Just over two years ago, a friend of mine died in their sleep. It was unexpected. Let’s call them Ash, although it’s not their real name. They were incredibly funny, emotionally open, and kind. And because Ash and I were friends on Steam, I know exactly how many days it’s been since they died, just like I know what they were doing before they went to bed that night. They were playing Sea Of Thieves.
Many times over the last two years, I have looked at Ash’s Steam profile and the games they played the most, and felt a desire to play them too. It’s a desire I can’t really explain, but to me, the record of what Ash was playing feels like not only an authentic record of who they were, but also a more present one. At the same time, I wonder if it’s just me being terribly self-involved, inventing an extant connection in a collection of curated materials, rather than in something real.
Since social media exploded, almost anyone who dies leaves virtual footprints to follow. How authentic is someone’s Steam profile as an expression of who they are or were? I asked the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), a multidisciplinary department at the University of Oxford that conducts research on, among other things, how the internet interacts with our daily lives, if this can be pinned down and dissected by science.