#internetgraveyard

FIRST, let me make this very clear if it wasn’t already obvious to everyone before hand. THERE ARE NO GHOSTS LIVING IN YOUR COMPUTER! The REALTALK girls never actually mention what the overarching concept all their jabberwocky from this week is encompassed by, but in short, from what I can decipher, they’re discussing the concept of digital ghosts. The concept of digital ghosts refers to the online personas left behind by those who have passed. This entails both the digital footprints of the deceased through their social media profiles and blogs, as well as the usage of digital spaces to create memorials for deceased individuals. Though the concept encompasses a variety of topics ‘virtual ghosts’ are NOT real ghosts being controlled by SATAN. Yes, Joanna Rogain I wrote the S word.

I will say that I commend the REALTALK girls on using some thought towards their ghost conspiracy. The idea that minerals are harvested from the ashes of witches and used to make up motherboards in computers, which result in how ghosts are able to enter the internet and talk to people through their screens as well as shut down ‘GODLY’ websites, is some real deep thinking - I hope my readers can catch on to the sarcasm ;) Sadly ladies it’s not the ghosts of leftists that are the reason ‘404 Page Not Found’ pops up on your screen when you try to access your old bible study website. In actuality, website pages like humans can be living or dead. ‘404 Page Not Found’ is the message that appears when a user tries to access an internet page that has a broken URL or has been deleted, or in other words is DEAD. These are the REAL ghosts of the internet, the phantom sites that once were. #RIPADOBEFLASHGAMES

Going back to the idea of virtual ghosts in relation to creating digital memorials, there is a supposed ethical issue associated with the principle, and not in the bible thumping way of the REALTALK girls. Another usage for AI has risen once again with usage of AI chatbots to help with grief. The supposed ‘ghosts’ the REALTALK girls were discussing are actually uploaded personalities of deceased individuals onto chatbots. These chatbots are then used to allow a person grieving to talk to their lost loved one. I’m no psychologist so I won’t comment too much on the matter, but I do find this a little creepy and arguably a way to exploit a grieving person if these chatbots become commercialized.

Speaking on unethical commercialization of digital memories – NFT’s. Once again, those pesky NFT’s come into play in relation to virtual ghosts. How you might ask? Well, you can blame Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse, and the creation of meta cemeteries. Marble Town is the first of these metaverse cemeteries in which users have the ability to purchase plots and headstones for deceased individuals. They can then decorate these plots with NFT’s and hold virtual memorial services. Some may call this sentimental, others on the more pessimistic train might call it a way to prey on grief-stricken individuals and steal their money. And hey, the funeral industry has already been doing that for decades, but given the dead are already taking up space in the ground, do they really need to be taking up space in the internet too (need I remind you the internet also takes up space in reality and damages our environment) all because some techy wants to make an extra buck???????