“This is a very unusual way for people to express their feelings, I feel like if you have to say something important enough to post that you shouldn’t wait till your dead to say it,” said Junior Kari LaPlant
It works like this: After installing the free app, a person chooses three Facebook friends to be “trustees” whose job is to verify that person’s eventual death. Once those people are picked, the user can then record videos or create any number of status updates that will be published after death, such as “Chillin with Jesus”, or “Can somebody tape ‘The Bachelor’ for me?”
Once the trustees confirm your death, the post-mortem messages can be published all at once to your Facebook wall or released on a designated schedule, according to Mashable.com
“I think its creepy to have someone posting on Facebook from beyond the grave, but I guess others could find it comforting,” said Sophomore Jay Mason
The morbid app is the product of Willook, an Israeli startup, and the creators suggest using it to leave behind a final farewell, a secret, or even one last insult, depending on a person’s preference, according to GizMag.com.
The company also emphasizes that no one, not even anyone at the company, can see the messages that users create until their death is verified.
The idea for the after-death app came after the friends of company CEO Eran Alfonta nearly died in a car accident.
“They stepped aside and drank water and relaxed and started speaking between themselves: ‘Oh my god, what would happen to the kids if something happened to me?'” he told NBCBayArea.com.
The idea seems to be striking a chord with Facebook users. In just a few days, the If I Die app has attracted nearly 7,000 likes on Facebook. However, it’s a safe bet that no one wants to be the first one to actually use it.
“When someone close to you dies it already seems unreal, and when those kind of things are posted on Facebook it makes it seem even more unreal,” said Sophomore Ben Lepinski,” and all this just makes it harder to accept the death of someone close.”
Huh. I might do this….