SALEM, Ohio – A funeral director is injecting a usually somber topic with song, dance and humor via social media.

Some of his videos hit viral status.

About three weeks ago, Dan Madden, owner of Stark Memorial Funeral Home, decided to join the social media fashion show walk trend. He picked one of the urns available at his crematorium and strutted the red carpet to a trending audio, adding quick turns and disinterested facial expressions for the camera. He posted the video to his Danthefuneralman Instagram and TikTok pages.

“It blew up on Instagram, and people were wanting more of it. And they wanted more urns,” Madden said. “I did a week of it, and everyone voted that they wanted it to continue, and it’s become this big production. And my last video has got 1.5 million views. I’m getting urn companies all over the country sending me stuff, and it’s getting big. And we’re selling urns across the country now.”

He’s sent urns to people in Australia and Canada too. Celebrities, including reality personalities Farrah Abraham and Deb Chubb and actress Mayan Lopez, follow his channels.

“This is opening it up for people to have these conversations about a difficult topic – death. And people are wanting to know more about it, and they want to buy an urn because it’s never really been presented like this in the death care space. No one’s ever done something like this,” Madden said.

The videos enable him to infuse humor into topics like death, funerals and funeral planning – while remaining respectful. He has fun. He lip syncs and dances and did one video where he curled with an urn.

His fashion week videos proved so popular, he dubbed them FashUrn Shows.

“This is absolutely hilarious! Please do more of these runway videos,” one Instagram commenter wrote.

“So funny! I just purchased an urn for my Dad off Amazon but I would pay money to have you run it down the red carpet for fun😂 I haven’t laughed much since he died, so thank you ❤️,” wrote another.

So many people were interested in the urns he showcased, he established Fashurns.com to meet the need. 

He posts three or four videos daily and plans a FashUrn Show segment with a “Bachelorette” theme for next week.

Madden’s always been active on social media and selected Danthefuneralman as his Instagram and TikTok handle about a year ago.

“I just wanted to use the platform to make funerals less taboo,” he said. 

He’s not the first funeral director to use social media, and he answers people’s questions via the platforms as well – no, dead people don’t sit up; and he’s never had a ghost experience. He also talks about funeral preplanning and shows some of the equipment used in the business. 

“And then I also have a little fun and do trending audio lip syncs, and just try to make a little light of it, just to put people at ease and make a funeral director, funeral home owner, more relatable to people, reaching a younger generation,” Madden said.

It’s getting people to talk about death, he said. One commenter said she would inform her family that she wanted the leopard print urn that Madden showed in one of his videos. 

Stark Memorial started 106 years ago, and Madden bought the business six years ago.

People who work in hospice have thanked him for encouraging people to discuss funeral planning. And he’s achieved his own celebrity status.

“I signed my first autograph three days ago,” Madden said. 

He was speaking at a gathering of tri-county health care representatives about Stark Memorial and funeral preplanning and mentioned his videos. People wanted to see them. After he played one of the FashUrn Shows, a woman approached with one of the promotional items he used during his presentation.

“And she said, ‘Could you sign this promo piece because you’re going to be famous.’” Madden added.

Pictured at top: Dan Madden, owner of Stark Memorial Funeral Home.