Because it’s impossible he had friends he knew over the internet who he wanted to tell about his suicide. Plus, it’s not like he was keeping the note from anybody; it was public. So everyone close to him would end up hearing about it.
I really don’t think it was that weird. Then again, I figure that if someone killed themself, it’s pretty damn stupid to fight about where they left the note. The kid’s fucking dead. He wouldn’t be any less dead if he’d written it on a piece of paper.
The difference here is that the people who commit suicide who we mourn are usually great artists that have contributed to our well-being. When Ian Curtis killed himself, his greatest testament was not an angsty MySpace.com post, it was the song “Ceremony” (although Barny sang it better). It, and his others, have helped make my own life worth living, or atleast bearable.
Good riddance to this kid. He was a small corner of the soulless, monolithic emoworld. I only hope his suicide was the pinnacle of his vanity.
Plus anything that makes brings a twinkle to my eye like that WoW ytmnd can’t be all that bad, can it?
Even if he killed himself for attention, he’s still dead and you should never speak ill of the dead…
Because they may come back and haunt you!!! :hyperven:
You’re a heartless bastard. It isn’t like the guy was bad or anything. I mean I can understnad making fun of Hitler or something for commiting suicide, but this guy wasn’t bad. He was just a little lost. It shouldn’t really matter whether he left his suicide note at his house or on MySpace; it convery’s the same tragic message he wanted to give.
…say what!?
Hitler, to quote Eddie Izzard, was “a mass-murdering fuckhead.” When such a person blows his own head off, I think putative laughter is a fitting method to totally emasculate such an incredible monster.
Anyway, back over <i>here</i> where the topic is…
The kid was an active myspace user, it seems. What’s so unbelieveable about him posting his suicide note there? Who knows how much else of his personal life was played out on a public forum?
Furthermore, when someone actually attempts suicide, much less succeeds, I think you can safely assume they’re not just doing it for attention. They may not be thinking too much about other people at the time, but it’s generally less “If I do this people will love me” and more “I’ll never be loved.”
That isn’t to say that suicides never do it to “make a point”; the discovery of the suicide’s body seems to be one of the consistent features of suicide fantasies, though I don’t know if any organized study has confirmed it <<!---->_<<!---->. That’s also assuming the scenario doesn’t take place with witnesses.
The media would have us believe that these want their suicide to implicate its witnesses; they’re going to traumatize the person(s) who hurt them by forcing them to witness their grisly demise. And then they’ll be sorry <<!---->_<<!---->. But we all know how good <i>Without a Cold Case: Miami</i> is at accurately portraying various kinds of people. After all, <i>CSI</i>'s furry episode was spot on! 
Some may also hope that they’ll be saved at the last minute, which then I think can be easily construed as a cry for help/attention.
Sorc, Val is perfectly right to criticize the “more air for the rest of us” crowd. They’re posting in ignorance as to the thought processes of depressed and/or suicidal people. If they haven’t experienced same, they have no idea the of power of constant pessimism, social withdrawal, etc., to reinforce themselves. I assume you do.
Despite what Tom Cruise will tell you, sometimes these people have a genuine physiological problem and need medication to relieve their symptoms, though teaching them to challenge the logic and accuracy of negative thoughts the instant they arise has been shown to help. Labeling them as stupid is more telling of the labeller than the labeled. That’s not some venerable, close-held belief that needs protection from Val’s “railing.”
Now, if you’re dead-set keeping the tone of this thread light, here’s a few fun factoids:
<ul>
<li>Women and Men attempt suicide at the same rate. Men are more likely to succeed, due to a general willingness to use more lethal methods.
<li>Alcoholism in men happens at nearly the same rate as depression in women. COINCIDENCE!?!?
</ul>
And that’s the end of this week’s Kraken Rant Theater! We know you have many choices for your rants, and thank you for choosing ours. Goodnight, and God bless.
Maybe not to take the extreme example of Hitler, but say, is it justified to laugh if “bad” person takes his own life/ life is taken? Who the hell are you to judge over good and bad?
As for hitler, or Saddam or whoever, you could say that concerning his wrongdoings you see death as an appropriate punishment, death by his own hand ironic, whatever. You could argue if it’s justified or not, if it was an action that was good for society, what the hell ever. I fail to see, however, how on earth it’s supposed to be funny. or how <b>anyone</b> in this thread can consider death as something funny. Excuse me, but if you consider someone’s death funny, you have a pretty fucked up sense of humour.
As for your easy judgement on “he was an idiot, he deserved it”:
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it
to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. " True words © Gandalf.
To say that one should not make fun of death is interesting. I do not believe that there is any such “sacred” topic to which one cannot laugh about. People laugh about things that they do not understand, such as death. Although it is not funny that a human life was taken, we take the absurdities surrounding the death and laugh about them to hide our own fear of death. The distinction between finding dead babies and dead baby jokes funny is an important one, for instance. The former would be sick, while the latter is not. Making jokes about this dead person is very different than laughing at his funeral.
Suicide is the most selfish thing you can do. I have no pity for him at all. More oxygen for the rest of us. He decided that his problems were bigger and more important than everyone else’s, and was too weak of a person to handle them. Personally, I don’t think it is a big loss to lose someone like that.
I do feel bad for his family though. Advertizing his suicide on myspace probably only increased the family’s grief.
As for the jokes, who cares? People are going to make jokes about everything. Why does this have to be different?
And before anyone jumps down my throat for being so callous, let me say this. I had a friend commit suicide a couple years ago, and I saw what his family went through. Blaming themselves and such. If you are heartless enough to do that to your friends and family, who you claim to love, you are a pathetic waste of life and you deserve to die anyway.
agreed. i think that there are very very few people who have lives that would qualify such an action. maybe the obvious, but true nonetheless.<—is that all one word?
I only said Hitler because the general consensus is that he was the worst of the worst and there is a certain irony to him killing himself (sort of how a lot of people laugh at prison rape since they feel the people are bad and it is sweet justice or revenge). I’m not saying it is something we should laugh at. I’m saying that if you are going to laugh at somebody for killing themself, it should at least be one of the most vile people in the world where there is really no debate. I personally think that laughing at any person for killing themself is bad, however, this kid on MySpace does not deserve the disrespect being shown on the boards (and the internet).
That’s certainly true, and maybe he should have, you know, thought of that before he posted his note on public domain.
Myspace <i>is</i> a huge vehicle for drama on the Internet, which gets tiresome. The emphasis placed on how many friends you have tends to turn the place into a huge popularity contest. The casual myspacers I know, who mostly joined at a friend’s behest, complain of recieving constant invites to be friends with someone they know nothing about. I think some of the attacks on this kid are fueled more by irritation at myspace and/or the emocore subculture than actual sympathy for the kid’s parents/friends, or simple philanthropy.
In other words, he’s a target because he was an emo on mypace, not because he was a suicide.
As far as selfishness goes, Dave, I think murder-suicide is quite more self-centered an act, to say nothing of plain murder and other violent crime. Just wanting to end or ease your own pain doesn’t justify you taking another person with you against their will, nor killing someone and then allowing yourself to live on, or getting money, property or sexual gratification from an unwilling person.
Dark comedies still do good business, you know. As a parralell example, most sitcom families are decidedly dysfunctional; funny on TV, not when they’re next door (or in your house O.o). So death is not off limits for comedy (ask Woody Allen). Laughing about certain things can help; why else would Mel Brooks write “The Producers”?
The Darwin Awards are funny, but they’re not heavily moderated, and I can only think of a few that have been verified. Still a good example of making fun of people who died or neutered themselves in their own stupidity, though.
Even still, trying to masturbate with a belt sander is different from depression, although the guy who ripped his nerts off with one might have been diagnosed with paraphilia. Anyway, not seeking medical help after he did certainly does allow for his Darwin Award, all by itself.
I’m not disgusted with him. Nor am I sad for him. I know it sounds bad, but I don’t really care about this kid. How many people kill themselves that we never hear about? I’d be more sad about hearing an old person kill themself, cause I have a soft spot for old people.
Thank you Lanyx.
.
I’m sure the kid cares a lot that people are making fun of him on the internet. Given that he’s either: in a void, no longer sentient, in heaven, where he can just laugh at the motherfuckers who have to deal with bad shit while he lives a perfect life, in hell, where he has more important concerns than people on the internet, another afterlife fitting into one or both of the above categories, or reincarnated, where he wouldn’t remember who he was, to look at most belief options.
Either way, I really doubt he cares anymore. So I have no problem with the jokes. I don’t really think they’re that funny, but meh. Death jokes can be funny. These aren’t. This is because easily 90% of myspace users and forum-goers aren’t funny, and 95% or more of those who try to make jokes are included in the above 90%.
I agree with Kraken about the myspace thing, the invites do get annoying, and I think a lot of people are making fun of him for that and his music tastes, or angry about it because of that. I think this is another thing where people are looking for something besides random chance and sadness for a kid’s death, and music and a cult-ish website are easy targets for misplaced agression, grief, and humour.
Although, Kraken, I didn’t really bring up selfishness. I just said it didn’t matter where he left his note. One way he was dead with his reasoning on a piece of paper, the other way dead with it floating in cyberspace. Either way the note’s there and he’s dead. I see no difference and no reason to make a big deal out of where he put it.
You misunderstood me. I feel indifference for this kid too. I didn’t mean “rarar death is sacred you may not joke about death”, we joke about the living too after all. I have it with the death as with the living: respect them in general, unless they have evoked your disrespect; then don’t. That does not include the immediate cause of a person’s death. The reason I think you have a fucked up humour if you think a person’s death is funny because… well, it isn’t. Death isn’t funny. It’s not serious either. It’s just death. You could say the same thing about a piece of wood. It becomes funny when portrayed in a funny or comedic fashion or something, but as a thing itself, I fail to see how it would be.
As for the note on myspace: Why not? Yeesh. If I decided to kill myself I’d probably leave a note on my lj or something too, to notify some of my friends Wtf do I care about the media if I’m dead? They make a fuss about everything, dead or not. I don’t see why leaving a note on myspace before you die is a free ticket to be disrespected. Unless you say to use myspace in the first place is. Then I agree. <.< And yes, I do. <.<
Durh. Sorry Arac. I got you and Evil_Dave confused. It’s gotta be the hat, or something.