This week, I found out that a person I knew through a mutual friend had suddenly passed away. I didn't know him personally, but he was an ex-boyfriend of someone that I knew when I was younger, regardless, it is always a tragedy to hear that someone has died, especially at such a young age. Now, I never would have even known that this young man had died, if I hadn't been on my forms of social media, mindlessly scrolling at 2 a.m. Word travels fast nowadays, but it travels at the speed of light when Facebook or Twitter gets involved.

Years ago, before online obituaries were a thing, it could be months before you found out that a close friend or relative had passed away unless you were very close with them or talked to people who knew them on a regular basis. But since social media is a popular concept now, and we have the ability to find out through the family members of the deceased that something horrible has happened, things are much different. We can find out instantly the who, what, when, where, and how, of anyone's death. Just because someone is gone, doesn't mean that their online activity disappears.

It always gives me shivers to go visit the Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page of someone that I once knew or just followed online, knowing that a new post will never be made by them. Reading all of the "I love you, rest in peace" and "gone but never forgotten" posts left by friends and family members on their pictures and walls freaks me out. I have even considered going so far as to ask my friends to make sure my social media gets deleted if I suddenly die because the idea of people going through my stuff after I'm gone is just weird to me.

When you're gone, you're forever immortalized online -- all of the things you said the day before you died, the week before you died, the YEAR before you died...they're all online for everyone to see. And while this concept probably brings a lot of comfort to some people because they can always go online and see photos of your smiling face and be reminded of better times when you were alive, it's still incredibly strange to think about the fact that there is a profile just hanging out on Facebook that no one but you has ever, or will ever, log into again.

Sometimes I think that I would like to be frozen in time on my social media. That way my friends could still go and look at our fun times together if they wanted to. However, the feeling I get when I see the profiles of my own family members and friends who have passed away is still extremely unnerving and weird. Seeing the date of their last post, seeing the words "______ liked this photo on December 4th, 2014," understanding that everyone has actual proof of the things they cared about or were interested in before they died, strikes me as one of the most uncanny, unnatural things about the internet.

There is also the strange aspect of accidentally unfollowing or deleting someone who has passed away whilst cleaning out your friend list. What do you do then? You can't just send another friend request because it's going to remain pending forever and unless a family member has their login info -- you're just shut out of their last online days forever. It's strange.

I read somewhere once the exact number of profiles online that are considered "dead" (no pun intended, guys, come on) because their owners are no longer living. I suppose that somewhere along the line, the website creators have to purge the internet of all of the unused accounts, and I feel like that's probably an entirely other kind of traumatizing experience for people who regularly like to visit the pages of their deceased loved ones. Many people probably take a lot of comfort in being able to "message" others even though they know they won't get an answer...whether or not that is healthy behaviour is up for debate, but we won't get into that here.

I'm getting weird.

I do love the internet. I have at least four or five different accounts that I keep up with on a regular basis. I have hundreds of pictures of my friends, myself, my pets, my boyfriend, all up for the world to see. And I suppose that they'll all be there after I'm gone, just like this article will be. I don't know if that gives anyone peace of mind for what the world will be like for the people who loved them after they die, but for me?

It's just plain odd.