NEED TO KNOW
- Alexis, who works in the funeral industry, made a 24-minute video to be played at her own memorial — and debuted it at her best friend’s house
- The emotional and hilarious moment went viral after Jasmine posted the clip to TikTok with the caption, “Having a morbid best friend… is not for the weak”
- Alexis says her motivation is love, not morbidity: “I just want to be prepared — and make sure I look good doing it”
It was supposed to be just another night in for Jasmine and her best friend of 11 years, Alexis, filled with comfort food and familiar banter.
Instead, Alexis showed up with a laptop and a 24-minute funeral montage she made for herself — complete with emotional music, carefully selected photos, and a vision for how she wants to be remembered.
“I made my funeral montage,” Alexis told Jasmine as she connected the laptop to the TV. “I was like, girl, get this out of my house,” Jasmine tells PEOPLE.
The moment, which was captured in a TikTok clip that quickly went viral, showed Alexis hitting play on her carefully curated farewell video. The caption read: “Having a morbid best friend who works in funeral and cemetery services is not for the weak.”
For Alexis, who’s spent over six years in the cemetery and funeral industry, this kind of planning is second nature. “I’ve always just been a little morbid and creepy myself,” she admits, adding that her Mexican-American upbringing helped her embrace death rather than fear it.
Their friendship, Jasmine says, has always felt fated. “We’ve always been kind of connected,” she shares. “Like we were meant to meet. We would have met somehow.”
The inspiration for Alexis’s montage came after Jasmine’s cousin’s motorcycle accident left everyone unprepared for the worst.
“He’s a young man, so he had no will, he had no nothing,” Alexis says. “That was one of the questions I was asking: does he have anything like a power of attorney? Who’s making the decisions here?”
Thankfully, he didn’t die, but that experience, along with the loss of another relative, motivated Alexis to take control of her own story.
Jasmine S.
“I’m really particular, and I don’t trust anybody to do things the way that I want to do it,” she says. “If this happens to me, you make sure I’m right. Don’t have me looking all crazy with two different-shaped eyebrows. I got to have my nails done. I want a specific color of flowers.”
She laughs about wanting only the “hottest photos” in her montage, but her motivation is deeply practical. “By pre-planning and getting your affairs in order and even doing stuff like this, you’re unburdening your family from having to do this,” Alexis explains. “I’ve been in this situation where I’ve had to put this together at the time of somebody’s passing, and you’re just miserable.”
Jasmine remembers the night vividly. “She comes over to my house with a laptop and says, ‘I need to screen play onto your TV.’ I’m like, ‘what did you do?’ And she’s like, ‘I made my funeral montage.’ I was like, girl, get this out of my house.” But Alexis insisted, and soon the video was playing — sad music, special montages for Jasmine’s kids and all.
The tears came quickly, but so did the laughter. “We were both crying watching it. I’m right here, what am I doing?” Jasmine says. “They’re looking at us like, what’s the matter with you guys?”
For Alexis, humor and honesty are essential parts of coping with life’s hardest moments. “I just want everybody to be miserable without me,” she jokes, but she also wants her loved ones to have something to smile about when the time comes.
The TikTok’s success was a surprise to both. Jasmine originally posted it to her private Instagram, thinking it was just another silly video between friends. “It just so happened to go viral,” she says. “At the time, I wasn’t thinking about that. But I was like, let me show all the people that follow me what this dummy’s up to today. Because it’s always something with her.”
The internet’s reaction was immediate and divided. Some people worried Alexis was “manifesting” her own death, while others praised her for being so prepared. “What’s the difference between doing this and making a will?” Jasmine says. “You’re not manifesting your own demise. You’re just being prepared.”
Jasmine S.
Alexis’s approach to death — and life — has even changed Jasmine’s perspective. “I used to be super afraid of death. Like, don’t even talk about it,” Jasmine admits. “But being friends with her, going through my own medical traumas and things, I’ve learned to cope with it through comedy, laughing, and accepting it. We all know we’re going to pay taxes, and we’re all going to die. None of us know when.”
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Their friendship, Jasmine says, is built on honesty, laughter and a willingness to tackle even the toughest topics together. “If you have people in your life that care for you the way we care for each other, hold on to them. Say sorry when you mess up,” Alexis says. “Nothing’s ever that serious in life. Even death isn’t that serious.”
Every detail of Alexis’s final wishes is planned out — from who gets her favorite Darth Maul t-shirt to the color of her funeral flowers.
“I have my power of attorney. I have my last will. It literally goes down to the t-shirts that I have,” she says. “This is the last time I’m going to see that video because I won’t be there when they play it.”