Teen Commits Suicide with Live Web Audience

Teen Commits Suicide with Live Web Audience

Biggs was not the first person to commit suicide with a webcam rolling. But the drawn-out drama — and the reaction of those watching — was seen as an extreme example of young people’s penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the Internet.

Was seen by who? I don’t see the problem as young people sharing intimate details with others. I see the problem as one young man who committed suicide. Another problem is the development of this into some sort of media culture incident.

As a matter of fact, this obsession the media gets with individual cases of personal drama is far more common and disturbing than “young people’s penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the internet.” Think about how certain cases get turned into serial dramas.

For example, Jean-Benet Ramsey and Lacy Peterson are victim celebrities– individuals who had no interest to the public until they became the victims of gruesome murders. After they had been killed, they were developed into archetypes by local and national media so that they fit into generated story lines.

We are meant to believe these murders and suicides are indicative of national problems. This is probably a defense mechanism. As a culture we have a hard time accepting random acts of violence, derangement, or death. We become obsessed with motives and storytelling to try to squeeze some sort of moral out of personal tragedy because we refuse to accept the possibility of meaningless violence and chaos.

(Isn’t Batman supposed to punch me now?)