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Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Obitter

It dawned on me yesterday when I learned of Doris Day's death through social media that Twitter is one of the main places I check these days to find out who died. Actually to find out what celebrity died. No one seems to Tweet when some ordinary person dies.

So I wonder why no one has created a social media app that just has posts about who died. I was thinking, "OBITTER" would be a good name. A Google search does show the urban dictionary definition of Obitter as someone who "starts the day twittering the obituaries finding comfort knowing that people of lesser age are being consumed by the reaper."

The definition kind of captures the spirit of what I'm proposing, but I was thinking more of a literal app where people post actual obits and information about dead celebrities. I would be a way to cut through all of the other crap on Twitter that you don't want to see or read.

Speaking of Doris Day, I was actually surprised that she was still alive. Not too many Hollywood stars live to be 97-years old. And I just saw that Tim Conway died at age 85. Apparently he was holding out until Doris Day died. But we would have found all of this out sooner if there was a OBITTER app

There is a Dead People Server where you can look up whether a celebrity is dead or alive. It's a bit clunky and reminds me of list pages on the Internet in the 1990s, but it has lots of celebrities listed. Since it seems to be maintained by one person by hand, it isn't all that up-to-date. It still shows Glenn Campbell as being alive (he died in 2017). And Doris Day is still listed as alive. So I wouldn't rely on the Dead People Server to let you know the latest on who is dead or alive.

All the more reason for some bored developer to create OBITTER. I think people would be dying to use it.

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