To Be Shut Down by a Congressman in Three, Two...

David Weigel | January 8, 2007

Jared Klaus of the Cleveland Scene has clicked onto a site that, miraculously, takes MySpace and makes it even less palatable to parents.

As many as 20,000 people a day log on to listen to the deceased's favorite songs, read their last and most personal thoughts, look through their photo albums -- the snapshots of their lives minutes before the crash, the gunshot, the overdose.

The site was started last year by a bored San Francisco office gopher who read a story about a man who strangled his two daughters to death. He searched their names on MySpace and found the girls' profiles. From then on, 25-year-old Mike Patterson trolled for dead people every day.

He parlayed his fascination into a business -- creating a virtual map of the United States, where you can click on one of a thousand little black skulls that links to the person's MySpace page and an article ripped from somewhere about how they died. "One death or suicide an hour," the site promised.

Surprisingly there's no record of any controversy yet about MyDeathSpace (or as I prefer to think of it, JacquesBrel.com). I'm guessing once those First Hundred Hours are up, that'll change.

Comments

|1.8.07 @ 10:28AM|#

I actually saw this site mentioned somewhere in the media (probably the Providence Journal) several months ago. I guess sometimes people just take a while to work up their inevitable outrage.

|1.8.07 @ 2:11PM|#

"Strangled to death" is redundant.

|1.8.07 @ 4:02PM|#

I'll bet the new Speaker of the House has shutting down MyDeathSpace on the top of her "to do" list. Mike Patterson is the highest prioirty on the CIA and FBI watch lists since Huey P. Newton or the Weathermen Underground. His outrageous stunt of posting public information copied from other sites that anyone could look up on their own is akin to murdering the victims himself. Not since newspapers were first circulated have obituaries been so public. And with the added linking of a social networking site with 146,960,352 members (as of this moment) designed specifically to showcase one's personal life to the entire world I find it immoral and illegal. Oh Nancy... hurry!

|1.8.07 @ 4:05PM|#

stran·gle (strnggl) KEY

VERB:
stran·gled , stran·gling , stran·gles
VERB:
tr.
To kill by squeezing the throat so as to choke or suffocate; throttle.
To cut off the oxygen supply of; smother.
To suppress, repress, or stifle: strangle a scream.
To inhibit the growth or action of; restrict: "That artist is strangled who is forced to deal with human beings solely in social terms" (James Baldwin).

If successful in the act of strangulation death would be the result.