Disturbing web site reports deaths of MySpace users

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PrayersForMaura

PrayersForMaura

Help Find Maura Murray
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he other day while enjoying a late lunch on the Collis porch and perusing my new favorite web site, I learned that 22-year-old Tim McLean had been stabbed to death and beheaded on a Greyhound bus by a fellow passenger. Tim’s seatmate blew a psychopathic gasket in the middle of the night on a lonely stretch of the TransCanada Highway, somewhere in Manitoba. After a break to grab another iced coffee, I next read about the demise of 25-year-old Tia Poklemba, who was found bleeding to death in the middle of the street in Bonita Springs, Fla. Her clothes were torn off, she was missing an ear and reportedly looked as if she’d been dragged behind a car.
Welcome to MyDeathSpace.com, a website dedicated to reporting the most extraordinary and tragic deaths of MySpace users. MyDeathSpace displays the lurid details of each user’s death and — thanks to their MySpace pages — the even more graphic details of the users’ former lives.
As social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook have redefined our lives, it was only a matter of time before death, too, was redefined. This is death in the digital age.



More: http://thedartmouth.com/2008/08/12/news/ritger/
 
My 19-year-old daughter looks on that site sometimes and I wish she wouldn't. :confused:
 
Myspace sites of victims and POIs are posted on Websleuths all the time, what's the difference?
 
I think it's great that there is a place for the young to memorialize their friends and icons out there. It gets it out there.

I don't know..... I think it's ok. It's just like any other memorial just an online compilation. It helps to get those emotions out and if this helps I am all for it.

Just my thoughts.......
 
DBinMA said:
Myspace sites of victims and POIs are posted on Websleuths all the time, what's the difference?
Click to expand...

Very true... some cases see us diligently dissecting and analyzing web presences (Myspace accounts, Facebook accounts, etc), in an attempt to figure out a case.
 
MyDeathSpace has been around for some time now -- since 2005 or 2006. It began as a Livejournal community. I first became aware of it then, and I have to tell you -- the LJ community was nothing like the website you see now. It was hideous. The community constantly made fun of the dead people's profiles. It became so popular the guy who started it made MyDeathSpace.com. The attention he then received from the mainstream press immediately made him aware that he couldn't let community members talk the way they had before, and he made new rules for discussions of the MySpaces posted on the site. There's a forum attached, and the discussions can still be pretty mean, but nothing like the LiveJournal community I first encountered in 2005.
 
Dryad said:
My 19-year-old daughter looks on that site sometimes and I wish she wouldn't. :confused:
Click to expand...

If it makes you feel any better, many of those kids died from accidents, poor decisions or suicide. Perhaps your daughter will be better aware of dangers around her, and consequences of behaviors, by learning from the other people's mistakes.
 
I will say that I used to look at this site too. Wanted to make sure I didn't miss someone dying that I was friends (and had lost touch) with, etc. Depressed me too much eventually.
 
I haven't seen this site but I will tell you that my cousin who was 27 my age passed away a couple months ago. He had a myspace and I am glad he did. I can still go to the page and see him and see the comments people have left him. It still seems like I will see him anytime not like he is really gone. Even when people have passed their myspace page lives on.
 
imthemom said:
I haven't seen this site but I will tell you that my cousin who was 27 my age passed away a couple months ago. He had a myspace and I am glad he did. I can still go to the page and see him and see the comments people have left him. It still seems like I will see him anytime not like he is really gone. Even when people have passed their myspace page lives on.
Click to expand...

I think it stays on mySpace for a long time, to help the grieving, then can be permenantly moved to the mydeathspace, so that in searches, you are looking for live people on one site, and remembering others on the other site. I heard of it a long time ago and thought it was a great idea. You can visit the person online, and even leave a little note to them, when you feel blue.
 
i'm a member of their forum. it's really interesting, some of the people who have died at the hands of violent crime have threads where you can really discuss what happened and alot of times friends will come on (sometimes mad) but discuss it too.

and it's really sad to read some of those. all the needless deaths.
 
GlitchWizard said:
I think it stays on mySpace for a long time, to help the grieving, then can be permenantly moved to the mydeathspace, so that in searches, you are looking for live people on one site, and remembering others on the other site. I heard of it a long time ago and thought it was a great idea. You can visit the person online, and even leave a little note to them, when you feel blue.
Click to expand...

deathspace & myspace are not associated with one another ... just an fyi

I've been a member there for quite a while ... though some of the posts can get a bit out of hand, the majority is ok. There is definite discussion into the human psyche & alot of web-sleuthing to track down the decendent's web presence.

It is a good tool for young people. It's an eye opener as to how suddenly a person can leave this earth and also how a suicide really affects those left behind.
 
I've been a member of MDS since 2006 after Steve Huff mentioned it on his blog. I don't see it as a bad thing, and Steve is right- they have toned it down a lot after they added the forums. Some posts there will still make you cringe, but the majority of the members there are very respectful to the deceased.
 
GlitchWizard said:
If it makes you feel any better, many of those kids died from accidents, poor decisions or suicide. Perhaps your daughter will be better aware of dangers around her, and consequences of behaviors, by learning from the other people's mistakes.
Click to expand...
ITA agree with you GlitchWizard. I think if MDS is used properly it can be very informative. I would not mind sitting down with my kids (once they are teens and show an interest in the site) and going over the website with them, pointing out the careless mistakes that can end in tragedy. But I would NEVER let my kids look at it alone.
 
Dryad said:
My 19-year-old daughter looks on that site sometimes and I wish she wouldn't. :confused:
Click to expand...

Dryad, I can understand you not wanting your kids to view that website. I really do.

Unfortunately, death due to internet stalking is not so rare. I think that the website in question is just another way to get the word out, so to speak, to parents.

Even with all of the media attention regarding abductions, rapes, murders etc. that began with internet stalking, some parents STILL don't monitor their children's website activities. In this day and age, that's just asking for trouble.

I'm all for anything to try to "beat" into the heads of these parents, so to speak, the importance of monitoring your children's internet usage.
 
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