The Algorithm Doesn’t Know My Friend Is Dead
Her ghostly presence on social media helps me mourn
Do you have LinkedIn? I do. I don’t know why I have it. Does anyone use it? Has anyone been like, “Thank God I have LinkedIn! It 100% impacted my life in a positive way!” I seriously doubt that has ever been uttered, but I have it and it sends me notifications and I let it keep sending them to me. I can stop it whenever I want, but I never do. I would rather complain about the notifications than bother to turn them off, which would take five minutes. I think this is the social media equivalent of having a clock in your house that is 10 minutes off and rather than reset it, you contextualize the very idea of time as it pertains to that specific area of your home. “When I am in the kitchen it is not actually 12:07; it is 12:17. Time is fake.” I mention all this to say that LinkedIn has twice prompted me to congratulate my dead friend on their work anniversary. If I haven’t even turned off notifications I am not going to be the one to break the news to them that my friend has been dead for four years.
Grief in the modern age is a strange beast. There are so many ways we keep our cherished…
