The Internet Way of Dying

Authors Note: As always, this is a work in progress and I would love to hear any feed back, comments and especially discussion or criticism of the points raised here, if you loved it or hated it.

The pdf of this article is available here.

P.J.G. Stokes 28 November 2008

The Internet way of Dying

Originally this paper was to be called, To Living and Dying on the internets, using a grammar common among my site of research. However, “living” online is too large a subject for me at the moment. Dying online, massive as it is, can be shrunk to a number of examples for fruitful discussion. What can we safely say about dying online if we haven’t figured out how we live online. Well, it is my intention that through looking at the process and finality of death online will reveal much about how we live online. That is to say, precisely because death has no “finality”, that it is a process, a rite of passage even, that we can explore how one lives online – with out the corresponding “real” or “flesh” life – it becomes apparent how the online dimension “lives” – it reveals the Zeitgeist.

To clarify; this paper looks at the process of dying, being dead and how morning creates a social presence online (just like in the off-line dimensions). As we work through this we will find a precise site of research, we isolate the created, generated, ubiquitously interconnected (aetheral?¹) self that we are interested in right now. Albeit a “dead” one. With this in mind we can look at “life” online with more clarity.

Sets and Overdose – Suicide and the techno/media/self scape

This article begins to focus on the online pathologies that my research over the last year has focused on. That said, this article is also a current affair. Suicide and eating disorders are the primary concern of my dissertation and over the next month more articles relating to those will surface. So check back soon.

In the meantime, this article is current so please engage the event, engage the techno/media/self scape, broaden it and report back to me anything interesting you find! As always, this is a work in progress and I would love to hear any feedback, comments or criticisms you may have. pearsestokes@gmail.com

The pdf of this article is available here. If you find it useful please let me know.

– PJG

Last night CandieJunkie committed suicide. Earlier in the day he announced his intention to overdose live on web cam. Many people replied, were involved, contacted officials and myspace friends in an effort to save him. Still we all watched his justin.tv channel for almost 8 hours before we saw police enter his room, quickly check him, then cover the web cam. I hope this article in no way trivializes what it discusses; the apparent suicide of a young man or the cry for help and attention that it may be. When we know more about the topic we can more accurately address the sadness and seriousness of the event. For the moment this article just discusses the mechanisms that worked, how they worked and illustrates how important it is for social researchers, anthropologists, sociologist, culturologists, etc, to get to grips with what is happening out there.