Leaving a digital legacy

Jacques Mechelany, formerly a high-flying French banker, has thought a lot about death and the human legacy. One reason is that he has travelled so manically in planes that he felt impelled to update his will regularly. But also, a few years ago he inherited some stunning photo albums. They contained photos of his ancestors dating back to 1870 – but Mechelany was frustrated by how hard it was to find any personal details about them.

Last month, he took a dramatic step. Using funds collected from private investors and technology from whiz kids in Palo Alto, he launched a website called I-Tomb that claims to be the world’s first virtual cemetery. Now, for the fee of $50 a year – which you can pre-pay for two decades – anybody can create an online “tomb” for a dead person, which can be adorned with virtual flowers, poems, tributes or videos.

Alternatively, if you prefer to act while you are still alive (and/or are fearful about what others might do with your “tomb”), you can also create your own virtual memorial site before you die. That service can carry complex instructions, messages or videos from you to ensure that your tomb is created as you want, after your death.

“The world population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7 billion in 2011 and 54 million people will die this year,” a press release solemnly declared by way of explanation, when the company launched in America last month under the name I-Postmortem (I am not making this up). Or as Mechelany explains, “What this does is enable every human on the planet to maintain a legacy ... with digital means.”

To be honest, when I first heard about the scheme I winced. As somebody raised in 20th-century British culture, I tend to assume that death is best marked by permanent, tangible things. I like gravestones, since they seem natural, solid, timeless and (usually) linked to a church. The internet, by contrast, feels flimsy, faddish and open to abuse. It is where I do my shopping, send emails or read the news – not where I would naturally choose to mourn or store memories for ever.

But these reflexes are, of course, rooted in cultural prejudice as much as rational thought. Gravestones can be removed, defaced, destroyed or simply ignored. So, too, can paper wills and photo albums. And while I am not a true digital native myself, the reality is that the internet is already changing our death rituals, particularly among those who are young enough to have grown up with it. For example, it has become commonplace these days for people to turn somebody’s Facebook page into a tribute page after death. Internet services exist to send emails to relatives when loved ones die, or post public death notices. A few short years ago, this might have seemed tacky: now it feels almost natural.

This should not come as any surprise. It is a truism of anthropology that all cultures assume that their own particular death practices are “natural” and “right”. In reality they vary dramatically between cultures and time. For evidence of that, just look at a fascinating new book, Making an Exit by Sarah Murray, an FT contributor, who spent a year travelling the world looking at death rituals after her own father died. It describes a stunning variety of practices. In some places there is noisy wailing at funerals; in others near-silence. Some societies create coffins shaped like aircraft, slaughter pigs, build monasteries of bones, stare at decomposing bodies or burn paper effigies of mobile phones; others (like the west) treat cremation as a quasi-industrial process and conceal the body. The only common trait is that death is highly emotive – but everybody considers theirs “normal”.

. . .

Sadly, Murray’s book does not cover the I-Tombs – that is too new. But viewed within this bigger context, the I-Postmortem site offers some fascinating new cultural twists. The site tries hard to create a solemn, durable tone: the “tombs” are presented against a picture of star-filled outer space (presumably chosen for its timeless, non-denominational, Hollywood-style appeal) and there is no advertising (“Nobody wants ads on their tomb,” as Mechelany says.) The language is earnest (“You are initiating a death-declaration process. We are deeply sorry for your loss”) and the site stresses that data will be stored not in Palo Alto, US, but Switzerland (a “neutral country [with] international appeal, security and stability”, it explains). Culturally, it feels as if a Swiss private bank had blended with Google and Star Wars.

Will this marketing pitch work? I remain ambivalent: my own cultural instincts are strong. But in a world where few people can ever visit graves in person – and where a new generation takes digital expression for granted – I can certainly see the convenience and appeal. The only surprise is that Facebook did not launch it first. Or maybe it will. I daresay the next chapter in this saga could be a round of I-Tomb wars; after all, there is undoubtedly money to be made somewhere from digital death.

gillian.tett@ft.com

Gillian Tett’s column went to press before Apple founder Steve Jobs passed away. We regret any offence the article may cause to the Jobs family or Apple users.