About a year ago, my friend and colleague Michael McWatters tweeted, “Oh no, if I die at this moment, my last tweet will have been about Andrew Breitbart…must think of something else. Beauty, science, altruism!” I replied, “@mmcwatters That would be an interesting site to make: the last tweets of famous people.”
In the weeks and months that ensued, we made good on our promise and built the site, which Michael brilliantly named, “The Tweet Hereafter.” As our lives become increasingly transparent on sites like Twitter and Facebook, we leave indelible marks on the Internet that can’t be erased once we die.
In March, 2012, conservative blowhard Andrew Breitbart famously sent an apologetic tweet less than an hour before he died of a heart attack. And now, a little less than a year later, beloved Olympian Oscar Pistorius has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, who just yesterday tweeted excitedly about her plans for Valentine’s Day.
We’ve been collecting tweets like this for over a year and have finally decided to publicize the site. The site is certainly morbid, sometimes interesting, quite often meaningless. But we hope it makes you think a little bit.