Caitlin Doughty (born: August 19, 1984), better known online as Ask a Mortician, is an American mortician, author, YouTuber, and death acceptance advocate who posts videos which openly explain what happens after a person dies, taking a humorous approach to the subject matter.
Early life[]
Growing up in Hawaii, United States, an eight year-old Doughty witnessed another child fall to their death from a balcony at a local mall, an incident which sparked her interest in what happens when people die while also shaping her outlook on death, as she found the way people acted as if the incident never happened made it far more difficult for her to recover from witnessing the incident.
Having graduated from the University of Chicago with a major in medieval history with a focus on death and culture, a then-22 year-old Doughty moved to San Francisco, California, United States, as she sought employment in the funeral industry as she wanted hands-on exposure to modern death practices, eventually being hired in the crematory of Pacific Interment in spite of her lack of experience in the industry. After a year of working for Pacific Interment, Doughty attended a mortuary sciences program at Cypress College and graduated as a licensed mortician.
In 2011, Doughty formed The order of the Good Death, a death-acceptance organization, a group whose goal is to bring a more realistic and understanding discussion to what has long been a taboo subject.
Ask A Mortician[]
Doughty began her YouTube series in 2011 where she discusses all manner of subjects relating to death and the death industry, ranging from making a death plan or helping a friend through grief, to discussing death on Mount Everest or, in the wake of the controversy caused by Logan Paul in early 2018, the history and reputation of Aokigahara forest as a suicide hotspot. Initially they began as online Q&A videos, but over time Doughty posted individual videos on various subjects with the occasional Q&A interspersed between them.
As well as stand-alone videos, Doughty has some recurring series, and she also reacts to things her viewers requests her to.
Iconic Corpse[]
Iconic Corpse videos focus on a different famous corpse, ranging from Lenin's tomb in the centre of Moscow to Tachibana no Kachiko's will which forsook a royal funeral in favour of her corpse being left in the street.
Morbid Mystery[]
Morbid Mystery videos discuss famous incidents where people died yet there doesn't appear to be a logical explanation for how, such as Franklin's lost expedition or the Dyatlov Pass Incident.
Books[]
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory (W.W Norton & Company, 2014)
- From Here to Eternity; Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (W.W Norton & Company, 2017)
- Will my cat eat my eyeballs? (W.W Norton & Company, 2019)