Listen to Episode 8 here

Episode 8: In your opinion...

MORAN ZUR (Safe Beyond)

The CEO and Founder at SafeBeyond, a “digital time capsule” and online platform that allows users to record and store video, audio and written messages to be accessed posthumously by their heirs and loved ones. The idea for SafeBeyond was inspired by the sense of tragic uncertainty faced by Zur when his wife was suddenly diagnosed with brain cancer. Concerned that his then three year-old son would miss out on a lasting relationship/connection with his mother, Zur left his job of five years as Chief Executive Officer at Meitav Dash Trade (TASE member), one of the leading and largest investment houses in Israel, to create SafeBeyond. 

GENE NEWMAN (Everplans)

An Everplan is a secure, digital archive of everything your loved ones will need should something happen to you. It contains:

• Wills, Trusts, and insurance policies

• Important accounts and passwords

• Info about your home: bills, vendors, etc.

• Health and medical information

• Advance Directives and DNRs

• Final wishes and funeral preferences

BRIAN PATTERSON (Go Fish Digital)

Brian is a Partner and founder of Go Fish Digital.  With over ten years of digital marketing experience, he has a track record of developing SEO and reputation management strategies for companies of all sizes, from hyper-growth startups to large brands. He is a columnist for industry publication Search Engine Land and a contributor to Forbes, Yahoo, and Fox Business.

EVAN CARROLL (The Digital Beyond)

Evan Carroll is an author, keynote speaker and marketing technologist who works to make digital experiences more personal, more emotional and more effective. He co-created The Digital Beyond as a resource for your digital existence and what happens to it after your death. The Digital Beyond is the go-to source for archival, cultural, legal and technical insights to help you predict and plan for the future of your online content.

MUSIC ATTRIBUTION

transcript

SOUND FX: Quick tone To introduce the show

OPENING SEQUENCE - THE DIGITAL SELF

MUSIC: "EX 1" by Damon Boucher

BRIAN PATTERSON

I just did a quick search of a site that uses the census database to see how many people had your name...

D.S. MOSS

That name being Devin Moss. If you were to look around the neck of an American Serviceman or woman, you'd find dangling there a set of dog tags. The purpose, besides looking cool while playing beach volleyball, is to identify the dead body of the owner.

This thin piece of metal has 5 essential bits of information stamped into it about it's wearer: religion, Social Security number, branch of the military, blood type, first / middle initials and last name. And so, from the age of 18-to-23 my essential identifiers were Roman Catholic, USMC, A Positive, and D.S. Moss.

BRIAN PATTERSON

...With your name, there's roughly 14 people in the U.S. 14 people are fighting the same problem that you are when... people search their name.

D.S. MOSS

Professionally - which has evolved into digitally, I remain D.S. Moss. Devin Moss, which is also me, was supposed to be saved for friends and family in the real world. 

The line between the two, of course - has gotten a tad bit blurry and I now have what seems to be - an online identity crisis. 

Who Am I...digitally speaking?

BRIAN PATTERSON

I'm Brian Patterson. I'm a partner at Go Fish Digital, and what we do is help brands and individuals with their online identity…

I would say, in terms of what the relationship is between your digital life and your real life, it's probably...something like a Venn diagram, where there can be a heavy overlap between who you are in the real world and how that's reflected online, or there can be very minimal overlap.

D.S. MOSS

I do have an overlap issue, but that's not why I originally called Brian.

BRIAN PATTERSON

14 people are fighting the same problem that you are when... people search their name.

D.S. MOSS

and that problem is...

MUSIC: "Save the earth" by MIL KDU DES

D.S. MOSS

Devin Moss #15. When people search my name, a man not born with the name comes up on the first hundred or so pages - Devin Moss, the gay porn star. 

...That's right, someone chose my birth name as their porn name. And, now, since our digital identity is immortal, I want to make sure my legacy isn't confused with work such as: The Porne Identity or Hot Anal Boyz XXX. 

As Brian discussed with me the strategies to secure my digital legacy it became clear that despite the size of your overlap, digital is so integral to how we live, it must be managed for when we die.

EVAN

The difference with digital is that it's so new...it's so new for us that we're not sure how to handle it.

D.S. MOSS

That's Evan Carroll, co-author of Your Digital Afterlife as well as co-founder of the website The Digital Beyond, both great resources for digital legacy and afterlife issues.  

We're only minutes into this episode and I'm already annoyed by the word Digital, so I asked Evan to put some shape to it in this context.

EVAN

When I speak about this I often talk about in terms of, first, your computers and devices....

D.S. MOSS

Once you're gone, is your computer off limits or an open book? 

EVAN

...Then I talk about email specifically, because it's such a central part of our digital lives.

D.S. MOSS

The average American sends and receives 88 emails a day, that's over 32,000 a year. Are they the same as letters tucked away in a shoebox?  

EVAN

I talk about social media.

D.S. MOSS

Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail, Instagram, What happens when you die?

EVAN

Then I talk about the other forms of assets which actually may bring financial value to your estate. 

D.S. MOSS

Is a digital estate an actual thing? And how much could it actually be worth? 

MUSIC: "Wild Things" by YeYey

D.S. MOSS

Join me, Brian, Evan and other special guests as we go binary on an adventure into cyberspace where I plan my digital afterlife, reconcile my digital identity and go in go in search of Devin Moss #15, the gay porn star. All of this and more in episode 8 of The Adventures of Memento Mori: Digital Afterlife.  

OPENING BUMPER

MUSIC:  "Memento mori" by Mikey ballou

Female announcer

From The Jones Story Company, this is: THE ADVENTURES OF MEMENTO MORI, A Cynic's Guide for Learning to Live by Remembering to Die - the podcast that explores mortality. Here's your host D.S. Moss.

CHAPTER 1: KATE'S DIGITAL STORY

MUSIC: "BROKEN" by GLASS BOY

D.S. MOSS

One of the perks of hosting a show about death is that people now send me fascinating death-related articles. 

I love hearing from you so please keep your ideas coming...email the show or DM me with links on twitter or instagram @remembertodie

One of these articles sent to me was: Her Secret Story: I Discovered My Mom's Digital Life After Her Death. It's an essay written by Kate Brannen that was published in the Guardian this past Mother's Day. The essay talks about how, after losing her mother to cancer, Kate discovered ways to stay connected through the laptop her mom left behind.  

I did realize when I got her computer, I knew the weight of it... Every photo she ever got in an email was there... Yeah, as soon as I opened the computer, it was like my mom screaming at me.

D.S. MOSS

Turns out Kate Brannen lives right down the road and so I invited her over to talk about her experience. It's through her story that we'll explore the digital afterlife.

Before we cut back to Kate - Play along with me and imagine...You've inherited a parent or a spouse's laptop and you have access to everything on it.

Now, flip it...

SOUND: Whoosh 4 Low

D.S. MOSS

imagine that that parent or spouse or child inherits your laptop - exactly as it is right this second - with access to everything on it. 

Just let that stew. Back to Kate...

KATE

Whether it's emails, or texts, there are all of these trails that I know are there that I can go down, but I haven't wanted to... 

D.S. MOSS

The artifacts that she did explore and what her essay is about were her mother's bookmarks of all things. 

KATE

It...so clearly was the story of her, not her whole life, but the last 5 years of her life...

D.S. MOSS

The bookmarks served as thought breadcrumbs - a chronological map of what her mom was thinking, even through her illness. 

KATE

You can see she's making, not plans, but daydreaming about there were bookmarks for French classes in Provence, and cooking classes in Italy...

...There's all these modern churches, there's this, I think, Rothko chapel in Houston that she always wanted to go to...

...now I also am like, "Well I've got to go see that Rothko Chapel in Houston."

..."Actually there are going to be trips that come out to this that I'm going to go do and in doing so connect to her again.

MUSIC: "Borderline" BY DNVN

D.S. MOSS

By simply bookmarking her interests and inspirations, Kate's mom unintentionally left behind a beautiful way for her children to stay connected with her. 

D.S. MOSS

But what if? What if there were a way to intentional leave behind digital breadcrumbs for your loved ones to find? What if you could curate your digital legacy and publish content from beyond the grave?

CHAPTER 3: SAFE BEYOND

D.S. MOSS

Well, of course you can. It's 2016.

MORAN

My name is Moran Zur. I am the founder of SafeBeyond...

D.S. MOSS

SafeBeyond is a free legacy management platform that helps you store content and release it posthumously.

MORAN

We will allow you to capture the meaningful content, and create it and store it for your loved ones, and it will be released in the most important moments when they'll need you the most when you're already gone, or it can be the moment, or it can be the place...

D.S. MOSS

So, in preparation for the end, I now have a platform where I can create and store messages that can be published after I'm gone.  

MORAN

It can be for any future event, like your son's future wedding or your son's graduation or even just for a specific birthday or first Christmas without you. 

D.S. MOSS

Or the message can be triggered when a loved one arrives at a specific location, such as the Rothko Chapel. 

D.S. MOSS

I fear that all of my messages would be half-baked jokes. So...for the sake of my mother's mental and emotional health, I will refrain from sending a posthumous Christmas greeting.  

I see the value in this service for those that have terminal illnesses, those who know what they want their last words to be, but for those that are not, how do compel a healthy 35-year-old to actually plan for their death and create content for the afterlife? 

MORAN

Do you have kids yourself, Devin?

D.S. MOSS_MONO

I don't. No.

MORAN

Mostly the initial reaction of people when they have the first kid born, ...they will go, and they'll create a life insurance policy for him because they understand there is now this fragile little baby that is so dependent on them... This only takes care of the economical aspect while we're neglecting the emotional part of it...I believe that every person is obligated to live his words of wisdom and some comforting for his loved ones especially for kids in order to make sure that you will be part of their life in case something happened to you...

D.S. MOSS

So think of it as emotional life insurance. Check it out for yourself and sign up for a free account at www.safebeyond.com 

MORAN

When you look far into the future, you will see a very different world that all the memories or all the history that we view today about people that have been living in this world have been described sometimes in books, but we allow now every person in the digital age to have his own legacy maintained forever.

MUSIC: "Down to the street" BY cory gray

INTERLUDE (b): DIGITAL LEGACY INTRO

D.S. MOSS

But....what about making a digital legacy disappear forever? Say, for instance, a gay porn star who stole your name? 

BRIAN PATTERSON

It will definitely take time. I think it would take a lot of money, if you're looking to completely wipe him off of the first page or the first 2 pages of Google. It could take a lot of time and commitment...

D.S. MOSS

Time, money and commitment. Shit. I'm fucked. 

CALL TO ACTION 1

MUSIC: Emergency exit by Dr. frankenstein 

FEMALE ANNOUNCER

Ever wonder what Elvis's last words were or the most outrageous methods of living forever? Discover titillating titbits about mortality by visiting "The Adventures of Memento Mori" YouTube channel and be the slightly odd yet endlessly fascinating conversationalist at your next party.

And be sure to stay up to date with the quest for enlightenment on Instagram and Twitter by following @remembertodie.

All of this, and more, can be found on our site remembertodie.com. And now, back to show...

MUSIC:"Wind Tunnel" By Cory Gray

INTERLUDE (a): RUTHIE ON THE STREET

D.S. MOSS

Before the break we were talking with Moran from Safe Beyond about posthumously publishing content for your loved ones.

Until I start having kids, however, I've decided not to send messages. But what about you? I asked Ruthie to find out.... 

SOUND: SFX studio recording double bleep

SOUND:NYC_Diner_Crowd

Ruthie

I went out on the streets of New York to ask the general public a question about death...

...If you died today but could schedule a posthumous tweet beforehand; what would it say and when would you post it?

WOMAN

...there's really not a whole lot I haven't said and I think I wouldn't, I think I wouldn't. I like the Irish goodbye.

RUTHIE

Out the back door.

Man

So technically, to use a social media or modern technology term you'd just ghost out...

WOMAN

Ohhhhhh

WOMAN

If I had to posthumously tweet myself after my death I think I'd schedule it for like two days after my family announced my death and I'd be like 'Yo, where Jesus at?' #google maps #navigation #melgibson

MAN

If you're reading this, please don't like it because I'm dead. And I might take that the wrong way.

SOUND: segment close out SFX

CHAPTER 4: SOCIAL MEDIA

D.S. MOSS

Thank you Ruthie...And speaking of Twitter let's talk about what happens to a person's social media after they pass. 

KATE

...For social media, my mom still has a Twitter account, Facebook account, a Instagram account, and they're all just sitting there. 

D.S. MOSS

Kate brings up a point that is the most common and often the most awkward part of your digital afterlife...what happens to your social media? A friend and colleague of mine passed a few years ago and he'll still pop up every once and while on LinkedIn - granted LinkedIn is creepy weird to begin with, but being reminded of him in that context is terribly unsettling to me. And LinkedIn, as with Instagram and Twitter is passive, unlike Facebook...

KATE

...her having a Facebook profile can screw with you in different ways in terms of like, "Do you want to share this memory with Cathy Brannen?" or "Here's a memory. Your Facebook friendship is three years old with Cathy Brannen." You're like, "What?" Stuff like that... It can bother you.

D.S. MOSS

I'm not on Facebook, but for the other billion people that are, I asked Evan Carrol of The Digital Beyond what needs to be done to prep so our loved ones don't get Facebook alerts or served ads from us after we go. 

EVAN

For issues of when you pass away, they suggest you use a relatively new feature...called Legacy Contacts. What Legacy Contacts allows you to do is specify someone, another Facebook user, who will have certain powers over your Facebook page once you pass away. You can allow them to do things like download your account information. They can approve new friends. They can append posts to the top of the page. They can essentially serve as afor your Facebook page going forward.

D.S. MOSS

Your legacy contact can even change your profile pic after you die. If that is something that needs to be done. But assuming that like most people, you don't plan on life after you're gone and therefore have ignored the legacy contact settings, and then you die. What then?

EVAN

Any person who is friends with the deceased has the ability to request that account be memorialized. Once an account is memorialized, Facebook will go through and verify that the request is legitimate. After it's approved, they will disable the account such that that username can no longer log in. They will convert the page into a memorial where existing friends can see the comments and can continue to interact on that page.

D.S. MOSS

And once memorialized the account will no longer spam ads or anniversary alerts preventing unwelcome reminders that the person has passed. In some cases, Facebook will honor a next of kin request to delete the account, but this isn't always a guarantee. So - if you want a say in what happens to your Facebook profile when you die, go set your legacy settings.

OK, on to Google?

EVAN

Google has what they call an inactive account manager. An inactive account manager isn't a trigger based upon death.

D.S. MOSS

Death to Google means being inactive. You have the option of setting the inactive time to 30, 60, or 90 days.  

EVAN

What they will do is they will carry out the actions that you specified. You can choose to have your Google account deleted. You can choose to have specific types of information available to a legacy contact. For instance, I can specify that my next of kin receive all of my email messages once I'm gone. 

D.S. MOSS

So, it turns out the custodians (as the platforms are referred to) are creating solutions for your digital afterlife. There's even legislation being put forward to protect your personal data once you die. But...

EVAN

I don't think fundamentally that individuals are more worried about it.

MUSIC: "Dust and room" by glass boy

D.S. MOSS

And so, we circle back to the same question that I asked Moran earlier: How do you compel someone who is healthy to prep for death? 

EVAN

It'll matter to your friends. It'll matter to your family. I encourage folks to not think about what they want, but rather think about what the effects may be on their family. 

CHAPTER 5: DIGITAL ESTATE

GENE

There was a study done where they found out that people valued their digital estate at around $55,000.

D.S. MOSS

Now that's compelling.

GENE

When you start assigning value to it, then it becomes more real to some people...

D.S. MOSS

We're back with Gene Newman from Everplans.com who in episode 1 helped me administratively plan my death. When it comes to managing my digital estate I want to make sure I'm not leaving anything out. So let's go through this one more time.

GENE

...first...organizing all the stuff you have.

D.S. MOSS

Done. 

Then inventory your digital assets and add value to them. 

GENE

...put money on it, and all of a sudden it becomes a real thing that you wouldn't just want to throw away.

D.S. MOSS

This was sorta done, but I had left out all the domains and websites I own, which is about 20, but unless www.seriouslybaked.com goes for 54,000 dollars my digital estate is valued well below average.

If you discover you have valuable digital intellectual property, domain names or other digital assets put them in your will.     

GENE

I think the next step is saying what you want done with these accounts. Recognizing what matters, and what doesn't.

D.S. MOSS

Done. This is everything from social media to bank accounts to email.

GENE

There are ways to use services, like a password stored service or other online safety deposit box, to store this information, and then provide access to it to your family at the appropriate time.

D.S. MOSS

I have since started using a password manager for everything. I have the master password written on an index card that is locked away in my safe and I've given access to...my digital executor.  

GENE

A digital executor, is as valuable as a regular executor, because you need someone to sort through this and make sure that it's accounted for in some way....

D.S. MOSS

Gene also refers to this person as your digital cleaner.

GENE

A person who could go in and take care of all the browser history and all the questionable stuff on a computer ..." It could be as simple as, "Find my three computers and throw them in the river, because they should be seen by no person. I don't want any of this stuff getting out.

D.S. MOSS

Essentially, the Digital Executor is like your own digital version of The Wolf.

SOUND: The Wolf

MUSIC: "The gilded age" By glass boy

D.S. MOSS

So, that's it. Managing your digital estate is simply setting legacy account info for your social media, consolidating your digital artifacts, understanding your digital worth, protecting it and giving your digital executor access. Easy breezy.

D.S. MOSS

But what happens if you haven't arranged for The Wolf to throw your laptop in the river and it's just sitting there on your desk? Should people look?

KATE

It never occurred to me that this was controversial that I'd done something controversial...

CHAPTER 6: PRIVACY

D.S. MOSS

Here's where Kate's story takes an interesting turn. After she published the essay online there was a surprising number of negative comments. 

KATE

There were probably 50/50 of people being like oh this is really moving to people being like this is so creepy like how dare she invade her mother's privacy.

Person 1

What if you found something in her search history that changes your perception of your mother?

Person 2

Perhaps she forgot or didn't know how? Maybe it never even crossed her mind. Inaction is NOT evidence of permission.

Person 3

The dead still have rights and you violated hers. 

D.S. MOSS

Legally speaking, out of all of our defined rights of privacy only one of them persists after death. That is the right of publicity. It means that after you die no one can use your image to promote their product or to quote you. Others like slander or the notion that your private affairs shouldn't be public actually disappears legally when you die. 

KATE

There's this whole debate if my kids went into my computer they wouldn't like what they would find and I wouldn't want that to change their memory of me and then people being like well you don't bookmark porn sites and someone would be like yeah I do.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

People don't bookmark porn sites. Who does that? Seriously.

KATE

I don't know. It was kind of like she didn't know what she would find on her mom's computer. You shouldn't even go looking...

... She should have wiped that drive clean immediately, she shouldn't have access to her photos, that's her private life.

EVAN

If you pause and think about the way things have been done for thousands of years, someone had to go through all of our physical things before we passed away. Every piece of paper we have. Every book we have on the shelf. Every piece of furniture in our home. That had to be cleared away to make room for the next human that needs to occupy that space on earth...

........In the digital world, it does not have to be discarded. It can be kept, and it can be kept intact. 

D.S. MOSS

Outside of just the massive amount of artifacts we all create now, is a laptop really all that different than a box in the closet?

Or has the freedom to exercise any and all curiosity that the internet provides changed that? 

gene

A lot of times it could be someone who just has weird or strange proclivities that, if their kids found out about it, they might be, like, "Ugh, that's what dad's into?" 

D.S. MOSS

Thank you, Gene, for the reminder...

...Dad, please take this opportunity to clean any questionable proclivities off your computer.  

GENE

I think that personal privacy, it could be shady, could be weird, it could be odd. It's also how it's construed by some people. They find it, and if someone does say, "Look, yes, I was really good and I gave to charity and did that, but I also had some weird twists and kinks that I did."...

It's the fact that people show up for Thanksgiving, and they're like, "Hey, did you hear what we found on that computer?"

D.S. MOSS_MONO

That sounds like the best Thanksgiving conversation I could possibly imagine.

EVAN

If I can add to that, what happens if your mother, in this case, was of historical significance? It's through the personal communication of note-worthy or otherwise famous people that we understand history in the present day.

D.S. MOSS

That's a great point. Without the diary of Alexander Hamilton we would've never discovered his talent as a songwriter. 

MUSIC: "Grace" by Damon Boucher

D.S. MOSS

Now, are my emails of historical significance? Hardly. But I have absolutely no problem with those closest to me seeing them.... or my browser history... or my bookmarks or anything else in my digital estate. Kinks and proclivities included.

EVAN

My mantra is that whatever you want to remain hidden will become accessible, and whatever you want to remain accessible may become hidden in some ways. If you want to have a say, it's your opportunity to plan ahead and make sure you have that say. 

D.S. MOSS

Exactly!...

So what do you think? Is it morally wrong to go through a loved one's laptop after they pass? If you died right now would you be cool with your children or parents seeing what's on it? I'm curious to hear what you think so please go to remember.com/episode8 and add your opinion. 

Back with more Digital Legacy after this...

CALL TO ACTION 2

MUSIC: "O Cerebro do Morto" by Dr. Frankenstein 

FEMALE ANNOUNCER

The Adventures of Memento Mori is an independent podcast and we could use your support. Shop with us. Go to remembertodie.com/shop and buy some merchandise. Get your entire family a "This could be my last cup of coffee" mug or be the first one on your block to sport a Mori "Death! Yo." baby tee.   

CHAPTER 7: DIGITAL LEGACY FO REAL

MUSIC: "EX 2" By Damon Boucher

D.S. MOSS_MONO

Before we dive into sorting out my digital legacy, I want to thank Kate Brannen for not only sharing her story, but allowing me to use it to illustrate the things to think about for one's digital afterlife. It's incredibly generous of her and I appreciate it. 

Ok. Now on to my Devin Moss gay porn star problem. Earlier we were talking with Brian Patterson from GoFish - the online identity consultant - and he was helping me with a strategy to take my name back. 

BRIAN PATTERSON

What do you do? Okay, so you have the 2 name issue going on. Do you want to get into that first?

D.S. MOSS

Brian was pretty straight forward in telling me that the real issue at hand was the lack of clarity of who I was and who I wanted to be. 

BRIAN PATTERSON

You have potentially 3 solutions for your digital identity.

D.S. MOSS

Option 1

BRIAN PATTERSON

You can define yourself as D.S. Moss everywhere online, and then also try to do that in real life...

D.S. MOSS

Option 2

BRIAN PATTERSON

You can go with Devin Moss and fight this problem head-on.

D.S. MOSS

No pun intended.

BRIAN PATTERSON

The third option is to use both, but really, that's really complicated to do, to try to train Google that you have 2 different names but are the same entity...

...Really, picking one or the other makes the most sense.

music: "Analog" by Jon Luc Hefferman

BRIAN PATTERSON

I mean, I think the big takeaway is that your issue is super unique. Not because it's a gay porn star who ranks for your name, but because of you having 2 names that you could potentially go by. 

D.S. MOSS

Brian is right and I choose D.S. Moss. The truth is, I didn't want to be Devin Moss online I just didn't want him to be Devin Moss. What if I'm applying for a job or old high school friends and they google Devin Moss and see this? He besmirched my name. But in an age of personal branding and life curation, this is a good lesson to not take yourself so seriously. And as far as my Digital Legacy is concerned, I actually no longer care. 

However...

CHAPTER 8: FINDING DEVIN MOSS

D.S. MOSS

I really want to know why this dude chose my name as his porn name.

Alex

It is pretty interesting to see porn names. There's some really great ones and then, not to disparage your name, but Devin Moss is just not a porn name to me.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

It's not a porn name to anybody. It's because it's not a porn name.

D.S. MOSS

As we all know your porn name is the name of your first dog followed by the name of the street you grew up on. Mine would be Gator Bradford. I'm not, at all, convinced this dude had a dog named Devin and grew up on Moss street. There's more to this story and so I tasked Alex, my research assistant, to find him.

MUSIC: "Save the Earth" By MIL KDU DES

ALEX

When I was looking him up, I typed in Devin Moss and, like you said, immediately hundreds of pages of just really prolific work. I guess he even won an award for a best.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

At least he was good.

ALEX

Yeah. If you look at the pictures it's hard for him to not be good. He's famous for his size, I guess you could say. 

D.S. MOSS

Alex spent weeks clicking links going down one rabbit hole to the next trying to find the real identity of Devin Moss. And then finally, a lead... 

ALEX

I found the Wikipedia of porn...where I found his government name... 

D.S. MOSS_MONO

What's his government name?

ALEX

According to Wikipedia porn it's Timothy Parks-Lynch.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

Which is a far better porn name than my name.

D.S. MOSS

But even with his real name, Alex ran into dead end after dead end. Then he started to reach out to the production companies and fellow cast members that Timothy Parks-Lynch had worked with.

ALEX

The one ... I guess it was City Boys Entertainment, which is the studio that discovered him. The founder/director of it said, "Hey, I would love to help, but Devin Moss retired and I have no way of getting in contact with him."

D.S. MOSS

He retired in 2011 and then just fell off the map without a trace. All leads went cold. It was time to give up. I needed Alex to research Mass Extinction events and couldn't afford to spend any more time on this. And then...

...he got an email. One of Devin Moss's co-stars respond and is still in touch with him. 

He passed along the podcast and Timothy Parks-Lynch (bleep out name) has received an invitation for an interview. We're still waiting. 

ALEX

You find out the meaning of life when you track down your internet doppelgänger.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

That'd be weird, but life is weird...

D.S. MOSS

He doesn't look like me?

ALEX

Uh-uh (negative). Yeah, he's a twink.

D.S. MOSS_MONO

Thank you for saying that I don't look like a twink.

MUSIC: "3 in Raw" by jazzafari

OUTRO

D.S. MOSS

Thanks for joining me on another episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori....How big is that venn diagram overlap between our real lives and digital lives? Big enough to manage it for when we die. 

Thanks to Kate Brannen, Brain Patterson from GoFish, Evan Carrol from The Digital Beyond, Moran Zur from Safe Beyond, Gene Newman from Everplans and Alex.  

I am D.S. Moss. Back again in two weeks for more...The Adventures of Memento Mori.

CLOSING BUMPER

MUSIC: End with our theme music

FEMALE ANNOUNCER

The episode was produced by Josh Heilbronner and D.S. Moss Theme music composed by Mikey Ballou. This has been a production of The Jones Story Company. Until the next time... remember to die.