Young Americans are all too familiar with death. Overdoses. Suicides. School shootings. For Genz, these phenomena are daily trending topics. It’s only natural that people under 25 have developed radically different perspectives on death from previous generations. Members of Gen Z are not paying for obituaries in a newspaper. They are engaging with loss in new ways, especially on TikTok, where #DeathTok posts have been viewed billions of times. Join @hospicenursejulie, RN and TikTok phenom, and Sara Deren, the award-winning CEO of Experience Camps, which serves grieving children, for a conversation about death and the next generation hosted by Life is Beautiful founder and Chptr CEO Rehan Chaudry. Beyond the conference hall, street artist Camille Walala will also create an interactive mural.

1. Resources for SXSW Panel
#DeathTok: How Gen Z Is Reimagining Grief,
Loss, and Remembrance in America July 2022

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Our life stories matter and
deserve to be remembered
long after we are gone.

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Chptr is a mobile-first
memorialization platform to
gather, share, and hold memories
for loved ones lost.
Our mission is to help people
create lasting legacies for the
ones they love so their stores
can inspire generations to come.

4. #DeathTok and #GriefTok
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What Is #DeathTok and #GriefTok?
Grief has become a subgenre on the app,
with TikTokkers sharing stories of death and
remembering lost loved ones through
photographs, video, and narration.
Here, users openly and honestly share their
stories of living with grief. It is meant to be a
nonjudgmental space where no one has to
explain how grief feels as everyone else who
is grieving already understands.
Popular categories of content include:
personal stories about loss, reenactments of
what living with grief feels like, anecdotes
from therapy, and How-To content.
User also inject humor into things like
end-of-life care, funeral arrangements, and
death-worker mishaps, the goal of which is
to bring comfort to people suffering through
grief and loss, and clarity to those who are
curious about an oft-avoided topic.

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Hashtags
#rip – 51B views
#funeral – 2.4B views
#grief – 2B views
#loss – 2B views
#tribute – 848M views
#griefjourney – 543M views
#memorial – 483M views
#griefandloss – 445M views
#inmemory – 136M views
#deathtok – 127M views
#grieftok – 66M views
#inmemoryof – 19M
#obituary – 7M

7. @Micheline.Maalouf – 1.1M followers; 21M likes (trauma therapist)
@deathscience – 1.1M followers; 8.4M likes (media)
@rightlyroyce – 1M followers; 31M likes (brand by grieving parents)
@hospicenursejulie – 910.5KK followers; 8.6M likes (hospice nurse)
@before.the.coffin – 488K followers; 11.5M likes (mortician makeup artist)
@lovee.miss.lauren – 484K followers; 10M likes (mortician)
@hospicenursepenny – 380K followers; 6.6M likes (hospice nurse)
@strongtherapy – 355K followers; 7M likes (therapist)
@emily_movesthru_grief – 200K followers; 5M likes (widowed wife)
@southofthe49th – 210K followers; 8M likes (widowed father)
@emilepower_ 175K followers; 3.3M likes (memorial artist)
@the.death.empath – 121K followers; 1.5M likes (death doula)
@mimithemortitian – 48K followers; 909K likes (mortician)
@dearellie_ – 42K followers; 1.1M likes (mom experiencing loss)
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Popular accounts

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Notable subjects — Raw emotional moments

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Notable subjects — Grief journeys and reenactments

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Notable subjects — Nurse and mortician stories

11. #DeathTok and SXSW
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#DeathTok: How Gen Z Is Reimagining Grief,
Loss, and Remembrance in America
Young Americans are all too familiar with
death. Overdoses. Suicides. School
shootings. For Genz, these phenomena are
daily trending topics. It’s only natural that
people under 25 have developed radically
different perspectives on death from
previous generations.
Members of Gen Z are not paying for
obituaries in a newspaper. They are engaging
with loss in new ways, especially on TikTok,
where #DeathTok posts have been viewed
billions of times.
Join @hospicenursejulie, RN and TikTok
phenom, and Sara Deren, the award-winning
CEO of Experience Camps, which serves
grieving children, for a conversation about
death and the next generation hosted by Life
is Beautiful founder and Chptr CEO Rehan
Chaudry. Beyond the conference hall, street
artist Camille Walala will also create an
interactive mural.

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Speakers
Join @hospicenursejulie, RN and TikTok
phenom, and Sara Deren, the
award-winning CEO of Experience Camps,
which serves grieving children, for a
conversation about death and the next
generation hosted by Life is Beautiful
founder and Chptr CEO Rehan Chaudry.
We’ve worked with gun regulation activist
X Gonzales and her to join the
conversation.

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IRL
Taking this topic beyond the conference hall,
with French street artist Camille Walala will
also create an interactive mural that invites
all SXSW attendees to engage in a new kind
of conversation about death and loss.

15. Appendix
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Relevant Reading
Death is no laughing matter. But on DeathTok it is.
The Atlantic, Feb 2022
#GriefTok allows TikTokkers to celebrate life and express loss
Mashable, Oct 2021
TikTok is giving us a platform to talk about grief
Refinery29, May 2021

17. Thank you
chptr.com