There’s nothing simple, let alone fun or glamorous, about death – but a flamingo-colored casket or bowling pin-shaped bowl suggests otherwise.
An Addams Family-esque funeral service is not something for Dan Madden, a 23-year-old funeral director who owns Ohio-based Stark Memorial Funeral Home.
Instead, when mourners reluctantly enter his funeral home to arrange their loved one’s services, they are met with hot red caskets that, of course, have the option to customize their interior – a stark contrast to the sad scene.
In an effort to “do the care of death [the planning of post-death services] less taboo” and more fun, Madden offers wild, bare-bones funeral clothes, both in-house and on his FashUrns website, where the bereaved can buy everything from butterflies to Star Wars-themed ships, and get millions of social media views for it.
When she shared her death-focused work online, comments on Madden’s videos encouraged her to offer mourners something less sad and more upbeat.
“People kept asking if there were different options out there, things that were more different, more colorful, not the same traditional options they were used to,” he told The Post.
“Most people want something that feels unusual and personal – something bold, colorful, or different that reflects their personality or the personality of someone they love,” continues the doctor.
A quick scroll through Madden’s TikTok and Instagram pages, where he’s known as @danthefuneralman and has 80,000 followers and counting, shows the undertaker toying with and talking about everything from hot cheetah-printed urns to rotting turtle-style urns, often alongside the brightly colored string of his coffin.
Are you sick? It is possible.
Is it funny? A little bit.
Are you funny? Certainly.
“In the 23 years I’ve been in the funeral service, I’ve seen how sad and confusing the process can be for families. Funeral planning is emotional, and for many people, death feels uncomfortable to even talk about,” a funeral expert told The Post.
“I started making this content because I wanted to make this topic simple, relatable, carefree and maybe even put a smile on someone’s face.”
And that he did.
Soon after uploading a raunchy video at her funeral home with none other than “Barbie Girl,” playing in the background, viewers flooded the comments section, jokingly writing, “I see my future and it’s bright!”
“I want it to be clear so my family can look at me,” joked another.
Even “Jersey Shore” favorite Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi commented on the video, writing, “I’ll take it,” referring to the hot pink tiger urine.
Since building an online presence, the funeral professional said he has been inundated with requests for a custom urn, such as “a PlayStation controller filled urn for a former gamer,” but stressed that they are “not more expensive than your traditional options,” which can range from the low hundreds to the tens of thousands.
Madden says the response to his eclectic offerings is just as good in real life: “…they don’t usually see them when they visit funeral homes and they like variety.”
“It opens up these conversations where people go, ‘Man, you made me think about preplanning (death) – thank you for this,'” he added.
Madden is not alone in his quest to make death less serious, as he is part of a growing movement of health care workers who have begun posting death-related content on social media.
Brad Sheppard, director of the funeral service program and professor at the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana with 25 years in the industry, has pulled back the veil on postmortem care, posting regularly under the moniker @funfuneralfacts.
Sheppard told The Post that he was inspired to establish an online presence by his young preschool students.
“I’ve noticed that younger students can’t concentrate for long periods of time, and they don’t like to listen to my lectures,” said Sheppard. “So I started making these simple, one-minute TikToks for them, like a short tutorial, and they found it funny so I just made them…
Shepard’s shorts cover many topics related to death, with titles such as “Coffin Secrets” and “Do morticians cut clothes?” (the latter includes Sheppard gleefully raising a pair of scissors next to a suitable dummy in a coffin).
Sheppard admitted that he has found comfort in the older generation of undertakers, who often feel that “what happens behind the funeral home should stay there.”
However, he stressed that the response to his content – which he creates in an effort to make the funeral service “less scary and understandable to the public” – has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I would guess that most people only meet undertakers once or twice in their lives, and that is one of their most difficult moments,” Sheppard said. Many times they may have incorrect information. I want when they lose, that’s one less thing they have to worry about.”
“Eric the Undertaker,” a 28-year veteran funeral director based in California who prefers to remain anonymous when posting online to focus on his message rather than his business, posts a selection of similar educational content related to death.
Video topics on his @erictheundertaker social media pages include “The Body’s Silent Conversation: What Happens After Death” (explaining how cells continue to communicate after death through a process called the thanatotranscriptome) and “Why Are New Graves Built? The Truth Behind the Conspiracy Theories” (how 3 toburiing 6 percent of America chooses).
However, much of Eric’s content focuses on sharing the stories and lessons he has learned from those grieving their dead – and what they can teach the living about choosing to move on with love, hope and gratitude.
“There is a sacredness (of death) that needs to be preserved, and it can be difficult to talk about that,” Eric told The Post, who lost his son five years ago. “But when I gave myself permission to really tell my stories…They not only taught me about death and dying, but it’s really about focusing on what’s worth emphasizing in life.”
Describing the love he has for his late son as a “huge” part of his online presence, Eric emphasized that he sees the best content related to after-death care as a practical way for those who fear the inevitable to “take their focus off death and onto their life.”
“It’s about (refocusing) on what they experienced, maybe the experience they got to share with someone they lost,” said Eric. “Perhaps reconnecting with someone – picking up the phone and saying, “Hello, I love you”… If we refocus on who we have in our lives, which is what the content almost always teaches, then any anxiety or fear of death quickly diminishes.
