This is intake week at our university, meaning it’s the busiest week of the year. I’ll try to read other people’s stories if I can though. I looked up the story I wrote for this prompt 10 years ago, but didn’t like it as much, so I wrote a new story for it.
Tomblr
“Aww, Grandpa’s up to 2000 followers,” Daisy says, looking at the Tomblr app on her phone.
“How do you follow a dead person?” Mom says. “And don’t you dare call me a boomer.”
“It’s sweet,” Daisy says. “Followers get updates on flowers and visitors. There’s even a QR code on his tomb to his obituary.”
“It’s creepy.”
“You love Facebook and that’s, like, 10% dead people now.”
“I don’t talk to them though.”
“No, you just talk to bots.”
“I just don’t think we should try to be social with the dead.”
Daisy grins over at me. Boomer, she mouths.
The Green-Walled Treehouse 
Ah. a kind of “Facebook” where the dead continue to post.
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I could very easily get into penpaling with the dead. Wonder if Ozzy still has a Facebook account. This was great!!!
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Yeah, that would be fascinating if you could actually talk to people from beyond. Just think of all the wisdom and experiences that have been lost.
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I’d have a few on speed dial. 🙂
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Tomblr was a nice touch. And why not, if there are sites where you can watch people folding towels?
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I could totally see people using it. I don’t think you could even imagine a thing that someone out there wouldn’t be interested in watching and following. PaintDry app, anyone?
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Such a creative story and Tomblr is a real thing – only scarier I think is that it’s been through a few hands since its set up in 2007.
I just checked the owners seem to be ‘selling user data from Tumblr and WordPress.com to Midjourney and OpenAI. Tumblr users are opted-in by default, with an option to opt out. In August 2024, Automattic announced that it would migrate Tumblr’s backend to an architecture derived from WordPress, in order to ease development and code sharing between the platforms.’ (from Wikipedia) – it would seem nothing is safe!
But I did like your story 😊
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Thanks. 🙂 Yeah, AI is so unregulated now since it’s new that’s it’s pretty creepy the way they just collect and use data without restrictions. Even the creators don’t know how everything is being used by the AI models.
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So true☹️
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Very cleverly done. I wish they could figure out how to text with the dead!
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That would be something. Sounds like a great short story.
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Oh gawd. I can relate to this. lol
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haha, as I get older I relate more and more too. 🙂
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Technology knows no bounds, whatever next?
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We never seem to be able to predict the next thing, so your guess is as good as mine. But I guess guessing is half the fun.
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Saw an article earlier this week about some crazy journalist “interviewing” a child who died in a school shooting: one more example of AI going too far. Apparently there’s a whole lot of people now “communicating” with their dead “friends” all courtesy of the now ever-present AI.
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Yeah, that’s some creepy “Black Mirror” kind of thing. Almost like a high-tech seance. I wouldn’t want an AI impersonating someone I’d lost.
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Facebook makes it quite a chore for me to remove my deceased mother’s account.
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Yeah, they don’t make it easy and I’m not sure if that’s because of privacy issues or just because they want to keep as many accounts there as possible.
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Creative, light-hearted, and humorous. Trifecta!
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Thanks, Lisa. The best kind of trifecta to have.
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You’re welcome, David.
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Dear David,
I have to admit it was quite unsettling that a month after my cousin Sarah Jo passed away I got a pm from her. I thought it was odd since she rarely messaged me when she was alive. 😉 I could see your story being a reality. All the best on your busy week.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Rochelle, wow that would be unsettling. Hopefully we’ll be allowed to be free of social media after we die. Thanks for your well wishes. The busy times are winding to a close now, so should be back to normal next week.
-David
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What an original and imaginative take on the prompt, David. And believable, to boot!
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Thanks, Dale. I’d be tempted to go make the app myself. I just care enough to spend the time, haha. Thanks for reading, as always.
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Haha! 😁
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