TINLEY PARK, Ill.—On Monday the Mayfield Family Funeral Home dropped the once-lauded audience score feature from their website, announcing plans to reserve condolence privileges for certified commenters only.
The move comes amid concerns that online ideologues can now flood the tribute walls of funerary clients with negative reviews to skew public perception. “Trolls can pop up out of nowhere and say anything these days,” said third-generation Mayfield owner George Tasso. “It only takes a few troublemakers to leave bad ratings and bungle someone’s KPIs.”
“We have to maintain the integrity of our information,” agreed Edward Knorr, Mayfield’s embalmment specialist. “If you were dead and all your metrics got screwed up, how would you feel?”
The final straw came when Annabelle Fournier, an area retiree, received lukewarm reviews upon becoming obituary-eligible.
“Who gives a 98-year-old woman a one-star rating in her obituary?” asked a source, exasperated. “Even after all that kolaczki she made for her women’s club meetings.”
Another said: “Years ago, poor Annie voted Perot twice and the chuds never forgave her.”
However, critics of the decision have argued that Mayfield—rather than online commenters—are the politically motivated ones, disabling audience reviews to artificially inflate scores for the deceased.
“They don’t want to accept that Annabelle was mostly derivative and added little to the old lady genre,” said Peter Wayne, a local funeral enthusiast. “Now they want to control the narrative by silencing the fans.”
“She always smelled like mothballs and Vaseline,” wrote an anonymous two-star reviewer on Fournier’s tribute page. “And how many times do you have to tell someone your name isn’t Jimmy before they stop calling you Jimmy?”
The backlash has sparked a wider debate about how to combat obituarial misinformation.
“Funeral homes are a big business,” mused columnist Charles Donnelly in a Mortuary Times editorial. “These industry big shots know that if they can’t guarantee good metrics, all that burial and cremation money will find its way elsewhere.”
He added: “The real question is whether mourners want honesty or just glitter and rainbows up their [expletive].”
Other insiders are now noting the visible rift that Mayfield’s actions have brought to light between traditional media and alternative information channels.
“Legacy shills know they better do the industry’s bidding if they want to keep getting access to the best events,” said Lyle Jasper, co-host of the popular Top O’ the Mourn podcast. “And you knowthey just have AI write their obituaries for them anyway. Or is it ‘just a coincidence’ that all these old crows are ‘dearly missed’ and ‘fondly remembered’?”
“This is about free speech,” Wayne affirmed.