About whowasthisguy

whowasthisguy is a social network for the departed — a quiet, respectful corner of the web where the people we've lost are remembered, searched, and shared.

Why we built this

Obituaries used to live on paper. They told a life in a few column inches and were gone by the weekend. We think every person deserves a longer, richer record — a place that belongs to their family and their community, not to a local paper's archive that may or may not still be online in twenty years.

So we built a memorial platform that is free for every family, forever. No tiers. No paywalls. No surprise upgrades to "keep the page alive." You write the memorial, you upload the photos, and the page stays up.

What you'll find here

Two kinds of pages live side by side on whowasthisguy:

• Family memorials. Created by relatives and friends. Always free. Private where you want privacy, public where you want people to find them. Photos, stories, guest book, timeline.
• Notable lives. Curated pages for people whose deaths were reported publicly — artists, scientists, athletes, writers, public servants. These pages carry advertising, and the revenue is what keeps the rest of the site free.

Our principles

• Dignity first. We do not auto-generate obituaries from scraped data. Real words about real people, written by real people or carefully sourced from reliable references.
• Free for families, forever. If you are writing a memorial for someone you loved, we will never ask you for money.
• Honest revenue. Ads appear only on notable-life pages. They do not follow you onto family memorials.
• Multilingual by default. Every memorial and every public page can be read in English, German, French, and Spanish, with more languages on the way.
• Yours to control. If you want a memorial removed, we will remove it — no appeals, no forms to mail.

A note on grief

We know there is no such thing as a "user journey" when you are grieving. We have tried to build something that stays out of your way, lets you say what you need to say, and does not pester you with notifications or upsells. If we are failing at any of that, please tell us.