Digital tributes are a growing trend for memorializing loved ones who have passed away, and a big reason for their popularity is their low cost. Many social media sites, funeral homes, newspapers, and memorial product retailers have begun in recent years offering customers (or even non-customers, in many cases) the opportunity to set up a permanent online memorial to deceased family members and friends. These digital tributes offer a valuable service to family members who are seeking a healthy outlet for the grief they feel over their loss, while, at the same time, helping the business establishments who offer the tributes with a unique way to connect with the very people who might be most interested in their services.
These digital tributes are available in a huge variety of formats and many who would potentially be interested in the services may not even be aware that they are available. So, for that reason, we offer you this brief overview of what digital tributes are available to people across the United States and some ideas for how friends and family can use them most effectively for their memorial needs.
Types of Digital Tributes
Digital tributes are available in three main types. Probably the type that comes to mind most readily when someone mentions the phrase digital tributes is the interactive digital tribute. This type of digital tribute most often takes the form of a social media outlet such as facebook, twitter or some other website (even a funeral homes or memorial product retailer’s website that has been outfitted for this purpose precisely). With interactive digital tributes, friends and family are able to share with the world their own stories and pictures of the deceased, submitting them often in an unsolicited manner. These digital tributes vary according to the needs and wishes of the family members who are responsible for them, in regard to how much censorship is applied. In some interactive digital tributes, users are allowed to post their shares directly without any form of pre-approval applied, and in others, the users may only post items that are approved directly by the digital tribute’s mediators. In most cases, these digital tributes are monitored directly by one or more family members, and no third party is responsible for writing or maintaining the content.
Static digital tributes are similar to interactive tributes in that they are written and maintained by people who were directly familiar with and involved in the deceased’s life, but they are different in that the material that is posted is generally changed or updated very sparingly (if at all) after it is originally written and posted. Interactive digital tributes, meanwhile, invite changes and updates regularly and are often added to many times each week even months after a person has died.
And, finally, third party digital tributes are those that are written and maintained entirely by third party companies who are typically paid a fee for the service. Photographic montages put together by professionals at a funeral home are one example of this type of digital tribute as are online obituaries that are posted and written by newspaper staff writers or trained writers employed by a funeral home. These types of digital tributes are generally not changed at all once they have been original posted. A final type of very common digital tribute is a video tape of a funeral service. Filming a memorial service may have once been considered a bad, even macabre, idea, but, in today’s digital age, it is becoming more and more common and is even a standard feature of many funeral packages offered by funeral homes today. If you are considering recording or organizing a service, you may also find it helpful to review A Planning Guide For A Memorial Service to better understand the steps involved.
Digital Tribute Laws
The laws related to digital tributes are constantly in flux in the United States as courts across the country find themselves dealing with specific issues that had been unanticipated by lawmakers who could not have fathomed, when they wrote the statues, that technology would evolve as it did. So this section will have to be vague just by its very nature.
But, that said, one problematic legal issue that comes about related to digital tributes is just who owns the right to post things about the deceased on social media and elsewhere in the digital world. Are photographs found in the deceased’s collection the legal property of the person who discovered them first, or are they the legal property of the chief heirs? Who can give social media companies such as Facebook the authority to post the pictures, and how much control can those companies give over a social media account to those who claim to be the deceased’s heirs.
None of these issues are thoroughly resolved by any stretch of the imagination, and the best thing that those who have not done much thinking about digital tributes can do to keep themselves from facing awkward, even expensive, legal challenges over the use of material for digital tributes is to assure that all parties who may have an interest in what is posted in the digital tribute find the material to be posted acceptable and of good value. Even minor disagreements over such matters are best dealt with by simply not allowing the material in question to be used in a digital tribute, experts say.
Preparing a Digital Tribute
Aside from making sure that your digital tribute is carefully approved by all who might have a stake in memorializing the deceased loved one or friend in question, preparing a digital tribute requires an utmost amount of attention to honor and respect. Anyone who finds himself in a role of being the chief producer of a digital tribute of any kind should take heed to assure that as much care and compassion as possible is included. It should never be forgotten that a person’s entire life legacy is at stake in this presentation, no matter what type of digital tribute is being produced. Contrary to what may be assumed to be common sense, writing style – or even high quality attention to punctuation and spelling issue – is not what is most important in preparing a digital tribute. What is important in producing such a memorial tribute to a family member or friend is simple, a great deal of heart. Armed with that most important tool, any digital tribute will be as successful and as meaningful as it can be.
