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A 19-Year-Old Ends His Life In Front Of An Internet Audience
New York, 2:53 AM
Wed Nov 11
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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A 19-Year-Old Ends His Life In Front Of An Internet Audience |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
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In that community, people were generally supportive, rather than mocking. Often they would PM a moderator or Admin when these events were unfolding.
We had to keep referring them on and then suspending their access to the chat room if they did not seek assistance. Thankfully, they usually did seek assistance, but there were some very disturbing events, nonetheless.
And inevitably, once every few years, we would lose a member to suicide. We usually found out because a family member stumbled on the webpage, bookmarked in their loved one's computer.
Conversely, we had a few people fake their own suicides and come back online posing as family.
When it's online, one always has to assume the person is serious. Our community had scrolling headlines about whom to contact if they were suicidal, or were conversing with someone who was suicidal. But the average, run of the mill social site lacks such foresight and assistance. Only site administrators can trace the IPs, and if they are not on call 24/7, then how can a fellow poster help? I don't believe that Police Departments are currently prepared for such events. I hope that they are exploring how they can assist if someone calls them to say they are aware of a person in imminent harm who can offer nothing more than a screenname and a website.
11/22/08
If Gladwell is correct, there may be a few similar videos out there within the next week. I certainly hope not.
11/22/08
[www.telegraph.co.uk]
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The internet is amazing, but it's also some scary shit.
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I think the whole situation is difficult. In a community like Jezebel, if someone said they were going to kill themselves, I think we would all take it seriously. In a community where messing with each other is the norm (i.e. 4chan, Fark), someone might not believe the poster. Considering the mean-spirited stuff that goes on on some of these websites, I can see how people would think "oh, just another dick on the internet". A similar bodybuilding website (if not the same one) recently had a posting by some jerk claiming that he was posting pictures of his girlfriend with his car and used it as an opportunity to ridicule her looks. I see this all the time on some of the male dominated douchebag websites - some asshole trolls MySpace for pictures of "unconventional" looking people, pretends to be them and posts wedding pictures on a forum for ridicule. It's shameful, but after seeing so many guys posting things like "hey, check out my wedding photos...blah blah blah" and realizing that it's just a way to make fun of an overweight girl, you start to automatically assume that anything you see on these forums is fake.
Which is pretty much my really long-winded way of saying that once you start to develop this thick internet skin, everything ceases to be real. Any time you see an amazing picture, your first thought is "photoshopped". Any time you read something on a forum that is strange, or disturbed or conveying human emotion, you wonder if it's just some troll in his mom's basement "doing it for the lulz". I'm definitely not defending anyone who ignored, or outright encouraged this man. And I'm not defending the type of callousness that internet douchebaggery has wrought. But there is a context for this kind of behavior.
I really don't know what know what the answer is. On the one hand, the internet has connected people in amazing ways and allowed people who are lonely, or scared or hurting to find support. On the other hand, it seems to expose the worst of mob mentality and fucking with people's heads. This whole story makes my heart hurt.
11/22/08
There was an internet forum on which she posted regularly and a thread was opened so that people who knew her could talk about her. Someone came over from another board and posted gory photos of train and car accidents. This person wasn't banned.
When my friend told me about this, I was horrified as I usually hang out on boards moderated in the way Jez is. My friend, however, just seemed to accept it.
11/22/08
11/22/08
To consciously watch a video though, knowing full well some one could and most likely would die and to do so for twelve hours just baffles me. The internet has an unavoidable dark side. One that at some point we will all be touched by.
The anonymity the internet affords lowers peoples inhibitions. They say things they otherwise wouldn't without any thought of their possible impact, they look at things that would turn their stomach if they were to witness it in real life, in the flesh. As dark as the internet can be with it's unfiltered streams of war pictures, pro-ana sites, porn etc. It's uncensored nature is also what gives the internet it's life. It gives people a voice when they otherwise wouldn't have. The internet can be a force for good
The problem I think this story highlights is that all to often (as in the case with pro-ana sites) the loudest voice isn't always the one that should be listened to.
The internet didn't kill Abraham Biggs but it didn't save him either and that's the worst thing about this story. People could have helped him or at least tried. I'm sure some did try but their voices were drowned out by those joked about it, egged him on. People could have helped him but they didn't because they weren't watching a person kill himself, they were watching a video on the internet. Two dimensional, cold and intangible... devoid of life, just a stream of code.
11/22/08
Watching deaths after the fact may be a morbid curiosity i cannot identify with, but it is a curiosity that is innately a human thing. The idea that you can prevent the truly awful thing that is taking place, and that you don't, is what bothers me... internet or not.
11/22/08
My uncle, who lives on Cape Cod, told me a story of a friend of his who saw someone about to jump from the bridge. He stopped and was trying to talk the guy down when a small crowd formed and some assholes started screaming "jump!" The guy jumped. It's not just anonymity that makes people assholes.
11/22/08
Horrific.
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- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cold Turkey", In These Times, May 10, 2004
Horrifyingly prophetic. This is what my boyfriend quoted when Big Brother started airing. It really seems a matter of time.
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While I would gladly not have this man serve as an example, I still hope that this occurrence shines a bigger spotlight on the growing rate of suicide within communities of color. The amount of men killing themselves has been steadily growing over the past few decades; 114% rise in black males ages 15-19 in the past twenty years alone. We've gotta get rid of the taboos of mental illness somehow, but hopefully not at the expense of more lives.
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Like it or not, there are assholes in this world who say things we don't agree with.
11/22/08
These are not choices. These are illnesses.
11/22/08
Why do we believe in the right to live (not life, as in pro-lifers, but the right for people to live once born), but not the right to die? We say we have bodily autonomy, but it is again and again denied to marginalized people.
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Yes, I agree that people with suicidal tendencies should be treated. But I disagree that they're not making a reasonable choice when they choose to kill themselves.
If it hurts so much to live, it's the most reasonable choice.
11/22/08
I discredit mental illness because it cannot be an illness if its the natural way of being for a person; then, it can be considered a disorder since it does not follow the "natural" order of things. The notion of mental disorders is a relatively new phenomenon when looking at the whole of human history and an EXTREMELY narrow worldview.
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Not being a jerk at all... just out of curiousity: have you ever very deeply loved somebody (spouse or family) who does, or who used to suffer from mental illness (whatever you believe that to be)?
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@Plum-Pie: It's been done before, given the amount of starving religious women in medieval ages. But that 15% death rate is due in majority to suicide, not self-starvation. If you're going to use statistics, please make sure that they actually support your argument.
11/22/08
My Mother suffers from schizophrenia and when unmedicated believes she is genuinely talking to the characters on tv, thinks she can communicate telepathically with me, and tells us that God is commanding her not to eat the red jello cubes in the hospital, only the green ones. This isn't a choice for her to hallucinate or have delusions, and when medicated she can control the hallucinations.
Mental illness is not some choice, it is a disorder, a disease that can be treated. I think that with any disease, if you have been suffering long enough without treatment, suicide may start to seem like a reasonable option, fine. The thing is, when a terminal cancer patient commits suicide, odds are pretty good that a week later he would have still been ridiculously ill. However, studies have shown that the suicidal feeling will pass pretty quickly for those who are suffering from mental illnesses. So it is a shame for someone to commit suicide because on Tuesday he is incredibly depressed, but could be feeling better by Wednesday with some help.
11/22/08
But I still disagree that treating someone with a mental illness as less capable of making informed decisions does have benefits. My Mother, who has been sick for 25 years now resisted treatment the first 10-15 years, and has been incredibly satisfied with her life, and glad she got treatment the last 10. If the very illness you are suffering from is impairing your decision-making capabilities, then that is relevant. My mother's roommate killed her 4 year old daughter because she thought she was Satan, the rational, decision-making process might not be there.
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Also, I'm glad to hear that your mother is doing better and that medication is working for her!
11/22/08
Please direct me to this statistic, because - as the daughter of someone who has worked at a prison for the mentally ill - I think that is a load of bollocks.
@sarahem: I find this conversation incredibly uncomfortable too.
I'm not going to delve into my own personal history of this, but I have many friends who has lived through attempts and are, many years on, happy to be alive and thankful that they survived. Suicide destroys families - I've seen it many times. Nothing that destructive could ever be a good life choice.
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Your second statement doesn't make sense - your parent worked in a facility for persons who had committed crimes while mentally ill, presumably some/many had a component of violence but the inmates only represent a certain segment of the population who lives with mental illness and so you can't assume the fact that some people with mental illness are violent means that people with mental illness in general are more likely to be violent.
11/22/08
We as a society need to stop shaming people who get treatment but also recognize that like any potentially fatal illness some treatments don't work for some people.
I think a frank and open discussion about suicide is good; however, there may be some people on this site who are in a vulnerable place or know someone who is and are in need of help.
The US national hopeline network number is:
1 800 SUICIDE. It is a suicide prevention number and if anyone needs help please please call.
For Canadians go to this website: [www.suicideinfo.ca]
& you can find centers in your area
11/22/08
Having had a shitty junior high experience I could fully sympathize with the feeling of wanting to kill myself at that time. However, when you grow up you realize how stupid it would have been. How insignificant whatever it was that was happening in junior high actually was.
So for someone SO young to commit suicide, I think is just an act of immaturity coupled with shortsightedness. That's why its not really a choice at that age.