Discover
We live in a world where nearly every part of our lives is documented online—photos, videos, texts, playlists, comments, and status updates. We generate so much digital residue, yet when someone passes away, all of it suddenly feels fragile. Unguided. Sometimes erased. Sometimes hauntingly still. That contradiction became the spark for METAMEMORIA.
In the earliest phase of my thesis, I immersed myself in both academic research and personal storytelling. I asked: What do people actually want when it comes their digital legacy? Why do current tools—like Facebook’s “memorialized” accounts or funeral tribute sites—feel so flat, so removed from real emotion? What could we build instead?
Listening to Grief
I started with a broad survey, distributed through Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. I didn’t narrow my audience too much—death is universal, after all—and over 120 people responded. Their answers surprised me. More than 70% had visited a loved one’s digital profile after death. Not just once, but repeatedly. Some returned on anniversaries, others when they were missing that person. These digital spaces had become portals for reflection, conversation, even rituals.
But here’s where it got more complicated: the same people who found value in digital memories also expressed deep discomfort with the idea of AI recreations or holograms. There was a clear line between preserving a person’s memory and trying to resurrect them. The uncanny valley, both emotionally and visually, was real.
To dig deeper, I followed up with interviews. Some participants described instances of uneasiness triggered by unexpected reminders of the dead—for example, Facebook memories resurfacing without warning that felt more jarring than comforting. But I also heard stories about how a single voicemail message, an old DM thread, or even a shared Spotify playlist had become a cherished piece of someone’s ongoing grief process.
Grief is Interactive. Memorials Should Be Too.
From these conversations, a theme emerged: people want presence, not perfection. They don’t need a memorial to be hyper-realistic or techy. They need it to feel honest—something that reflects the authenticity of a life lived.
I began to wonder: what would it look like to reframe a memorial not as a webpage, but as a world? A place where people could explore, reflect, and remember—at their own pace, on their own terms.