Speaking of the superficiality of myspace...

MyDeathSpace.com is a website devoted to compiling the stories and linking the to myspace profiles of people, most of them very young, who have recently died.

At first, you may be a little sickened as you start reading the maudlin stories surrounding their deaths--but keep in mind these are culled verbatim from local newspapers.

A 25 year old killed in an avalanche, a young guy killed doing a skateboarding trick, a 17 year old woman stabbed while working at McDonald's in Vancouver. Automobile accident. Accidentally shot by father, suicide.

The page contains links to the person's myspace page, which is both banal and extraordinary. The banality of the typical myspace page--the default colors of orange and blue, the songs, the self-imposed demographics. These banalities are transformed with the knowledge we've taken with us to the page.

The photos are typical for myspace...prom gowns, me and my truck, me and my girlfriend, me on vacation with my family. Transformed again. The convention we have of smiling in photos, of forcing ourselves to look happy, takes on extra import on these ghost-pages, for they lay bare our obliviousness to death, the fact that we never know. A flush of omnipresence in the viewer whose just surfed here--before and after shots. Here you are at Disney World, smiling away. But I know that in a few weeks you'll be working late at the liquor store, and the robbers will pull a gun...

I think it's one of those moments when the superficial architecture of these kinds of websites actually lends itself to a strange form of intimacy and meaning.

Then there are the comments, which have taken on the form of a memorial book, a way to speak to the dead. Personally, I find this sort of superficial memorializing to be incredibly tacky, especially when addressed directly to the deceased.

The latest comment left on the profile of a 22-year-old skateboarder who died while doing a trick never even met but figures they would have been good gym buddies.

These comments are directed to a 17-year-old woman stabbed to death while working at McDonadl's. She will be toasted at future parties in perpetuity.

I like this comment..."what the fuck am i supposed to do?"

Very superficial, is myspace, but in a certain context, with a certain amount of background knowledge, they appear much more intimate. I feel like a fly on the wall, an intruder, a voyeur.