Famous last tweets captured
2013-02-16 10:28
Washington - Someone's famous last words are now likely
to be famous last tweets.
A blog launched this week, thetweethereafter.com,
captures some of those final 140-character comments as part of an unusual
tribute to the newly departed.
"What do you have up your sleeve for your love
tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay," was the final message from Reeva
Steenkamp, the model and girlfriend of South African Olympic star Oscar
Pistorius, who was killed in a Valentine's Day shooting in which her boyfriend
is charged.
Michael McWatters, a technology professional, said he had
been collecting these tweets with colleague Jamie Forrest, "not sure
whether our project was something we really wanted to announce formally or
not."
But he said the "grim tragedy" in South Africa
prompted them to make the site public.
"In many of the tweets there you'll likely find no
deep meaning. In others, however, lie fascinating, inspiring, frightening, and
perhaps tragic insights," he said.
Caleb Moore, a snowmobile racer who died of injuries
sustained in a crash during the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, said in his
last twitter message, "Check out my fan page!" and provided a link to
a Facebook site.
Aaron Swartz, the internet freedom activist who committed
suicide as he faced criminal prosecution, also wrote an innocuous message in
his final tweet.
"Diehl, Rittenhouse, Patterson, Ross, Sims," he
wrote in response to a question, "what are your top five US Mint
directors?" during a discussion on #mintthecoin, a topic related to a potential
trillion-dollar coin which could be minted to avoid a US budget crisis.
Spanish mountain biker Inaki Lejarreta, 29, wrote a
somewhat more ominous last tweet before being fatally injured by a car:
"Windy morning. It looks dangerous to do outside training, so I start with
Gym and after that, we'll see."
Forrest said of the project, "As our lives become
increasingly transparent on sites like Twitter and Facebook, we leave indelible
marks on the Internet that can't be erased once we die."
He said the idea was sparked a year ago when
"conservative blowhard Andrew Breitbart famously sent an apologetic tweet
less than an hour before he died of a heart attack."
"The site is certainly morbid, sometimes
interesting, quite often meaningless. But we hope it makes you think a little
bit," Forrest said.
- SAPA
