Funeral Livecasting

The Downard Funeral home in Pocatello, Idaho has started livecasting its funeral processions. They set up a camera to laptop and broadcast live on the internet. Family members are sent a link and password via email and can enter the password protected site to watch the funeral procession. It is then available for 90 days afterward, during which viewers can request a DVD copy.

Kinda creepy, but an innovative idea. Instead of taking off work to morn the dead, you can pay your respects through your computer, from the comfort of your office chair. 

Comments

[Dan]

Correction: you can pay your respects from the comfort of your office chair, then tell your boss that you need time off to morn the dead and really go to a vacation spot of your choice.

But, you're right. It is creepy and innovative--but all the really good ideas are.

[Randy]

Funny. Very weird, but Funny... well not for the families that go there, but you know...

[Ollie_Miles]

That's a little chilly isn’t it? Your relative spends years being an 'insert family position here' to you and then to honor their passing and a long life you open a browser and watch their final bow on a live video stream. Nothing like being at one remove eh?

[Ari Herzog]

I see the usefulness of this for elderly family members or friends from across the country or around the world who can't make it.

[David Fisher]

I intended to do this when my father died in early July and to put it on uStream. It was my only request for the funeral that I have Wi-Fi access, or I at least assumed that someone would have a sprint 3G card that I could use... but they completely fell through and disappointed me. No wifi, no streaming :( I suppose I could have recorded it and posted later, but I felt having the streaming was what would have made it important.

I think this is a simply great idea, but that the guy doing it that CNN covered was a moron and just not very smart.

The main reasons that I wanted to do it were threefold:

1) The internet creates a permanent record of something. I feel that for a funeral something like this is pretty important. Never again does the family get together to share memories in the same way, so capturing that is important. A hell of a lot better than an obituary in the newspaper or a few words on a tombstone.

2) A ton of people in social media were excessively supportive, sending awesome tweets to me, and some of them even being so gracious as to let me sleep on their couch on my travels to North Carolina ;) I wanted them to be able to see what was said, what was happening, etc. These people are my friends. No one in the audience at the funeral were my friends.

3) To allow relatives who were unable to travel the distance to virtually attend. Funerals are always unexpected, plane tickets are at a record expense and the carbon impact of a funeral is huge. I'd rather everyone sit at their computers to watch a funeral than kill the planet a little more by flying 100 people hundreds of miles.

I'm sure someone will pick this up and do a much better job at it than the guy in Idaho.