Is our love of social media destroying our sense of social media? That’s what George will investigate today on The Right Hook.
Helping him to decode how Facebook and Twitter are shaping history will be Dr Eugenia Siapera, the chair of Social Media Studies at Dublin City University. Tune in live at 6.20pm: http://www.newstalk.com/player/
Social media websites like Twitter have become one of the primary ways in which people not only communicate with each other, but also how we chronicle our lives. And now, increasingly, our deaths.
One site at the forefront of where remembering the dead and social media collide is The Tweet Hereafter. Described by its Pittsburgh-based creators as an “experimental project,” it is an ongoing collections of the last ever tweet sent out by "notable, newsworthy, famous, or infamous people."
Jamie Forrest and Michael McWatters, the site’s creators, came up with the concept when McWatters wondered aloud about the last ever tweet sent out by the conservative American author Andrew Breibart before his death due to heart failure at the age of 43 in 2012. It was a retweet of an Anonymous post:
Follow @nadianaffe to find out about her story of assault. This is going to take down @JamesOKeefeIII and possibly @AndrewBreitbart
— Anonymous (@AnonyOps) March 1, 2012
Forrest replied to McWatters that a rolling collection of last tweets would make for an intriguing blog, and they developed the site.
Recent posts include Leonard Nimoy’s final call to “Live long and prosper,” and a video of an anti-war protest tweeted by assassinated Russian politician Boris Nemtsov:
A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP
— Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) February 23, 2015
Ðнтивоенный антикризиÑный Марш ВеÑна. Ðа Ðхе http://t.co/QbVeclFZ1z
— Boris Nemtsov (@BorisNemtsov) February 27, 2015
