A video popped up in my Youtube recommendations recently that gave me pause. I didn’t recognise the name of the channel, or the man on the thumbnail, sat unbothered atop a log in a distinct yellow hunting jacket. Beside that image were two short words: “I’m Dead”.

It’s an omnipresent trope of fiction, and it’s a strange feeling seeing it cross into the real world. “As i’m recording this today, it is 20 December, 2023, and i’m recording this and giving Brad instructions to publish it upon my death. So if you’re watching me: i’m dead.” I never met the uploader, Paul Harrell. I never watched anything he made. I’d never even heard his name. But watching his last message a tear crossed my cheek nevertheless, an experience, judging by the video’s comments, that isn’t uncommon among people who happened to stumble upon it.

What makes it stranger is that, while, yes, a recording of a man speaking from the grave, “I’m Dead” is also a Youtube video, with all the trappings of the format. Mr Harrell makes note two minutes in that other creators have made claims of him with which he strongly disagrees, and bemoans (tongue planted in cheek) that he won’t be around to respond anymore. In a twist on the formula, he thanks the viewers for all the likes, comments, and subscriptions over the years — no point in beseeching for more, after all. I don’t point these quirks out to denigrate the man; by all accounts he seems to have been an upstanding chap with a passion for weaponry. But… I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words the cocktail of emotions that arises when someone jumps from talking about his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer to going “thanks for the likes”, all in the typical jolly cadence of online video.

Time comes for us all. Two of my most valiantly followed blogs are run by authors of fifty-nine and seventy-three; barring a rapid scientific breakthrough, i am near certain to outlive them. Videomakers trend younger; still, in just the past year, a cancer diagnosis and a stroke have passed my subscription feed. I don’t get torn up when a musician i love passes, but in this postmodern age, the internet begets a one-sided connection that feels a damned lot more like friendship than a vinyl record ever could. One by one, the first generation of internet creatives is dying — and, unless we remember them, their spirit will too.