So, you’ve probably never heard of Steve Marsh and Alicja Age. That’s fine—most people haven’t, unless they’ve been obsessively tracking obscure internet drama or falling down a rabbit hole about digital immortality. But trust me, this story is the weirdest thing you’ll read today: it involves a dead user, a grieving friend, and a clumsy attempt to resurrect a ghost using automated shopping lists.
The Setup: A Friendship on Life Support
Steve Marsh was a British man who, in the early 2000s, had a close online friendship with a woman named Alicja Age. They chatted daily, shared jokes, and probably complained about the weather—standard internet BFF stuff. Then Alicja died suddenly in 2003, leaving Steve devastated and, let’s be honest, a bit aimless with his dial-up connection.
But here’s where it gets bananas. Steve, in a fit of grief-stricken brilliance (or madness, take your pick), decided he couldn’t let her go. So he wrote a script—a simple piece of computer code—to keep her AOL Instant Messenger account alive. The script would send pre-written, happy little messages like “I’m doing fine” or “How are you?” whenever anyone typed to her.
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It was a digital séance, but with more autocorrect and fewer candles. Steve later admitted he just “wanted to hear her voice again,” which is adorable until you realize he automated her personality. The script even matched her typing style—or so Steve thought.
The Horror Show: When Bots Go Rogue
For a while, the ghost-bot worked. Friends and family would ping Alicja’s account, and the script would reply with chirpy, totally-not-creepy messages. But the thing is, Steve had only written a handful of responses. When people asked more complex questions—like “Did you ever finish that book?” or “Who inherited your lava lamp?”—the bot started malfunctioning in gloriously unsettling ways.
It would sometimes reply with gibberish, or accidentally quote spam emails, or—my personal favorite—suddenly start talking about pizza toppings mid-conversation about funeral plans. Imagine receiving a message from your dead friend that says, “Yeah, life is good. Also, pineapple belongs on pizza.” That’s psychotic but also weirdly poetic.
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Alicja’s family finally noticed that “she” was asking for things like “new printer cartridges” and “a subscription to Cat Fancy magazine.” Steve, bless his broken heart, had accidentally turned his late friend into a shopping bot that only wanted office supplies and feline literature.
The Aftermath: A Cautionary Tale of Digital Necromancy
When the family confronted Steve, he fessed up. He wasn’t a hacker or a villain—just a sad dude who didn’t understand that you can’t code away grief. The whole story would have faded into internet trivia oblivion, except it became a cult footnote in discussions about AI ethics and digital legacy.
Today, we have companies that promise to “resurrect” your dead relatives using chatbots. Steve did it with a script he wrote in a weekend. If that doesn’t make you laugh while feeling slightly uneasy, I don’t know what will. It’s like using a toaster to perform open-heart surgery.
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The surprising fact? Steve Marsh and Alicja Age never even met in person. Their entire friendship was built on typed words and pixelated smiles. And yet, he mourned her so fiercely that he built a digital monument—a weird, malfunctioning, shopping-obsessed monument, but a monument nonetheless.
So, What’s the Takeaway?
First, never automate someone’s soul without a thorough user manual. Second, grief makes people do wild things—like writing code that orders cat magazines for a corpse. And third, if you ever die, please delete your AOL account or assign a digital executor who won’t turn you into a bot that only talks about ink cartridges.
Steve’s story is a hilarious, cringe-worthy reminder that technology can’t replace people—no matter how many pizza topping metaphors you program. Also, it proves that even in the early 2000s, the internet was already a place where you could accidentally resurrect your dead friend as a spam-bot. Good times.
In the end, Alicja’s account was finally deactivated. But somewhere, in a dusty server farm, I like to imagine a tiny ghost-script still running, chirping: “I’m fine. Also, buy more paper.” RIP, Alicja. You deserved better than a script that loved Staples more than you.