The birth of a child or the death of a friend are occasions that can be marked by the creation of a digital HTML-coded artifact that can be experienced via a personal computer or other device connected to the Internet. This ceremonial rhetoric has been traditionally communicated and commemorated through other means, such as engraved announcements or newspaper obituaries. Now static webpages, attachments to e-mail, postings to blogs, and even activity on social network sites may be part of the communal welcoming and mourning rituals of social groups. Discrete, one-time events that take place in the real world may be subsequently recorded and represented in discourses and linguistic exchanges that take place in the virtual one.