Matthew and his Feelings

"In a 2010 paper published in the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, academics analyzed the social media profiles of the dead, dividing the types of messages into various groups. Unsurprisingly, most messages were short notes that said things like “RIP” or “I miss you”—the digital equivalent of leaving flowers at a grave or wearing a Victorian black arm band, a token gesture that symbolically and publicly marks you as someone in mourning. Other messages were what the researchers described as attempts to eulogize the deceased. People posted anecdotes from their friend’s life, casting themselves in central roles—an attempt to claim a kind of ownership over the dead person’s experiences. Or they emphasized certain values the friend had in the same way that, after the death of Steve Jobs, users flooded Facebook and Twitter with updates summing up the man’s life in the hollow words of a marketing campaign: “Think different."

Nicholas Hune-Brown: How to die on Facebook