Abraham Biggs, a 19-year-old college student, committed suicide last week in front of his Web cam, after first posted a link on a bodybuilding site inviting people to watch. Twelve hours after Biggs took a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine and went to sleep on his father’s bed at his home in Pembroke Pines, Florida, police arrived. The Web cam was still running and people were still checking in on Biggs’ status.
According to the Associated Press, which has a full description of the events leading up to Biggs’ suicide, this wasn’t the first time that someone has killed himself while broadcasting online. But the response from some of the viewers of Biggs’ Web cam has led to questions about behavior on the Internet—is there not some line (encouraging a troubled teenager to kill himself) that shouldn’t be crossed?
The Web site that hosted Biggs’ Web cam, justin.tv, has deleted the video and the comments people made while viewing it. The AP spoke to someone who claimed to have viewed the suicide and reported that as Biggs lay on the bed, other viewers cracked jokes. When police officers entered the room, in addition to “OMG” responses, viewers posted “lol” and “hahahah.”
An investigator for the local medical examiner’s office told the AP that before Biggs killed himself, some viewers encouraged him not to do it, others egged him on, and still more debated how big a dose of pills he needed to take for it to be effective.
The beauty of the Internet, of course, is that we’re all as invisible as we want to be. It is highly unlikely that investigators will be able to track down all the people who encouraged Biggs to kill himself, either because it will take too much time or because the viewers are simply untraceable.
The Biggs case has echoes of another instance of suicide precipitated by Internet users. Jury selection is currently under way in the trial of Lori Drew, an adult who created a fake MySpace profile of a teenage boy and used it to torment one of her daughter’s former friends, Megan Meier. (This New Yorker story has the gripping and haunting details.) Meier killed herself after the fake boy said hurtful things about her.
While Biggs was taking medication for bipolar disorder and Meier for depression, the more interesting connection is the role Internet trolls played in both cases. After Lori Drew’s connection to Megan Meier’s death was made public, the Drew family quickly became the target of the trolls’ wrath. They learned the Drew address and telephone number, harassed the family and made death threats.
With Biggs, the trolls weren’t just responding to someone’s death—they were implicitly involved in it. One could argue that in the Meier case, the trolls gave Lori Drew the punishment she deserved—they were the good guys. But watching as someone takes a handful of pills, and possibly encouraging him to do so? That has to show a complete lack of morals. At least stop watching the Web cam. [Ed note—or, you know, call the police?]
In August, the New York Times Magazine attempted to enter the world of the Internet troll, and asked if there was a line that shouldn’t be crossed. One notorious troll, Weev, argued that posting bright, flashing images on an epilepsy forum site was going too far. In a later interview with the Web site Corrupt, he identified the moral limits to trolling. “Goodness, beauty, and the meek are valued amongst my comrades and I,” Weev said.
Presumably a 19-year old bipolar college student is one of the meek. But what to make of the viewers who laughed at his death (even when others attempted to notify Web site administrators about the serious situation)? Maybe, in the unregulated life of the Internet, the only recourse we have for viewers who mocked Abraham Biggs is to hope the trolls do find them, and teach them some lesson they surely deserve.
Is there anything worse than hearing about a suicide watch-party and joining in? Making a list of more depraved behavior (watching a rape or murder) makes me hope even our morally suspect online personas don’t allow us to sink that low.
