In something that I have found hard to digest, 19-year-old Abraham K. Biggs overdosed on pills on a live before hundreds of people on the Wednesday, November 19, through a live web stream on justin.tv. Not only did he comment suicide, but commenters from justin.tv and bodybuilding.com, the site to which the teen posted his suicide note, were encouraging that act apparently thinking it was some kind of joke.
After doing a little research, I found that this is not the first time this has happened. Brandon Vegas overdosed live on a webcam and even gave out his information for people to call the authorities if anything went wrong. Sadly, the members of the forum were reluctant to “get involved.”
This brings up a very important and strange thing about the internet. We feel disconnected from it and that it is “only the internet.” We have to change that, especially when there is a live video of someone taking their own life.
[Via TimeOnline]
I read about this on the HuffPo this morning and it messed me up for a cool minute. I can’t believe people were encouraging him, I wonder how they felt once they realized he was dead. It will be interesting to see what type of legal action will be taken against the site that fed the stream.