So here’s a weird question for y’all: what happens when you die? More specifically, what happens to the “online version” of you? Will your World of Warcraft guild hold a funeral for you, one that’s promptly invaded by a bunch of rival faction jerks? Will there be a Facebook “We miss you, man” group? Does anyone in your life have the password to you Gmail account, should you need to contact your contacts? “Remember Bill? Yeah, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
It’s apparently a big problem in online worlds such as World of Warcraft. Blizzard doesn’t exactly release account information willy nilly, so getting into contact with your former guild members, people who depend[ed] on your heals and buffs and the like, can be a huge pain in the behind. (Pardon my French.) And because people tend to drop dead, for lack of a better term, they often don’t have a Plan B, let alone Plan A, vis-à-vis their online presence.
You can do like one Oklahoma man did last year. He had a USB flash drive filled with all sorts of important contact information. “Break glass in case of emergency” type of thing. So, upon his death, his son fired up the flash drive, and was able to contact all the important folks in his life, virtual or otherwise.
Then there’s those e-mail services that promise to send e-mails after your death—“hey, man, I did cheat in that foot race in high school.”
Just a little morbid thinking for your Sunday afternoon.