Online deaths

One of my Runescape clanmates had cancer. She quit the game to attend to her illness, although her prognosis was grim. As we haven't heard from her since, we have to assume she lost her battle. She was very kind, fun, and intelligent.

I've thought about this before as well, but I have my closest online friends on Facebook. The word would get out somehow.
 
Miscellaneous said:
Quick question to anyone: excluding "real life" people, would you really want people to know of your death?

For example, if you passed away and a few people on smogon found out, would you want there to be a thread/ group/ annoncment made about it?

Personally, I wouldn't want that, but i'd be curious to hear other opinions.
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Many of us here talk to each other every day on IRC. Also many frequently Skype / text / IM / etc. Many of us have met each other "in the real world" either because we're local or at Smogon meetups. Friendships here run deeper than you think. I would definitely want my Smogon friends to know if something happened to me.

As was pointed out a while back, we probably talk to each other more than our "real" friends due to having IRC always running. I stopped making as much of a distinction between "online" and "real life" a while back. Smogon is just another set of friends like my sets of high school friends and sets of university friends. Some overlap between all groups. It doesn't make sense to differentiate in the 21st century.
 
mtr said:
I remember reading a joke about various pro-suicide "forums" that say that you never know if someone went inactive or they actually killed themselves.

I've had suicidal thoughts quite a few times in my life, but yeah it would be weird if someone on smogon died.
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Same here both for first and second. That's a pretty common joke in pro-suicide communities it seem.

Giving it some though, I just realized that if I died suddenly, Smogon would be about the only community that wouldn't know (along with a little other one I go to). At least one person of every other place I go to has me on Facebook and stuff.

I don't think I'm particularly bothered about this, though...

I feel I can write more about this later but I need to gather up my thoughts.
 
VirtualKaraokeCircusAct said:
Has anybody heard anything about akuchi? Since she's had it pretty rough in the past, and last time she was on the forums she was pretty hard into stims... Do people have her on facebook/has she been active there?
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Someone said on IRC she got put in a Psychiatric Ward I believe. I can't verify that though, but someone who has her Facebook probably would be able to tell you what happened to her.
 
Eraddd said:
Someone said on IRC she got put in a Psychiatric Ward I believe. I can't verify that though, but someone who has her Facebook probably would be able to tell you what happened to her.
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I can confirm this. She's already out, though.
 
This is quite the depressing thread. Sometimes at night I have really sad thoughts that if I died no one would care because not a lot of people know me and stuff and I always figured I was an "expendable friend" to most of my buds. I'm not saying I'm going to commit suicide anytime soon (I'm not, don't worry), but I just figured that if I died, no one would really care.

EDIT: No I am not trying to troll.
 
Before I got into Pokemon, I played Animal Crossing: Wild World a lot online. The community I was a part of wasn't too big, but it was decent, and we all had a lot of fun trading w/ each other, playing tag, showing off our finds, etc. (I was a pro sprite artist, so I made most of my money selling those and taking requests... but I digress). Anyways, I got really close w/ two people -- bobby and AusPaperMario. Both were really generous guys, and APM in particular always had great stuff that you had to put a lot of time to really get, and he would give them to me all the time. One day, APM was visiting my town and we were chatting, and he told me that the reason he was able to play AC:WW so much was because he had leukemia and spent most of his time in his hospital bed where they had WiFi; he wasn't even going to school at that point, because he was too sick. He asked that I kept his sickness a secret, though, because he didn't want people to feel sorry for him or treat him differently if they found out, so I didn't tell anybody. Anyways, one day, he told me he was going in for a bone marrow transplant soon, and a few days after that was the last time I ever saw him online =/.

People often make fun of online friendships, but sometimes you can really grow to be close to people online. When someone dies, it really sucks because you don't get any closure at all through a funeral or anything. I hope none of you have to experience that, and I hope all the good friends I've met through Pokemon stay alive and healthy so I don't have to experience it again.
 
Athenodoros said:
God that's rough. His family must have been really tough. When we have people at my school die, anyone from the school is generally allowed to come to the funeral, regardless of how well they knew him.

And I've always thought that it is sad that if, for instance, I died, then no one on Smogon would ever know that I had. I'll say now that I'd always say that I was going, just to make sure :)

EDIT: I have never seen the words "Have a nice day" in a less appropriate context than below.
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I'm not sure what his family actually thought, I know they blamed me though. They were angry because I was alive and he wasn't. They didn't get that it killed me as well. I don't understand why I'm alive.
 
Gabe said:
I'm not sure what his family actually thought, I know they blamed me though. They were angry because I was alive and he wasn't. They didn't get that it killed me as well. I don't understand why I'm alive.
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Gabe, please don't feel that way: That's all I ask. I had a friend that had a similar story and now both are gone.

He told me that he felt he didn't deserve to be alive, that he should have 'went' instead of his friend. Although I can't quite remember the exact details, I believe that he did get closure with his best friend's family. Even though he may have gotten closure, it definitely still troubled him and God, I don't want to say this but sometimes you have to before you regret but, do you ever really get over things like this?

I also want to say to whomever is reading this or feeling low; don't fake your happiness. It is the most annoying for people to offer thoughtless advice without there being genuine heart from it. Things like, 'Oh, don't worry, it'll get better.' To me, it's more like, 'Yeah, don't swallow me in with your misery.'

But at the same time, there are people who really are there for you. People who really want to see you happy again. That's important.

I believe that people should be there for each other, so if any of you are experiencing something like this (suicidal thoughts or coping with loss) do NOT hesitate to talk to me or a professional! I am not a professional but God damn it, I have been through this. I do not wish for the feelings I have experienced on anyone else.
 
Charmed said:
Gabe, please don't feel that way: That's all I ask. I had a friend that had a similar story and now both are gone.

He told me that he felt he didn't deserve to be alive, that he should have 'went' instead of his friend. Although I can't quite remember the exact details, I believe that he did get closure with his best friend's family. Even though he may have gotten closure, it definitely still troubled him and God, I don't want to say this but sometimes you have to before you regret but, do you ever really get over things like this?

I also want to say to whomever is reading this or feeling low; don't fake your happiness. It is the most annoying for people to offer thoughtless advice without there being genuine heart from it. Things like, 'Oh, don't worry, it'll get better.' To me, it's more like, 'Yeah, don't swallow me in with your misery.'

But at the same time, there are people who really are there for you. People who really want to see you happy again. That's important.

I believe that people should be there for each other, so if any of you are experiencing something like this (suicidal thoughts or coping with loss) do NOT hesitate to talk to me or a professional! I am not a professional but God damn it, I have been through this. I do not wish for the feelings I have experienced on anyone else.
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Well of all places I've finally met someone who understands. I don't think I will ever "get over it". It's too fucking hard. I think about him everyday. I saw him die, and I held his bloody body. I looked into his lifeless eyes and screamed for help. You can't forget stuff like that, no matter how hard you try. I've thought about him everyday since he died. I actually don't have a support system, he was my best friend and my other friends eventually blamed me and
turned their backs on me in favor of being in the "in" crowd with his brother, who began to make death threats against me. After that, I swore I would never allow myself to be close to another human being again. It's not worth the pain. And idk, I kind of see why people become comedians now. Life is so horrible that it's a joke, and the only way to stay sane is laugh.
 
I actually lost one of my close friends to suicide not too long ago. We met at the 2009 VGC (which I believe was in Pennsylvania, IIRC), and we really hit it off. After hanging out for around two weeks, I finally worked up the courage to ask her out, and to my amazement, she said "yes". We dated for five months before she had to back to England (the rest of their family was in a financial bind and they wanted to help out). When she went back, we technically "broke up" because we couldn't deal with a long-distance relationship, though we still were much in love with each other (the last words I said to her face-to-face were "I love you"). We talked to each other all the time on AIM, Shoddy, and whatnot for the greater half of 2010 (Jan-Aug).

However, late-August she told me she was stressed out with her family and stuff. I told her I would do anything I could to comfort her, even though by now I fell out of love with her (she was still an indispensable friend, though). She declined, which I did not enjoy one bit.

One month later, I got a call from her sister. I was in the middle of a Shoddy match, so I called her back after I finished (I won). I called back and asked her what was up. She said that Georgia (my ex-) committed suicide. Everyone was mourning over her loss, and I cried for about an hour in my room, still in denial. I never got the chance to tell her how much I missed her, and how much I wanted to see her again. She never even (told me/ gave me the chance to say) good-bye. I miss her to this day, but I made a full recovery over the loss of one of the greatest people in my life.
 
Well, I can't say I've ever experienced anything, especially not as far as the likes of Gabe.

But the closest I did come to it was back in my rs days, there was a player near the top of the leaderboards, who was #1 at one point named theoldnite. He died of bowel cancer and his mother announced it. He was 24.

It's not like I ever knew the guy, but as he was in such a famous position, everyone knew about it and mourned. Kinda shows the good side of the internet.
 
Back when Little Cup was on its own forums, there was a user called Addie/Colloquy. He went by Katherine here on Smogon. He was very into drinking and partying, but lived with a very conservative southern family. The last I heard from him he was grounded, but that was two years ago. I can't help but feel that he might have died in some kind of alcohol-related incident. It may seem far fetched, but be was very dedicated to Pokemon and sort of just...vanished. We make jokes about it in the LC community, but I think that is partly because there is a very real possibility of it being true, and it's our way of coping with that.

On NeoPets, I had a friend on the Role-Playing boards who went by Demonic. She suffered from depression or something, but was an extremely good writer and Role-Player. The last I heard from her was from in some institution after attempted suicide. For all I know, she was lying and she just got tired of NeoPets and just decided she wanted to kill her online persona, but either way it was very weird for me. There were a few others who I suspected had killed themselves, due to the unstable personalities that Role-Playing attracted, but there was no confirmation. I was thirteen when all of this NeoPets business was going on, so I was probably just jumping to conclusions. But, at the time, it seemed like it was the only "logical" conclusion, as I couldn't imagine any of these people who committed so much time and effort to Role-Playing just up and quitting without any warning.

But, there was one time when another one of the NeoPets people was on and talking about their plans to commit suicide, after coming as a girl and a lesbian to the rest of us. She had previously posed as a male and apparently had very few friends irl. We thought we had talked her out of it, but a few weeks later and she stopped coming on the NeoBoards.

I think the worst thing about "online death" is the complete absence of certainty. There's no way to know if the person simply got tired of whatever place and quit without notice or died or is in the hospital. And, if they do die, there's no sense of finality. Maybe they'll come back and post again someday, maybe they won't.

If I died, I'm not sure if anyone online would know. I haven't really thought about it too much, but it is sort of a scary thought.
 
Vader did you ever go on the GameFAQs Neopets board? There's one person from that community I wish I knew what happened to. Was pretty damn active then one day just stopped coming around to the private off-shoot we made when GameFAQs started cracking down on the off-topic rule. Never did hear from him again. Everyone else just slowly drifted away and we knew interest was waning or we had the real names of if we ever needed to check up.
 
No, I mostly stuck to the NeoPets RPing board at that point. If they were active there, then maybe I'd know them, but it isn't very likely. The group I hung around with wasn't exactly comprised of "model" NeoPets users, so unless they were a huge troll who happened to write well, then there's basically a 0% chance of me knowing him/her.
 
Neopets didn't like our group too much either... I don't think I know anyone who wasn't frozen at one time or another. They didn't seem to like anyone who knew how to accumulate money. Yeah, I didn't spend much time on the NeoBoards. A little bit of Battledome Board but that's about it.

I'd actually want most of the people I knew then to know what happened to me too. A big portion of them are on my Facebook now at least. Wish we had better social networking infrastructure in place back then so losing touch was less easy.
 
Duckster said:
For everyone asking about Judgement: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/may/19/teen-who-died-collier-hike-be-named-eagle-scout-po/

He passed away from a heatstroke in May 2009. He was in fact the same dude who was a "sage" on the official Nintendo forums back in the day. It's pretty eerie to lurk his FaceBook comments, apparently he was going places in life.

This is a thread where some of his closer friends found out what happened to him: http://battlefrontier.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1561
May or may not be interesting, don't remember if anymore details were posted.

Sorry for not posting this sooner, none of us were too sure whether a thread on the dude would be relevant here or even in good taste.
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Wow, I had no idea. I'm friends with him on facebook and I think I even wished him happy birthday this year without even noticing =[ I feel really terrible for not even knowing, it happened so long ago. I'm glad you brought it up though, I would have felt even worse if I had just gone on not knowing. RIP Judgment/Michael.

OT, obviously the old users remember JeffroBaggins' feigned death and subsequent return, and I remember there was quite a bit of support for him at the time. I agree with Fishy/Firestorm/etc. in that if I or some other smogonite that I know well were to die, I would want Smogon (and particluarly said friends) to know about it. I remember last year when I was feeling pretty suicidal, there were a number of internet friends who offered their support, which I greatly appreciate. At this point, like Firestorm, I consider my internet friends as close to me as many of my "real-life" friends. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way =)
 
I was part of a forum a couple years ago (sprouted from another Homestar Runner forum, go figure) and I had gotten one of my best friends to join. A few years ago, that friend of mine went through severe depression and suicidal thoughts, and there was a period of him not really being sure about life.

One of the first things that came to mind when I thought of what it'd be like to lose him, I did think of whether I should ask his parents if it was okay to telling the people online who he was friends with (that forum, our guild on Guild Wars) and the like.

Thankfully, he's better/fine now and I never had to do anything of the sort. It did make me wonder if anyone would do the same if something were to happen to me.
 
I used to know this guy named Josh through Naruto boards, and he was one of those emo kids who talked about morbid shit all the time. I would always be like 'yeah, yeah.' because for the two or three years that I was posting, he'd always say he was depressed, and we'd tell him to get help, and he'd tell us he didn't feel like it, and we'd try to be sensitive, and after a while it just became a joke to us.
Anyway he's been on my MSN since I stopped posting, and I haven't seen him sign on in a really long time. Reading this thread reminded me of him and so now I'm sitting here like "Oh, shit. Maybe he did it."

I'm really bad at coping with death. Like, full-blown denial.
The first time - I was playing Baldur's Gate alone in my room, I got a call from my friend saying "Nelly is dead." I pretty much hung up the phone and kept playing because I thought she was playing a sick joke.

There are a few people here that I know well enough to the point where I'd :'( if they died. So MATTJ AND IVYSAUR DONT DIE KTHNX
 
Wow, this is one of the most emotional threads I've ever visited... Anyway, I don't know of any online friend who has committed suicide, though there are people I've known of that have. I do remember one guy committing suicide who I knew from school. I was pretty devastated when I heard the news.

Personally, I have experienced bad states of depression and low points in my life and yes, I have contemplated suicide. I don't think I'd be able to go through with it however, I mean it would hurt my family so much if I did, plus it's not the way I'd like to go out in life. I can't say I'm still particularly happy at the moment, but I'm sure things will pick up in life and I will look back on this and wonder why I ever felt this way.
 
Gabe said:
My best friend died when we were both 14. Ever since I've never been able to have another close friend. I don't really believe in God or heaven anymore even though I wish I could. I would really love the chance to see him again. He was killed by a train, and that was the last day I ever saw him. His family didn't allow me to attend his funeral or mass. I never got to say good-bye....


I'm not being exactly clear and concise but you really should value your friends. Because friends are really what help you get through life sometimes. And I realize that this sounds very dull and cheesy but I don't really know how else I should word it. Love your friends.
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This second paragraph is so true. In my freshman year of college, I ran into a guy I knew in elementary school. Didn't recognize him obviously, but we talked to each other frequently before/after class, lunch breaks, etc. I believe he transferred after a year or two though, as I hadn't seen him since. Dunno what happened to him beyond that.

There were other friends I made during college that I still talk to, whether it be on Facebook or not. My school always ran monthly poker tournaments, so I got to know a lot of people from those. My area has had a casino for a few years, and it recently added poker/blackjack. While I'm not entirely sure how many of the people I knew from then still play, I ran into one over the summer, and was even at the same table with him. Was a nice surprise after four years, though I randomly found him on Myspace (sometime in '08 or '09 I think) by using the search-by-school feature.

Gabe said:
Well of all places I've finally met someone who understands. I don't think I will ever "get over it". It's too fucking hard. I think about him everyday. I saw him die, and I held his bloody body. I looked into his lifeless eyes and screamed for help. You can't forget stuff like that, no matter how hard you try. I've thought about him everyday since he died. I actually don't have a support system, he was my best friend and my other friends eventually blamed me and
turned their backs on me in favor of being in the "in" crowd with his brother, who began to make death threats against me. After that, I swore I would never allow myself to be close to another human being again. It's not worth the pain. And idk, I kind of see why people become comedians now. Life is so horrible that it's a joke, and the only way to stay sane is laugh.
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While I can't imagine what it's like to WATCH your best friend die (or even attend the funeral), I'd have to disagree that it's not worth the pain of not being close to people. I understand where you're coming from though - my own family has done that to me through the years: ignoring me at reunions, my niece actually drew blood on me once, and my dad's sister even said "these are [dad's name]'s kids" at a post-funeral reception (while I was sitting right behind her, no less.) I never see them, so it doesn't really bother me anymore.

I will, however, say this: if you run into the people you can consider your friends, you'll know. I'm happy for every moment I've gotten to spend with mine.


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As for the question of whether I'd want people from here to know or not: Hell yeah I would. Personal opinions about people on here aside, I still interact with them often enough that I'd like them to know...though, between here, IRC, and Facebook, I'm sure somebody would figure it out.
 
all this thread has done is remind me of a bunch of users who have inexplicably disappeared...

gormenghast, warthog, flameout, sanders, bugsy23, etc etc i could go on forever.

sure most of them are probably just chilling somewhere but to think one of them could be dead I don't know it just kinda numbing. I want to talk to them all again :(
 
Jackal said:
all this thread has done is remind me of a bunch of users who have inexplicably disappeared...

gormenghast, warthog, flameout, sanders, bugsy23, etc etc i could go on forever.

sure most of them are probably just chilling somewhere but to think one of them could be dead I don't know it just kinda numbing. I want to talk to them all again :(
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I can say with certainty that both gorm and sanders are alive, as sanders was on IRC pretty recently and gorm regularly denies my friend requests on facebook (ass >:|). No idea about the others though =/
 
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