Non Fiction
Issue #2
But seriously folks, I really am killing myself now
On 8th March 2005, a user of the popular blogger LiveJournal named ‘Klerck’ signed in as usual and created a post with the title ‘I'm afraid I must now kill myself for real’. After calmly saying goodbye to family, friends and various internet acquaintances, he pressed the ‘post’ button, entered his boyfriend’s bathroom and shot himself in the head. His choice of venue for these final words was intensely public, a website of diaries accessible to anyone with the internet and a web browser. Yet, even within Klerck’s opening line, his use of the phrase ‘for real’ acknowledges a tension between reality and virtuality, an understanding that the terrible power of a suicide note is altered irrevocably in the contemporary, abstract realm of the internet.
The deconstruction of someone’s final words seems pretty redundant, even wrong, an interrogation of something so private as to move beyond the lazy decoding of signified meaning hiding behind words and phrases.
But, the perverse, voyeuristic pull of an online suicide note is horrible yet undeniable. An expression of a moment which ultimately remains inexpressible, such a note documents the workings of a mind at the very edges of human suffering. And Klerck’s note is not only on show for the world to see, but its tone is immediately striking in its lack of morbid seriousness. His words are light and witty like the other posts on his blog, and as he calmly and humorously says goodbye to people he would never see again, it reads in a way that is unsettlingly matter-of-fact, and content.
Much of this is because the post is funny. It is placed upon the page amongst trivial accounts of daily routines, of happier times, framed in a self-conscious, ironic vernacular: But seriously folks, I really am killing myself now. It reads like the words of someone sober, contented, confident and simply apologetic for the inconvenience. PS, I'm sorry about the mess. It's not cool at all, I know. It’s a public display of strength, of indifference and – unbelievably – boredom. It's not entirely out of depression or anything like that. A lot of it is simply boredom. I know that sounds stupid, but I'm bored of life. I want to know what comes next. It doesn’t seem real; instead, a fiction, a collection of words set out like thousands you’ve seen before, another story you’ve idly walked in on. Here though, unlike the endless blogs scattered across the internet with their semi-regular updates, this diary has a profound and sudden end.
Or rather it doesn’t.
The ‘comments’ section of such blogs allow passers by to interject, to offer their own knee-jerk thoughts on whatever post has been made. Here it just feels like a further irony; comments which will never be read, cheap and crass reactions, words of disbelief. And then there are the abusive posts, browser-destroying images and slews of anonymity-driven kids, overexcited by the latest internet showcase, thrilled to be able to jab their boot in, kick someone who’s already dead. It’s all pretty horrible reading. But then you realise both the user’s boyfriend and mother are accessing the same thing as you, both have Livejournal accounts and both are grieving openly on the internet, repsonding to unbelievably malicious comments about someone they love; someone they’ve lost. It’s both heartbreaking and strangely laughable – why are they doing this? Isn’t grief something you express in private, away from the watchful, all-engulfing gaze of the internet community?
In the two years since I wrote the bulk of this piece, Klerck’s Livejournal account has been deleted along with his final written words and the reams of associated conjecture from passing vistors. Google searches reveal that Klerck, like many of those who commented on his blog, was a notorious ‘troll’, an individual who engaged in a kind of cyber anarchy involving the spamming of messageboards and community websites. He was involved in ‘shock sites’, creating disturbing images which would be posted and linked to in an effort to cause offense and outrage. Elsewhere, he was notably involved in a widely publicised endeavour to change the name of the second Lord of the Rings film. In the text supporting his online petition he wrote, ‘Peter Jackson has decided to tastelessly name the sequel "The Two Towers". The title is clearly meant to refer to the attacks on the World Trade Center. In this post-September 11 world, it is unforgivable that this should be allowed to happen. The idea is both offensive and morally repugnant.’
Rather than a genuine crusade against the unintentional linguistic reminders of tragedy, it’s probably safe to assume that Klerck’s online petition was simply another subversive act, a means to a chaotic, confused end. The announcement of his death was his final, theatrical stunt, yet it would cause a reaction he’d never get to see.
Perhaps here we stumble upon what the internet is for so many: a camera lens, a stage, a flare which lights up the anonymous for a few brief, fleeting moments. It’s life squashed into the discourses of popular fiction, distilled into a digital form, easily digested and gobbled up. It’s somewhere where we can both project our most natural, inner-selves and our finely-honed personas. It’s a place to live and a place to die using the words of someone else, upon a stage which disappears with a mouse click.