Boy hangs self and explains it all on the Internet

July 28, 2001 9:13 AM

Boy hangs self and explains it all on the Internet Couyld have had some commerical tie-in and banner ads his carefully researched plans to take his life.
posted by Postroad (49 comments total)

"I know that is a sad thing for an 18-year-old to say, but I don't enjoy life any more."

correct :(
posted by sikander at 9:56 AM on July 28, 2001

This is tragic.

(suitably respectful pause)

But I have to ask....

where's the mirror site?
posted by ebarker at 10:46 AM on July 28, 2001

So, we should hide all information on suicide so that people won't commit it?

???

:/
posted by Ptrin at 11:03 AM on July 28, 2001

I felt the way he did at 18.

Thank God for Jesus and Zoloft.
posted by bunnyfire at 11:29 AM on July 28, 2001

Maybe the regrets weren't enough to overcome the complete and absolute hollowness that had developed inside of his soul?
posted by Ptrin at 11:56 AM on July 28, 2001

Why not try and squeeze a few of these in before the suicide? Perhaps drugs or vindaloo would have given him a reason to continue...

Apparently he "had lived his last days in joy with friends, travelling, enjoying good food and wine, etc... and was still ready to die" according to someone who IRCed with him before the suicide.
posted by gluechunk at 12:04 PM on July 28, 2001

Couyld have had some commerical tie-in and banner ads his carefully researched plans to take his life.

Hmmm, that was a bit cold... no?

A sad story indeed. Pitiful. What a waste of genetic material IMO; the kid didn't seem to have much of a reason to commit suicide. From his passages, I didn't sense desperation- only boredom with life.

And to think, people like me that actually have real problems somehow manage to deal with them daily. =/ Too bad I couldn't have traded places with him before it was too late.
posted by Aikido at 2:17 PM on July 28, 2001

Why do I have a feeling jcterminal is a windows user? :)
posted by Ptrin at 3:36 PM on July 28, 2001

the article mentioned he had been planning his suicide for awhile, which I find odd. to my knowledge, not many people plan their suicides. waiting until his parents leave town? that doesn't sound like a good excuse to me. if you were really that suicidal, would you wait? you'd only have something to lose, nothing to gain. the fact that he posted the entire thing on the internet when he could have just written a note...why? a note is much more personal. perhaps he knew he'd get in the news if he put it on the internet. but it seems like a cry for attention to me.

mad props to this boy's loved ones.
posted by starduck at 9:54 AM on July 29, 2001

Here's a mirror of his site.
posted by rcade at 2:18 PM on July 29, 2001

Maybe I'm harsh, but this kid just sounds like a bored loser...
posted by owillis at 2:33 PM on July 29, 2001

Yep, Owillis, you are harsh.

Whenever I read comments about stories like this they seem to fall into two camps. Those who understand why he did this and those who don't.

To those who don't : Be thankful you don't.
To those who do : Be thankful you are still here to read it.

:(
posted by fullerine at 3:19 PM on July 29, 2001

Does anyone else get the feeling that this is hoax?
posted by david hedge at 3:52 PM on July 29, 2001

I'll echo what fullerine said.
posted by gd779 at 4:49 PM on July 29, 2001

Not harsh, Owillis - just ignorant. How can you begin to comprehend what goes through the mind of somebody who decides that killing themselves is a reasonable option, and then actually does it?

It's all very well to say 'loser' or 'attention seeker', but neither of these statements is true. I'll bet a billion dollars to a hat full of lips and arseholes that this guy had endogenous depression - that is, his world was a living hell of black, impenetrable despair.

Vindaloo and ecstacy wouldn't have fixed it. Having people who loved him would have made absolutely no difference - he was incapable of feeling it. Zoloft and six months with a counsellor would have got him back on track enough for a supportive family and a network of friends to make a difference, although he'd live with shadow of fear for the rest of his life; every time he felt a little down, or something wasn't quite as much fun as it should have been, he'd have felt a lump in his throat and a sick panic in his stomach as he thought 'dear God, don't let it start again'.

Rational thought was a thing of the past. The cheerful-sounding lad who posted that page was simply a cage for somebody for whom getting out of bed in the morning was a monumental effort, and who genuinely believed that the world would be better off without him, and he without the world.

It's just sad. Don't judge for a change - try empathy. Learn about depression, and maybe you'll be able to save somebody you love one day.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:11 PM on July 29, 2001

There's a certain courage to stick around and a certain sickness to decide not to.

Pray you never need such courage or ever get so sick.
posted by john at 5:36 PM on July 29, 2001

The blind happiness of the 'well-adjusted' wad is only slightly less amazing than the bigotry that so often accompanies it.
posted by Opus Dark at 5:59 PM on July 29, 2001

Maybe I'm harsh, but this kid just sounds like a bored loser...

Easy there, hombre. The kid was in pain. Making smart-assed comments about his decision to take himself out of the matrix not only makes you sound insensitive, but it implies that you are not very bright. I know this to be false.

I also know that a society that chooses to mock a kid's pain rather than trying to understand or relieve that pain is a society that deserves exactly what it gets when its' youngsters start offing themselves.

Something's broken, folks. Let's try to find out why people feel so powerless and isolated. It's a baby step on the path to helping them, and by extension, ourselves.
posted by Optamystic at 6:08 PM on July 29, 2001

Maybe I'm harsh, but this kid just sounds like a bored loser...

uncalled for. or are you merely trying to get people riled up?
posted by bwg at 8:37 PM on July 29, 2001

As I apparently fall in the place of "those who don't undertsand the situation" let me make something clear. it took me about 5 minutes to craft that response, I deleted a paragraph in it about how we are so quick to judge and how we can never understand these things. I carefully chose my words. I reread it several times to make sure I was getting my point across. just to set the record straight that is.
from this boy's writing, he doesn't sound depressed. if you met him, I'll bet he wouldn't seem depressed. that caught my attention, so I examined the scenario, and I don't think anybody's touched the topic.
WHY DID HE POST IT ON THE INTERNET?
what did he have to gain? only attention.

he might have had depression, but that's not what I'm talking about.

oh, and whoever suggested "Don't judge for a change." Why don't you take your own advice? HMMM?
posted by starduck at 9:16 PM on July 29, 2001

Does anyone else get the feeling that this is hoax?


Yes.
posted by cornflake at 9:21 PM on July 29, 2001

No, I'm not posting to "rile people up". You read what this kid writes and it sounds to me "la-dee-da I'm going to kill myself and have people talking and writing about me because I made this spiffy website".

I would think you folks (more than any other group) would be a little wary of the sickening insta-empathy that develops with bits on a screen. It cheapens the real thing.
posted by owillis at 11:59 PM on July 29, 2001

to my knowledge, not many people plan their suicides.

You don't just wake up, 'get the urge', grab a piece of rope and a chair and go for it. Most suicides are planned well in advance, with the suicider making every effort to finalise their affairs before jumping into the big black yonder.

I find the whole 'suicide as attention-seeking' thing disturbing. Early attempts may well be attention seeking, but in much the same way as screaming when you're on fire. It's a cry for help, people, not a 'put me on 60 Minutes' thing. It's about pain, not fame. It's a way of saying 'I can't fucking cope any more - do you see now?'.

from this boy's writing, he doesn't sound depressed. if you met him, I'll bet he wouldn't seem depressed. that caught my attention, so I examined the scenario, and I don't think anybody's touched the topic.

Depressed people don't look or sound depressed (whatever that looks or sounds like). When it gets really bad, you don't see or hear them at all - they're at home in bed, wishing they were dead. Hence the 'ohmygod - he was fine last night' and 'how were we supposed to know?' comments from friends and relatives.

I would think you folks (more than any other group) would be a little wary of the sickening insta-empathy that develops with bits on a screen. It cheapens the real thing.

Real or fake, it's textbook. We can't afford to be the villagers in the story of the boy who called wolf when the wolf is suicide. Treat every case as real no matter how many times it turns out to be a false alarm, or suffer the consequences.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:14 AM on July 30, 2001

I would think you folks (more than any other group) would be a little wary of the sickening insta-empathy that develops with bits on a screen. It cheapens the real thing.

Are you implying that empathy felt for strangers isn't "the real thing"? Or is it the distance involved that somehow makes it fake? If that's the case, am I allowed to feel empathy for someone in the next town over, or should I confine my empathy to those who live in my ZIP code?

Here's a tough one: Animals. Am I allowed to feel a pang of empathy for that dog that got tossed into traffic? Keep in mind that I live nowhere near the highway where the poor pooch chased his last car. Also, I am not a dog. Is inter-species empathy permissible? And what of the moral and legal implications?

As you can see, it's all rather mind-boggling. Looks like we're gonna need a full time "Empathy Arbitrator". Looking for a job, owillis?
posted by Optamystic at 12:33 AM on July 30, 2001

What I am saying is empathy for someone who exists only as text on a web site is ca-ca. If anyone here knew the guy or had contact with him in "the real world" or if there was actual real world confirmation of his existence then things like "I feel sorrow for his pain" would ring more true for me. I hate the phony-emotion culture that television seems to have created, were it takes people mere seconds to decide to marry each other, or even to begin hugging and kissing. It's done for attention and for the tv cameras so that when the real thing comes along it's put in the same category - and therefore lessened.

So no, it's not a distance thing or a "stranger" thing. Perhaps its just me, but I have a hard time feeling bad for "the tv people" - those that seek out a camera to do their grieving. Their desire to be on the evening news trumps the actual pain they should be feeling in private with their loved ones.

Perhaps I should look into Empathy Arbitration.
posted by owillis at 1:19 AM on July 30, 2001

While I can relate to feeling deep anger, sadness and apathy, and resorting to some self-sabatoging and careless activities, I've never consciously considered suicide. And I've been fortunate that no one close to me has attempted it. Reading the tips and methods, I felt revulsed, physically ill, and started to get perhaps a glimpse of what state I'd have to be in to actually attempt killing myself.

Being fairly new to the net, I asked an "oldtimer" if he thinks having access to the blogs, journals and culture of individuals we may otherwise never cross paths with will make us all more openminded and understanding. He felt that we'll become increasingly polarised - some will keep their eyes and minds open, others will cater their information intake to that which merely reaffirms their worldview.

This is not to say that having people around who are skeptical isn't a Good Thing. Critical reading doesn't neccessarily mean closed-minded. As well, it will help us all learn to make sense of all this (and ourselves).
posted by spandex at 1:32 AM on July 30, 2001

owillis - "Perhaps its just me"
No, its not just you, the 'emotion for the camera' culture seems to me to be a form of attention seeking rather than true emotion.
The only parallel I can draw is when a kid falls over, if they know no-one saw and therefore they won't get any attention, they often won't cry. If however a parent is close by, they'll scream the place down because a grazed knee will get sympathy from adults. A parent soon learns whether their kid really is in pain or if they're seeking sympathy, the news cameras don't care as long as the images fit in with their reportage.
posted by Markb at 3:31 AM on July 30, 2001

Keep in mind that no one found out about this kid's webpage until after he died. Sympathy doesn't count for much when it's being lavished on a corpse.

Ploys for sympathy from depressed people can be annoying, sure, but they become less aggravating to me when I remember they're inspired by intense desperation and despair. Obiwanwasabi's fire analogy is dead on - this kid might have been a whiny "loser", but he was hurting enough to take his own life. Which aspect of his situation is worth focusing on more?
posted by lardgrass at 4:00 AM on July 30, 2001

after being burned already once online (in a massive, ugly way), i can say i am looking at this thing merely as a bystander, with zero emotional involvement.

it might be real, it might be a hoax.

my only objection was to the kid being referred to as a loser, which was harsh. don't get me wrong, i've used that term myself many times, and even regretted it afterward under certain circumstances.

everyone at one point or another in life will feel like a loser for some reason. but someone else saying so doesn't make things any better.

owillis does, on the other hand, make a point about certain types of attention-seeking people. they do exist, and they are annoying.

i'm just not sure if that is what is happening here. if indeed this individual has killed himself, then that's a rotten thing. if he's alive and reading this, then i hope he won't do it.
posted by bwg at 4:16 AM on July 30, 2001

Depressed people don't look or sound depressed (whatever that looks or sounds like).

--Wasn't there something recently about a study of some poets who ended up committing suicide versus those who died of natural causes? I thought aldaily.com had something about how the writing was able to show many were depressed. The only link I could find was this article.


For all of the uses of the internet you think he would try and find help for his problems rather than what I believe many of us already know, that is, how to take our own life. I mean you don't often hear "How would I go about committing suicide?" since I guess most people would take it as a joke and come up with a funny death scenario thinking nothing of it. But to me this is just a publicity stunt that in some respects I'm glad he didn't take the ever popular murder/suicide shooting rampage.
posted by brent at 5:06 AM on July 30, 2001

owillis

If you believe that the entity under discussion is "text on a web site", does it not seem a trifle silly to complain that this 'text on a web site' bothers you because it is seeking attention? Further, to paraphrase: "This 'text on a web site' just sounds like a bored loser". Sounds a bit strange, doesn't it?

Instant Pomo is not a fool-proof tool for retro-editing one's intent.

I have not noticed much "reach through the screen" emotionalism in this discussion - it's been pretty restrained, sort of a collective sigh. Nothing at which I would've aimed the Pomo cannon, and believe me, I love that gun...

You clearly said: "This kid just sounds like a bored loser".

There is nothing anywhere in this phrase that remotely implies that your intolerance was based on his pixellated representation.

Here's somthing to ponder: What if the hopelessness, the emptiness, the despair - all of those dark and fearful characterizations of depression - are the emotional manifestations of a sixth sense? What if depressives see the black edge of something others are incapable of seeing?

What if they see more clearly than the rest of you? What if they're right?
posted by Opus Dark at 5:06 AM on July 30, 2001

Keep in mind that no one found out about this kid's webpage until after he died.

Actually, he told some participants of the Usenet newsgroup alt.suicide.holiday about the site, using IRC channels set up by these folks, who describe themselves as "pro-choice" on the subject of suicide.

One of the regulars allegedly tried to talk him out of it in IRC the evening of his suicide, according to this chat log.
posted by rcade at 6:00 AM on July 30, 2001

What if the hopelessness, the emptiness, the despair - all of those dark and fearful characterizations of depression - are the emotional manifestations of a sixth sense? What if depressives see the black edge of something others are incapable of seeing?

Imagined superpowers ... definitive bored loser stuff.
posted by skyline at 6:07 AM on July 30, 2001

Erm, what I mean to say is; it would be a good thing if we stopped treating depression as a rite of passage for the hip, so that every bored teenager didn't self diagnose themselves with it.
posted by skyline at 6:25 AM on July 30, 2001

You guys read Dave Eggars book? Remember the character, John? He went around whining about how miserable he was and threatening to kill himself, making himself into a victim to get everyone's attention. That's a loser.
But this guy seems to have been quite the opposite. He seems to have never told anyone he knew that he was considering suicide, and what gets me is, he broke up with his girlfriend beforehand to save her the pain of having a boyfriend kill himself. So sad.
So why is anyone complaining that he sought attention for his depression? Seems like he didn't seek enough attention. If he had had some counseling, maybe he would have realized that many people are bored with life at 18. That passes. And maybe he could have talked with his family and found out they would love him no matter what his A-level scores.
And as far as feeling sympathy for someone you read about just on the internet - seems to me like any kind of empathy for a fellow human being is a good thing. Some people just aren't good at face to face interaction, but they still have a need for some kind of human contact. What's wrong with that?
This kid didn't try any stupid human tricks to get on TV or any such crap. Seems like he just needed a little attention - doesn't everyone - but not that he went overboard with it.
Poor kid. Poor family.
posted by hazyjane at 6:56 AM on July 30, 2001

"So why is anyone complaining that he sought attention for his depression?"
He told people about his website before his death on newsgroups. He made a website.
Why did he make a website? I keep on saying it. Websites are made to share information. A note would have been much more personal, and more effective on getting his point across, but he wouldn't have gotten it to as large an audience.
posted by starduck at 10:09 AM on July 30, 2001

I just think it's silly that we can't have a conversation about this (like owillis said) without saying "oh, we have no emapthy for this kid." We're all mature here. He was going through something bad, he decided to take his life. That's wrong, we feel bad about it. We don't have to spend every minute talking about what a tragedy his suicide is. Instead we should try and come up with a meaning. Ask why. Make ourselves a better person because of it.
Being labelled as "non-empathetic" simply because you propose another view is silly.
posted by starduck at 10:14 AM on July 30, 2001

hey, Owillis made a crass point then a good point. I just think the two are not as intertwined as it seems.

I'm just as turned off by the fakery of TV emotion(tm) as Owillis, (hey I love the most evil programme in britain) but I usually draw the line when someone dies. Whether this kid was an arsehole or whether I'm bringing too much of my own history to the discussion I don't know. Someone died and like in the Genoa discussion, I can't seem to ignore that fact.

I hope it's a hoax.
posted by fullerine at 10:47 AM on July 30, 2001

The only unusual thing about this case is that the guy put his suicide note on a web site, and that's only unusual because web sites have only been available to depressed teenagers (and the news media) for a few years. Give it another few years and this will be rather normal for teenage suicides.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:14 AM on July 30, 2001

Has a book ever made you cry? Of course bits can make you cry. It's silly to think that bits on a screen can't touch your heart; A Clean Well Lit Place touched me deeply when read on my palm, Howl no less agonizing for being on a web site. Simon's suicide page wasn't as finely crafted a work as these subtle works of pain, but it doesn't mean his writing can't bring up all the pain I felt at that age when I nearly killed myself. I can feel a lot of empathy for Simon.

From the ages of about 16 to 28 I was consumed with reoccurring depression, and nearly killed myself three times. I think with was afraid to kill myself, although I really wanted the pain to go away and death seemed the only cure. Suicide is a hard choice; you don't know what happens after you die. I know my hope was that there would be nothing on the other side; my biggest fear was that reincarnation existed.

Asking for help with the pain is also hard; people rarely truly help; more often you get abuse. Look at the way people on this list have reacted to Simon's page. Depression, unlike cancer or aids gets very little sympathy and no respect-- many of you are probably snorting at the thought of those three being put in the same sentence, given the same weight. Yet it's the third leading killer of teenagers. Depressed people are told to shake it off, look on the bright side of life, think of all the people who are worse off than them -- advice no one would give to a cancer victim, and advice just as useless to someone suffering from depression. Wouldn't Simon have felt better if he could have? Back when I was in as bad place, talking to people most often made me want to kill myself more than it made me feel better. They would add guilt to the pile of hopelessness and sadness.

Why did I want to kill myself? Did I have bad parents, a bad life? I had lovely parents, a shitty school, and lived in a bleak place. and then I moved somewhere better, and the depression still visited me, and then my life got still better and depression still visited me. Doctors put me on a merry-go-round of drugs that helped not at all and I suffered horrendous side effects, and of the five shrinks I visited, only one gave me the coping mechanisms that allowed me to make to the ripe old age of 28, when the depression suddenly stopped. I still don't know why. Like a cancer in remission it went away. Family and friends try to make sense of it by pointing to my meeting my future husband (which happened about a year later) and changing jobs (which happened a year and half later) but there was no event that changed me, nice as it would be to believe. It just stopped. Sometimes I get sad, I get blue, but never in the same soul-sucking brain-destroying heart-rending way I did before. Maybe my hormones shifted, maybe my chemicals changed. I don't know. I do feel afraid it will return.

I know it is a physical ailment, not just a state of mind. And I may not beat it if it returns.

So why did I just admit all that, opening myself up to the ridicule of the group? I want people to understand depression is a sickness, a crappy little black worm that eats up your insides until you go after it with a knife or a rope or pills because you can't keep living a life with so much misery and anguish and so little joy. Because you hate the misery and anguish, you try to not let that black worm eat anyone else-- Simon's site showed a desire to spare others as much as possible while still releasing him of his pain.

As for why he posted it on the Internet... perhaps he wanted to start conversations like this one. Maybe he wanted to reach as many of his friends and family with one metanote as possible. Many folks have "private" webpages, pages just meant for a few folks whose only security is security by obscurity. Maybe he spent a lot of time online (as shown by his chats) and this was the most natural medium for his writing. Who knows.

Simon's gone. How you react to his death is what is left. I recomend some education, so maybe next time yourun into this most misunderstood mental illness you'll understand a bit better. Please read "dispelling the myth" (dang framed pages) in particular. Please.
posted by christina at 3:27 PM on July 30, 2001

Dumbest quote in this entire story:

A family friend, who asked not to be named, condemned the suicide websites Simon had trawled.

He said: "This information should not be so readily available. Without it, Simon might still be here."

I think people were committing suicide way before a Web site gave people detailed instructions. This is as bad as people who claim that the Internet invented the concept of pedophilia.

Information that is created without harming anyone shouldn't be censored whether it's about committing suicide or not. If someone reads something that makes them want to kill themselves, that was their choice.
posted by wackybrit at 3:44 PM on July 30, 2001

was this guy related to Kaycee?
posted by NJguy at 3:58 PM on July 30, 2001

Christina: your comparing works of literature to the writings of an entity we can't even be sure that exists. Two wildly different things.

I have never truly been depressed. Upset maybe, but not depressed - that's just how I am. So for me, someone taking their own life is ridiculous. At the root of it all, life is the most important thing we all have, so to throw that away...

However, I can understand if there's some sort of psychological or physical problem how it could interfere with your thought process and cause you to do that.

But I also reject the notion that someone is bad because they're not showing emotions or lamenations. I reserve such displays for real actual people I know and love.
posted by owillis at 5:25 PM on July 30, 2001

starduck, you seem to be obsessing over the 'but he put it on a website!' thing.

So what? Would it have been any different if he'd written himself all over a busy downtown sidewalk by jumping off [insert name of local tall building]? Or blown his brains out at a press conference like Pennsylvania State Treasurer Bud Dwyer?

You seem to think that a person publicising their suicide before/during/after the event is rare (it isn't), or implies that the person did it as a 'cheap stunt'. What exactly is your point?
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:26 PM on July 30, 2001

Owillis--

and I didn't cry over Bridges of Madison County... you can feel whatever you want to feel. I'm just saying pure writing, apart form the reality or non-reality of subject, can effect us deeply. Simon's writing-- even if it was a kaycee-- brought a flood of emotion and empathy in me. If you didn't feel it, you aren't a bad person, just an untouched one. Perhaps you read Henry's diary and don't feel joy and delight that I do either-- no biggie. But you have to admit these sites do elicit emotion. That bits on a screen can effect us deeply. I don't feel any desire to mail in a check, but I'm suddenly reminded of how depression can destroy lives. That seems worthwhile to me.

However, postings suggesting that a person who is considering suicide doesn't have real problems, or is ridiculous is cruel; I think as cruel as suggesting a person with cancer is ridiculous or doesn't have real problems.

Assuming Simon existed, his parents are weeping now, as well as his friends and his brother and nephew. Perhaps if his depression could have been treated, if he could have been convinced that life might someday hold some pleasure for him they could have been spared some pain. And he might have gone on, like I have to marry, to find worthwhile work, to finally shake off the sickness and live a better life. I wonder if his parents told him to shake it off, or thought, "Oh, he's just going through usual moody-teenager stuff; I'm sure he'll be much better when we return from holiday..."
posted by christina at 5:52 PM on July 30, 2001

Owillis writes something callous and the entire thread ends up revolving around him and his lack of empathy instead of the topic proper. La dee da. Some things never change.

Sure, this could be a hoax. If so it doesn't alter the fact that such things occur, just that it's not a good idea to send presents and money to the family which is affected, unless you are able to indubitably establish that they exist. This is the sad but important legacy of the whole "Kaycee" saga.

The site does indeed have an air of unreality about it, but I'm not sure what I was expecting. I'm not sure how much an 18 year old can know about death, except for what they see on TV. Life is like that; the harder it is to hold onto, the more we value it.
posted by lucien at 5:54 PM on July 30, 2001

Owillis writes something callous and the entire thread ends up revolving around him and his lack of empathy instead of the topic proper. La dee da. Some things never change.

Not exactly. Owillis wrote something that seemed, at first read, to be callous. He then went on to elucidate his point, and to defend that point valiantly against the resulting dogpile.

The whole point of Metafilter, as I see it, is discussion. No one can predict what direction that discussion will take. Oliver took an unpopular position and defended it with class and skill. I feel that I am better off for having had this debate, even though we disagreed on the substance of the issue.

Point being, just as there can be no absolute "Arbiter of Empathy", there can be no "Arbiter of Callousness". We're all just offering our take on a given situation. This is pretty cool, eh?
posted by Optamystic at 3:12 AM on July 31, 2001