I went to a wedding overseas recently (details deliberately concealed). Everything was great. The bride was awesome. The groom is a great friend of mine. The wedding was dope. All the pictures looked great.
There were the right number of people. Everyone wore the right clothes and said the right things. My friend, the groom, was an awesome guy who was a great friend to me and had tons of other friends. Very successful and social.
It wasn’t till the reception that I noticed anything amiss. As I went around the crowd, as I am wont to do, we did the usual chitter chatter. Asking how everyone met, where and so on.
The first person I met worked with the groom. For 6 months. The next knew him from a business networking group. For 8 months. And on it went.
Everyone in attendance had only known him for a short period of time. And this is a guy who is a poster child for having friends and being social. But we were in a big city in Asia and his friends were mostly expats. And expats move. I was his longest friend at 15 years. By far.
And ‘by far’ means about 15 times as long.
So even though he had a million zillion great friends in the world at large, his wedding was packed with people who had only recently had the pleasure of knowing him. Through no fault of his own, his wedding was packed with people he didn’t know that well.
He isn’t the kind of guy that people make up excuses not to come. He had a million friends who would have wanted to attend but simply weren’t in the country. Or even that region of the world.
And it made me sad.
Sad as I thought of all the great folk I’ve known living in Asia since the 80’s: Who just don’t happen to live where I live now. And all the fantastic memories we shared. Girls I knew. Guys I hung out with. Friends who did seriously crazy stuff with me and lived to tell the story. (not exaggerated lol)
I determined not to follow in my good friends footsteps.
I want a social media wedding (If I do decide to make the perilous choice) and I definitely want a social media funeral. (If Elon Musk doesn’t invent a time machine)
I want a big screen with people calling in. Telling stories. Livestreaming, Laughing. Tweeting. Putting embarrassing videos and pictures online.
Showing all my hypocrisy and pride. The good and the bad. Everything. If the real stories are told, it will be fun.
If anyone wants to work on a Social Media Funeral startup idea to bring this idea to life, let me know. (I just checked and I’m not the first one to think of this. But am still interested in discussing with friends)
