It was my birthday yesterday. It was pretty standard. I woke up with a mild hangover caused by premature celebrations, and then lay in bed for a while worrying about how old I was. I opened a few cards, received a few texts and phone calls and, best of all, was taken out for a slap-up meal in a Michelin-starred restaurant in the evening. Eight courses in, I finally forgot how old I was.
But I was missing out. For no one eulogised me. Yep, that’s right. None of my friends or family members, let alone my boyfriend, presented me with a lavish video compilation stuffed to the gills with people telling me how great I was, and just why they love me.
For that is exactly what the founders of Tribute, a Brooklyn-based company, wish my nearest and dearest had done. This startup says it is “on a mission to take back the eulogy”. I wasn’t aware anyone had stolen it, but apparently they mean that they want people to speak about their loved ones as if they were dead, filming the sort of appreciative, emotional tributes normally reserved for funerals.
The idea came to Tribute’s founder, Andrew Horn, after he received a video of loved ones expressing their admiration for him, put together by his thoughtful girlfriend on his 27th birthday. “I thought, shoot, most people won’t receive this until they are dead,” Horn told the New York Daily News. “This is like my eulogy, but I’m still alive.”
For just $25 (£18) punters can use Tribute’s software to make a video, and for increasingly larger sums it will also provide a production assistant or team of editors to create a polished, “broadcast-quality” product, should the recipient have delusions of grandeur.
It is hard to imagine a less British concept than this. An outpouring of emotion for no discernible reason? Nope. Praise just for making it through another year? Puzzling. And, worst of all, for the recipient there is the embarrassment factor. Brooklyn-based millennials (Horn is 29), no doubt, can think of nothing better than watching a parade of people telling them how wonderful, unique and talented they are, but for the average Brit (me) this is an utterly horrifying concept. Horn begs to differ. The company has now facilitated 14,000 “tributes”, and he says he has done “several” for people in England.
Take away the embarrassment factor, however, and I can grudgingly admit that there may be a hint of a good idea in what Tribute proposes. Why wait until someone dies to consider what they mean to you? Isn’t it, after all, nice, to tell someone that, you know, you think they’re OK?
The answer to this is, obviously, yes. If you love someone, appreciate them, are proud of them – let them know. So there’s some food for thought. But for me, the issue with Tribute isn’t the idea behind it, but more its over-the-top execution – it’s just so gung-ho, so sledgehammer obvious: so … American.
“Give the most meaningful gift on Earth,” the Tribute website thunders. “Share your appreciation with the people who matter most.” My sentiment is that we tend to know that our loved ones appreciate us. After all, they spend time with us. They call us; they send us birthday cards. Sometimes they even pick their dirty socks up off the floor. Once in a while, they peck us on the cheek and mumble “love you”. And, on special occasions, if we’re very lucky, they book a table at a nice restaurant and sit down with us to share a meal. The most meaningful gift on Earth? That would be time spent together, rather than time spent staring miserably into a camera before awkwardly muttering a few hackneyed plaudits.
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