{"id":1091,"date":"2017-03-30T03:26:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T03:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2017-03-30T03:26:48","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T03:26:48","slug":"a-different-kind-of-digital-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/03\/30\/a-different-kind-of-digital-death\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Kind of Digital Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far in class, we\u2019ve spent a fair bit of time discussing what happens to a people\u2019s digital accounts once they die, yet we\u2019ve spent little time talking about what happens to one\u2019s account once a service itself dies. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kashmir Hill\u2019s Fusion article \u201cThis Start-Up Promised 10,000 People Eternal Digital Life\u2014Then It Died\u201d focuses on that very concept as it examines the death of Intellitar, a Black Mirror-esque online memorial service that closed its doors in 2012. The service that Intellitar offered seemed very much like a modern-day precursor to robo-Ash in Black Mirror\u2019s \u201cBe Right Back\u201d&#8211;the company charged $25 a month to turn a collection of personal data provided by users to create an \u201cimmortal\u201d avatar of the user.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: NNNpx\">\n<div class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: NNNpx\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Intellitar2\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"525\" height=\"297\" src=\"https:\/\/geo.dailymotion.com\/player.html?video=x3tyh0h&#038;\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; web-share\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Intellitar CEO Don Davidson&#8217;s &#8220;Immortal&#8221; Avatar via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popsci.com\/technology\/article\/2010-10\/intellitar-provides-digital-clone-creep-out-future-generations\" target=\"_blank\">Popular Science<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>But we see in the article that one\u2019s avatar, and therefore, one\u2019s digital immortality, is contingent upon the lifespan of the company. As Hill points out, the text files, photos, and other media uploaded to Intellitar might be easy to back up. However, the more complicated proprietary parts of the service&#8211;the avatars themselves and the technology behind them&#8211;could not be backed up by the basic user.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We entrust so much of ourselves&#8211;literally our own identity and memories, in this case&#8211;to these digital sites and services without considering the mortality of the site or service. But digital services die frequently too.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 1720px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn0.vox-cdn.com\/thumbor\/cJmezpPI7ugyWV5Q6OdODirpIHk=\/0x0:685x432\/1720x1147\/filters:focal(289x162:397x270):format(webp)\/cdn0.vox-cdn.com\/uploads\/chorus_image\/image\/53014517\/WaddleOnParty_LetsCelebrateCommunity.0.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1720\" height=\"1147\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">R.I.P. Club Penguin via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2017\/1\/31\/14458168\/club-penguin-closing\" target=\"_blank\">Polygon<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Online game services provide a similar (albeit lower stakes) scenario to that of Intellitar. Game services like World of Warcraft, EVE online, and even Club Penguin (rest in peace, it dies today on March 29) have provided digital spaces for people to sink countless hours and dollars into, but those games last only as long as their servers run. Once they\u2019re taken offline, everything the user has given them&#8211;time, money, effort, even pieces of themselves&#8211;dies too. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So far in class, we\u2019ve spent a fair bit of time discussing what happens to a people\u2019s digital accounts once they die, yet we\u2019ve spent little time talking about what happens to one\u2019s account once a service itself dies. Kashmir Hill\u2019s Fusion article \u201cThis Start-Up Promised 10,000 People Eternal Digital Life\u2014Then It Died\u201d focuses on &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/2017\/03\/30\/a-different-kind-of-digital-death\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Different Kind of Digital Death&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig215\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}