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Posteriority
Feb. 4th, 2021 09:37 pmReflecting on one of the topics we discussed with a friend during dinner last night... What will happen to all our stuff online when we die?
What will happen to not only my Journal, but all the photos I've posted on various sites, including DW & LJ... & all the music that's out there with me on it?
You read about the deaths of various 'Influencers' from Instagram & YouTube all the time - usually by falling off cliffs, or fatally shooting themselves in bizarre circumstances, in some desperate bid for attention & more followers... What happens to their pages, or channels, after they're gone? Other than a week or so of heartbroken 'tributes' from their 'fans', does anybody then go back & read, or view their stuff ever again? Will it somehow be rediscovered at some time in the future & go viral all over again? What is the cyberspace equivalent of the scrapheap?
I've certainly never been discovered online by an appreciable number of people, much less ever gone viral with anything I've said, photographed, or played. What am I doing it for? Who am I doing it for??!!
To the best of my knowledge, none of my friends - in either my physical, or cyber circles, have ever 'gone viral' either. Please correct me if I'm wrong... I'm not the most up-to-date netizen & miss things all the time...
If I'm just doing this for me, then why don't I do it offline in a Word document, or something? Why not do as generations before me have done & put all my photos in an album - to be looked at by others only once, when I die, then thrown away at the next municipal cleanup? Despite all my denials & ranting to the contrary, have I just joined up with the rest of the narcissists to show the world how wonderfully talented I am & blow my own trumpet from the highest mountains... even if, in my case, it's more like farting into a kazoo from a ground-floor window in a backwater suburb somewhere...?
What will happen to not only my Journal, but all the photos I've posted on various sites, including DW & LJ... & all the music that's out there with me on it?
You read about the deaths of various 'Influencers' from Instagram & YouTube all the time - usually by falling off cliffs, or fatally shooting themselves in bizarre circumstances, in some desperate bid for attention & more followers... What happens to their pages, or channels, after they're gone? Other than a week or so of heartbroken 'tributes' from their 'fans', does anybody then go back & read, or view their stuff ever again? Will it somehow be rediscovered at some time in the future & go viral all over again? What is the cyberspace equivalent of the scrapheap?
I've certainly never been discovered online by an appreciable number of people, much less ever gone viral with anything I've said, photographed, or played. What am I doing it for? Who am I doing it for??!!
To the best of my knowledge, none of my friends - in either my physical, or cyber circles, have ever 'gone viral' either. Please correct me if I'm wrong... I'm not the most up-to-date netizen & miss things all the time...
If I'm just doing this for me, then why don't I do it offline in a Word document, or something? Why not do as generations before me have done & put all my photos in an album - to be looked at by others only once, when I die, then thrown away at the next municipal cleanup? Despite all my denials & ranting to the contrary, have I just joined up with the rest of the narcissists to show the world how wonderfully talented I am & blow my own trumpet from the highest mountains... even if, in my case, it's more like farting into a kazoo from a ground-floor window in a backwater suburb somewhere...?
