Response #26, lightly edited:

Date: 2003-09-25, 4:03PM

Wow. Before the suicide guy on CL RNR, I really never thought about all of the things that might make someone really try to do, well, you know, do that terrible thing that he is going to do.

Uh, are you serious? The suicide in cyberspace is the oldest happening around, because every single one of us has contemplated the world without us in it, and this kind of forum gives you the closest idea to it without actually doing anything. Please let the suicide guy rest in peace now for the next identity quick-change artist who decides to try on their fantastic cyber-role.

This is a jaded response that doesn't believe for a second that the suicide is real, which is fair. Why should we believe anything online is real? That's why I find this response fascinating, it's more a comment on cyberspace and virtual reality, including weblogs. The vast majority of people allowed themselves to take the suicide note as real, others were skeptical but also allowed for the possibility.

This person knows exactly what's really going on and knows it isn't a suicide note. And that's totally fair, no one can prove otherwise. But it could also be that she spends way too much time online and her primary form of human contact is in geek chatrooms and message boards. After all, as her first paragraph states, she has never put any thought into the issue. It makes sense that dealing with it or responding to it is not even in her reality.