Would you want a funeral in SL?

[Dresden Ceriano]

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MargieG wrote:

Hello - me again, the death and grief researcher. Interested in who of you out there would want a SL funeral in the sad event that you died anytime soon? (apologies if this sounds abrupt or callous).

If you did want a funeral, would you want  RL family and friends to be invited? 

Would you want a religion based service/location or something more secular?

thanks, MargieG

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I would want my SL funeral conducted by Satan.

Only I'd be there on an alt to make sure everyone is sufficiently devastated.  Anyone who is not, will find themselves being stalked, harassed and generally treated like crap by some little hypersensitive e-fairy, obnoxious flaming BDSM master or soul-sucking, pasty white, vamp POS until they have no choice but to take their own life as well.

Just saying.

...Dres

[Kyoka Setsuko]

Haha, another wonderful Dres post.

Anyway, I don't mind leaving a more sincere response because the OP seems to be genuinely seeking information for research purposes- and as for being "offended", I am more or less impossible to offend. I do understand that many people come to SL to avoid their RL restraints or illnesses/ailments/etc., but if so then you could choose not to click on this thread or to reply to it :matte-motes-bashful:

Actually, yes, I would forego the funeral unless it was going to be a celebration, and I'd prefer to probably pass my account on to someone else. I have spent a long time working on my avi- tweaking the shape, the creator of my skin no longer sells it, and the exact configuration or contents of my inv are understandably unique.

In a sense, I feel like an account on SL is similar to a book, poem, play or song that someone wrote... it is a nice way of carrying on their memory and legacy to continue it. Accounts are imbued with the spirit of the account holder, the person who invested time and expended energy into creating something with their hands. The idea of passing on accounts seems like a really worthwhile prospect and would be a nice way of honouring that person.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

Hell, no. If anything, throw a party. I'd like the same IRL, but the final decision is likely not going to be mine, and I could hardly protest...

[Ganelon Darkfold]

We all die sooner or later.  I don't care for funerals, since I consider the odd sort of taxidermy involved to be beyond bizarre and the customs and their related costs aren't something I'd care to burden survivors with.  The body wasn't the person any more than an avatar was.  What made the person a person has gone. 

But funerals and memorials are more for those who remain than for those who have gone.  In RL, I've made my wishes known to family and friends, so they wouldn't have to guess what I may have wanted in that regard.  I hope they remember the good times and move on, because one thing I would *never* want is for them to be any sadder then they have to be.

In SL, I doubt anyone would notice.  But that's better than sadness, if it was anyone I liked. 

On the other hand, if I chance to leave a restless ghost, I'll make it a point to haunt SL, and nobody would ever know I'd been gone.  Though it would be tempting to have a gravestone someplace that said simply:  brb

:matte-motes-wink:

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Death is part of life and I don't find your questions offensive.  I've been seriously ill twice in life and wouldn't have minded it then.  People I know who are dieing talk about their death.  My father died of cancer and when he knew that there was no hope, he talked openly about not only what he wanted for a memorial but also related to me how the whole experience felt.  The one thing that he said that I thought was the wisest was that when you have a fatal illness you really don't know anything more than before you were diagnosed.  Know one knows for certain the day they will die.   You  could be told you have six months to live and be run over by a car leaving the doctors office. There are people that were told they only had a short time to live, and live for years after the deadline.   You could be perfectly healthy and drop dead the next day or be killed.  The important thing is to live each day like its your last because it very well may be and if its not, then there still will be no regrets.

I don't want a funeral in RL or SL.  In RL my body will go to a medical center to harvest any organs they find viable with the rest going to research or teaching.  So there really isn't going to be anything left of me in the end.  If someone wanted to do something,  I'd prefer a simple party to celebrate my life with the money that would be spent on a funeral going to charity.  I'd rather people remember me as a living person that as a body in a coffin.

[Jo Yardley]

Interesting question, death is a part of life, I have no issue with people asking or talking about it.

I've stared death in the eyes a few times, I know people on deaths door step right now, but that doesn't meen we can't talk about it.

When I die in RL I hope my SL friends find out so they can take care of some stuff.

If some of my sims are still around (if SL is still around!) I'd like someone to take them over.

Like 1920s Berlin, it is a great community, all apartments are rented, etc. I wouldn't want everyone kicked out of their houses just because I stop paying tier.

But thats a different issue.

When I die I'd like my friends who can access my account to perhaps hook me up to bot software and rez my avatar permanently sleeping at the bar in my club.

Or when they get sick of that, perhaps a nice little plaque on the wall of city hall or something.

As for any RL connections, no I would not ask RL friends with no SL connection to join us in a virtual funeral.

I don't think I want a virtual funeral anyway.

Too laggy.

I'd like a wake at my bar, everyone get drunk and talk about how rubbish I was.

I'd love that.

Just like in RL.

A nice wake.

After a 1930s sober, dark and sad funeral.

Preferbly being burried in an abandoned old grave yard somewhere in the Scottish Highlands so I get to hang out with lots of people who died long before I was born.

I don't want to be burried next to modern people, they annoy me with their fancy mobile phones and hipperdiehop music.

[Melita Magic]

Morbid, or what?

Merry Christmas!

[Drake1 Nightfire]

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MargieG wrote:

Hello - me again, the death and grief researcher. Interested in who of you out there would want a SL funeral in the sad event that you died anytime soon? (apologies if this sounds abrupt or callous).

If you did want a funeral, would you want  RL family and friends to be invited? 

Would you want a religion based service/location or something more secular?

thanks, MargieG

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1. I'll be dead, what do i care? either they will  or wont.

2 Hells no, i can not picture anyone in my RL family creating a SL account to attend a virtual funeral for their son after just having a RL one.

3. One would assume that the service would be whatever religion the deceased was, no?

I would like to believe that my SL family and friends would have a memorial at some point but if they didn't I still wouldn't know.

[LindseyLohan]

i wanna funeral

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

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LindseyLohan wrote:

i wanna funeral

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Easy... just die.

...Dres (I was trying to be humorous, dammit.)

[Pussycat Catnap]

This is one of those place where the conflict between the 'SL is serious business' and the 'SL is -just- a game' crowd can and likely will get extremely into poor judgement and bad taste.

Mind you I often call SL a game, but that is because I have a wider definition of such.

But there is a crowd who enter these platforms on the 'nothing here is real' mentality - not exacty the game crowd, not really even close. But often cross labeled.

Those folks would get downright improper.

A famous case is the griefing done to a funeral in WoW when a real life player passed away. Far from take action, its become one of those moments many 'players' are proud of...

A funeral in SL would attract the wrong crowd in the wrong ways, and potentially increase grief for people involved...

- And the company behind this would be slow to act... They act against a lot of forms of griefing. But my suspicion is that you'd have some of them among the griefers for this one... just because that seems to be how some techies act... and it'd end up a bit of a nasty pickle inside the office as well...

Not that it would really matter. Even if they acted lightning fast, they can't act ahead of time... so the griefer crowd would do its damage, and only then get dealt with...

You'd also get the assorted petty folks who had issues with either the decedant, or one of the guest there to speak - who would come to use it as a launching pad for a personal vendetta. Folks online can be petty in ways that in RL would get them forcibly ejected and publicly scorned. 

 

I would not want such an event... nor would I want to attend one of a friend, because of its potential to attract the wrong folks... 

[Griffin Ceawlin]

In my 5+ years in SL I've heard of, though never attended, many funeral/memorial services being held for people who died IRL. I've never heard of a one being griefed.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

In my 5+ years in SL I've heard of, though never attended, many funeral/memorial services being held for people who died IRL. I've

never

heard of a one being griefed.

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If that's the case, then maybe there is hope. Though in just about any endevour but funerals, issues seem to arise.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

In almost six years I've heard of and attended memorial services for a number of people in SL and they were peaceful, no griefing no disrepect.  Sometimes there were more party than funeral because that is what the person wanted - a celebration of life.

Maybe in a game like WOW it is different,but in the virtual world of SL I haven't never heard of people being so rude and disrespectful.  No saying it never happened, but it must be very rare.

[MoiselleErin Teardrop]

People talk about a celebration when they die. I don't know, as much a smart-ass as I am and even *I* would have a hard time finding fun during a time when a loved one passed.

For an SL funeral - that is not something I like to think about. I cannot imagine being dead in RL or SL (that make sense?)

I mean wow, I don't really know how to respond to this one.

 

I know one thing - though I play Second Life here in life, I hope when i am gone I am not in a region they call "Second Death" I hear that sucks.

[wiked Anton]

I have had a few friends die in Rl and i placed a permenant grave with brass plaque on my land to honour them. If i sdie in RL, i wouldnt mind a funeral to be held in Sl, but i wont be attending obviously............

[Ceka Cianci]

 

 

no i wouldn't want one for me..in here or in RL.i don't care for them in any way anymore..

one of my uncles passed away two weeks ago..and it was nothing like what he wanted on his sending...someone else felt they had a better idea of what he wanted on his way out than he did..so they disreguarded  a lot of things my uncle wanted..

a sending should be a celebration of someone .not a heart string puller sales pitch for future clients..

i would rather sneak off and die quietly than have people sit around having their heart broken over some speaker man with a sound system playing the saddest songs they can find..

if there is going to be music there..turn it up and start dancing..

sorry for sounding b!tchy.. but funerals really piss me off right now..or at least the commercial express lane feeling end of that business..