There, the mortician stands, with at least seven coffins lying on the floor next to her. She is pulling all manner of poses, smiling here and there. This unfolds in a video uploaded to social media platform TikTok on June 11, racking 6,600 views.

Then another video from a different female mortician, with 31,700 views, captures the pushing of a mortuary stretcher. As she takes it through a long corridor to the morgue, she smiles wryly. “Let me get you the Sh2,000 you usually want urgently,” says the caption embedded in the video.

That is not all. Another female mortician in a June 29 video is lip-syncing to a trending voice on social media. It is the voice that asks, “Kwani mi’ hu-do (What do you think I do)?” Her caption, embedded in the video, is a typical question she is often asked: “Will our beloved leave the morgue with their mouth agape?” Then, in her “what do you think I do?” answer, she nonchalantly displays a long, curved needle and a black thread. She can afford to laugh as she lets the two objects do the talking. The 33,800 views that the video has attracted show that it has been watched a generous number of times on the network.

The Funerals Services Association of Kenya Chairman Ezra Olack during a past event. He says creating content from a morgue is unprofessional.

Photo credit: File | Nation

Welcome to the morbid world of morgue content creation, where people’s final journeys provide fodder for various creators to produce videos for their social media fans. Search “mortician” on TikTok and no less than 11 Kenyans’ profiles show up, each proudly associating itself with the name and describing their area of operation or such information. With followers ranging from a moderate 5,000 to nearly half a million, the creators are literally not talking to themselves; they have an audience.

Why the creation craze? Some creators have explained the reasons. Filinda Kamau, for instance, told Nation in 2023 that she creates such content to encourage more women to be morticians. Today, she has 60,000 followers on TikTok, and she continues to shoot videos about various aspects of her life as a morgue worker.

Ann Mwangangi, who is perhaps the most famous mortician on TikTok with more than 480,000 followers, has previously said that she uses the content from the morgue to address the many misconceptions about morticians.

However, critics have raised concerns, including an official who has worked in the morgue industry for decades.

Ezra Olack, the chairman of the Funeral Services Association of Kenya (Fusak) and who works with the Lee Funeral Home, says creating content from a morgue is unprofessional.

“Those people do not adhere to the code of ethics and professional code of conduct,” he says. “We must be sensitive and respect the religious, cultural and traditional beliefs of others.”

Drawing from the example of a doctor who creates content from a hospital, he explains why morgues should be handled with care.

“You have seen that doctor who sings a gospel song. He does surgeries. In his case, he is showing how a patient undergoes a surgery and then all of a sudden, they are on a pathway to recovery. Such content is good because it’s giving people hope; that if you go to a hospital, at least you may come out alive. It gives people hope that you can live,” says Mr Olack.

“But death is permanent. Death cannot give you hope. In fact, death can bring a lot of trauma. These two things are very different,” adds Mr Olack, who has been in the industry since 1995.

Our analysis of the videos posted showed that the creators make every effort to avoid showing the face or even the skin of the deceased. They typically post the clothes they are preparing to dress the bodies with, or sections of the bodies after being dressed up.

However, in a recent video, one person posted a comment to indicate that she had recognised her father from the tie fitted on his cold neck.

Such scenarios, Mr Olack argues, can cause emotional harm.

“It is not good, especially for other people who believe in not talking about death. It is not good. They [the creators] must be respectful here,” he says. “Doing content where bodies are is not a good thing. It’s not ethical. You can imagine somebody has just lost a loved one today and then all of a sudden, he or she comes across a certain kind of content. It’s like we’re celebrating the death of this person while they are mourning.”

Another argument often fronted by the morgue content creators is that they want to demystify death through their videos. They take their followers through what a morgue looks like: the shelves where bodies are cooled, the bathroom where they are washed, the way their coffins lie in the “backroom” before they emerge, and all that.

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Mr Olack, however, doesn’t buy the demystification angle.

“Has there been a scenario whereby somebody – a doctor or a pharmacist – reminds you about sickness? People fear getting sick, but nobody keeps on reminding them,” he argues. “So, somebody should not keep on reminding me about death, because we know that is a passage of life.”

In fact, Mr Olack argues, no one ever gets immune to feeling the sting of death.

“Let nobody cheat you that they are not also traumatised,” he says.

For this story, we also contacted the Morticians and Allied Professionals Association of Kenya (Mapake). A top official said they would give their position after a conference to be held in early September.

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eondieki@ke.nationmedia.com