GoodWork Paper 65: MySpace in Heaven: Memorials on MySpace

Author(s): Andrea Flores

Editor(s): Howard Gardner, Series Editor

Media: Paper

Description: In this paper, I examine how American youth use MySpace to mourn deceased peers. I conducted content analysis of 30 public MySpace memorials of recently deceased youth from the American Northeast, ages 15-24. These MySpace memorials illustrate two phenomena: 1) contemporary youth’s understanding of mourning and 2) the potential of new digital media to enable a perceived supernatural connection between the dead and the living. In comments on their deceased friends’ pages, mourners ‘create’ two sets of identities for themselves and the deceased. First, the mourners construct themselves and the deceased within the traditional understanding of the roles of mourned and mourner. Second, mourners elevate the deceased’s identity to a quotidian patron saint that can intervene in the life of the mourner/supplicant. MySpace memorials may provide youth an opportunity to engage in their own kind of mourning. For researchers, these sites provide insights into youth mourning practices and bereavement.