Getting Buried With Your Cell Phone Is Newest Funeral Trend

The latest trend sweeping the dead-people nation is to get buried with your favorite mobile device. We know this because the publisher of American Funeral Director magazine (yes, it exists) says it’s the newest cool thing to do at your funeral (apparently Angel Medina failed to kickstart the “standing up at your own wake” trend). The cell burial trend hit big in South Africa, Australia and the UK and is now catching on in America. In most cases it’s the deceased people who asked their families to make sure that when they were gone, their most treasured device (usually their cell) would get tucked into the casket with them. What, just in case Johnny Depp finally decides to call? “I wouldn’t miss that for the (after)world!” we can imagine Ms. Dead Person saying.

There are two main reasons why this trend is so popular. The obvious one is that we’re all total cell phone addicts who turn into terrified children the second we can’t find our phones. Fifteen years ago we knew all our best friends’ and family’s numbers by heart, and now we can barely remember our own. Without a cell phone we feel disconnected and powerless, so we have come to think of our phone as a necessary extension of our body.

Penny Sansevieri, a 44-year-old publicist from San Diego, Calif., says she already takes her BlackBerry with her everywhere, “My BlackBerry is like a third arm,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I be buried with it?”

People are also getting buried with their iPods and Gameboys, which seems somehow both sad and cool. Like, it’s nice that you identify with something creative like music or gaming, but really… is this what you want archaeologists to find in hundreds of years? And they don’t even have the excuse of being silly ancient peoples who thought you would need your household crap in “the next world.”

The other big reason that people want to be buried with their phones is comfort. The worst part about death is being separated from the people you love, so even though it’s a purely symbolic gesture, it maybe would make us feel a bit better if we could call and leave voicemail in Grandma’s casket. Hopefully we’re not deluded enough to think she’ll check it, but still… it could be comforting, we guess.

[Funeral home director] Frank Perman says phone calls to the dead aren’t that uncommon. “We had a young man die this past summer and they put his cell phone in the casket for the viewing and it rang constantly. It was turned to silent, but you could see the phone light up so you knew people were calling. And they were leaving messages. They knew he was dead, but they were still calling.”

On the other hand, this whole trend annoys us because sometimes, people just can’t be reached. This idea that you should be able to access anyone, anywhere, takes all the mystery and fun out of life. Remember vacations before global internet access and cell service? When it was all about the telegrams? “Dear Boss STOP have arrived Jamaica STOP tragically, have broken leg and am forced to stay extra month STOP”

One grieving wife obviously doesn’t get this way of looking at life:

Marion Seltzer buried [her husband] with his phone and a fully charged battery [and] she continues to pay the monthly phone bill. She also had his cell phone number carved onto his headstone so others can call him, too.

What would you want to be buried with? A curling iron? The engine from your fabulous Escalade? Perhaps a tiny boombox so that those walking by will hear “Single Ladies” coming faintly from the ground?

Burials with smartphones and Gameboys [Boing Boing]

Bury me with my cell phone [MSNBC]