Imagine you are planning the funeral music for a loved one who has died. You can’t remember their favourite song, so you try to login to their Spotify account. Then you realise the account login is inaccessible, and with it has gone their personal history of Spotify playlists, annual “wrapped” analytics, and liked songs curated to reflect their taste, memories, and identity.
We tend to think about inheritance in physical terms: money, property, personal belongings. But the vast volume of digital stuff we accumulate in life and leave behind in death is now just as important – and this “digital legacy” is probably more meaningful.
Digital legacies are increasingly complex and evolving. They include now-familiar items such as social media and banking accounts, along with our stored photos, videos and messages. But they also encompass virtual currencies, behavioural tracking data, and even AI-generated avatars.
This digital data is not only fundamental to our online identities in life, but to our inheritance in death. So how can we properly plan for what happens to it?
I have a different perspective. When I die, it won’t matter what my favorite song or photo was, I’m dead. For those who would like to remember me, what is actually important is the memories they have of us. The song that we enjoyed together, the photo of our day together in the mountains, the time we were stranded in a strange city. These are the things that matter to the living, not our personal preferences. However you view yourself, everyone in your life has a completely different version of you in their minds and in mourning, that is the you they grieve the loss of. I understand the instinct to “honor” the wishes of the dead, but they are not here to witness it. The remembrance of that individual and their true legacy lies in the cumulative memories of those that remain. By allowing the cumulative experience of those that came in contact, it can allow us to broaden and deepen our view of those that passed. Once we’re gone, the opportunity for lasting impressions or reconciliation leave with us, but those that remain can, communally, share their versions of us and find acceptance and closure. The internet is not real life and our digital experiences pale in comparison to those real moments we spend together.
