Daibutsu, Kamakura

Daibutsu, Kamakura
Daibutsu in Kamakura, June 2010. There were thousands of school kids visiting that day. It was still great fun.

Friday, December 11, 2009

End your social networking life with Seppukoo


If Facebook is taking over your life, a new website is offering you a way out.
Seppukoo.com offers ritual suicide for Facebook users’ virtual profiles by deactivating their account. If you’re willing to end it all, the site will feature a RIP memorial page on its site and sends the page to all your Facebook friends.

The site is named after the Japanese samurai act of "seppuku” or ritual suicide by plunging a sword into their stomach.

"As the seppuku restores the samurai's honour as a warrior, Seppukoo.com deals with the liberation of the digital body," the site says.

The design and layout of Seppukoo.com is strikingly similar to Facebook – the exception being that Seppukoo is red and gray, while Facebook is blue and white. Another small point of differentiation: Seppukoo features paintings of sword-wielding samurai.

To take the final step, you simply type in the same information you use to log onto your Facebook account including e-mail address and password. (The site says it does not save the information.) Then choose one of six templates for the memorial page and compose your “last words.” After that’s entered: curtains. The profile is deactivated. (If you want back on Facebook, just log in and your account is reactivated.)

Friends can still write on your memorial page. Also, you get points for recruiting others to commit "seppukoo" and follow you into the virtual netherworld. The site keeps score and lists the point leaders.



Reported from the LA Times

9 comments:

  1. Now if only that would work on MySpace!

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  2. And every other social networking site.

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  3. maybe I'll create a facebook page just to commit seppukoo....

    -what a cute way to say, "digitally cut your own belly open and spill your guts...."

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  4. Hey, that is a good idea. I think I will do that too.

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  5. Facebook users are now saying that they are getting blocked from sharing Seppukoo.com with friends.

    A pop-up error message appears if you even try to put the site URL in a comment:

    “Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content

    Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.”

    Simon Axten, spokesman for Facebook, said in an e-mail that Facebook has an automated system that blocks links for known spam, malware and phishing sites.

    “The same system that blocks these links may also be deployed for sites that violate our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” Axten said. “This particular site asks for log-in credentials, scrapes Facebook pages and spams users, all of which are violations.”

    Guy McMuster, art director for the group that runs Seppukoo.com, said in an e-mail that any mention of the site has been blocked since yesterday. Now, he said, “we're studying a counter-strategy.”

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  6. sigh,

    back to the old fashioned way......

    hehehe

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  7. I'm sure that Seppukoo will conduct a counter attack like the samurai of old.

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  8. Yes, running into a hail of gunfire with much splendor!

    HA!

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