Megan Garber writes in The Atlantic (What’s an Obituary For?) that the purpose of an obituary is not to humanize, but to document “somebody’s broad impact on society … to aggrandize. To idealize. To strip people of their circumstantial banalities and elevate them to the status of models and standards and heroes — figures who transcend their own ordinariness.”

Thanks to Instagram and other social media platforms, we already strip ourselves of our circumstantial banalities and elevate ourselves to the status of models and standards of heroes. Which means we can leave redundant bullet-point, hero-making obituaries behind. Instead, we can create obitogies for those we love, and we can load them up with the things that humanize people, the things that make us love (or affectionately laugh at) them and that we’ll most remember when they’re gone – the meticulous way they stacked their bowls, their love for chocolate (unless it was in a muffin), their refusal to use any recipe that didn’t come from The Joy of Cooking…

Even those who don’t offer part of themselves on social media will be poorly served by a traditional obituary. An obituary chronicles the steps taken in a life, yes, but a eulogy celebrates the soul. Only the braiding of the two in an obitogy will paint a picture as rich and as unique as the individual.

Schools, jobs, trophies, and awards will never be the whole of a person. Even a person whose only goal in life is to attend the best schools, succeed at all the jobs, win all the trophies, and earn the best awards has tiny, little human details. She would only use the six-subject spiral notebooks to prepare for exams…