As far as I can tell, there is no faith, no religion, no hope and no positive sense of morality in the following story.
Only evil.
There may be some apathy, which is often another form of evil. Here’s the top of the Associated Press report, as printed in the Los Angeles Times.
The message “OMG” popped up next to the live webcam broadcast of Abraham Biggs lying motionless on his bed, followed by “LOL” and “hahahah.”
But Biggs wasn’t joking. The 19-year-old Broward College student really did commit suicide by drug overdose, as some audience members egged him on and others tried to talk him out of it.
Eventually, police entered the video frame, having been alerted by watchers. But it was too late. The officers hovered over Biggs’ body, then stopped the Web feed — 12 hours after Biggs, at his father’s house in Pembroke Pines, had declared his intent to kill himself.
It was unclear how many people had watched.
Now, is there evil in this story (which is getting quite a bit of coverage)? If so, the existence of evil is essentially a religious question. However, I am not sure that we can expect the Associated Press to chase that ghost in what is, essentially, a crime story.
Only, it’s not just a crime story. It’s a story about a new kind of cyber community and whether that community has any sense of ethics. And, inside the wider online community, there was a smaller community of bodybuilding enthusiasts, people spread out across the Internet with their own sense of community values (or lack thereof). Who provides moral leadership in that kind of setting? Who makes the rules? Determines what is right and what is wrong?
The family of this young man felt wrong, felt abandoned. The sense that something wrong took place is clear in their comments.
Biggs’ family was infuriated that neither the viewers nor the website that hosted the live video, Justin.tv, acted sooner to save him. The website plays videos next to a space where computer users can post real-time comments.
“They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours,” said Biggs’ sister, Rosalind. She added: “It didn’t have to be.”
As a professor who teaches journalism and media studies to modern young people, I am haunted by passages such as this in the report:
Some members of the bodybuilder forum told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide there before. Some online observers encouraged him to do it, others tried to talk him out of it and some discussed whether he was taking a dose big enough to kill himself, said Wendy Crane, an investigator with the Broward County medical examiner’s office.
One person who claimed to have watched said that Biggs went to sleep after swallowing pills and appeared to be breathing for a few hours. Meanwhile, observers cracked jokes.
Right. And ultimately, there is this jarring reality about the only larger frame of reference that exists in this day and age:
Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said the circumstances of Biggs’ suicide were not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
“If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile,” she said. “For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?’ “
Indeed. What’s the point? Ultimately, life isn’t real unless it’s in some form of mass media. But what about death? Is that real?
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Comments (18) |
November 22, 2008, at 12:44 pm
This sick, sad story is nothing new, just the internet instantiation of something that has been happening all to often IRL (in real life). I found a story from 1951 so we should not think this sickness is something new:
So this time the blame can’t be placed on the internet generation or even the 60’s because members of the ‘greatest generation’ were as evil as those today.
November 22, 2008, at 1:21 pm
I have listened to this story on several news reports. Thank you for posting it. I will speak with my teenager about it.
I believe that filming life and death even via “real-time webcam” removes the “real-ness” of the event and places it in the TV frame mind reference of accepted false reality.
When I heard the story the first time, I was surprised that this is being reported as the first instance of suicide on webcam. I figured it had happened before now, as I have been aware for a few years that our teenagers are into the “If it’s not recorded or documented, then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile.â€
I am sad for his family, they are in my prayers.
Unfortunately, the comments are nothing new, as Jerry has pointed out. People can be vicious. This makes it even more important for parents/families and friends to keep an eye on each other, especially when there is disparaging self-hate speech or talk of suicide.
November 22, 2008, at 1:39 pm
My first thought upon reading this story online was “Well, the Internet just reached a new low. It’s officially ‘evil’” But of course, Jerry makes a point.
And it’s just a few (or maybe even a lot of) people who are putting the Internet to evil uses, not the Internet itself that is evil, which after all is an object and thing, not a being.
But that raises a lot of interesting theological and religious and ethical questions that can and hopefully will be explored.
November 22, 2008, at 2:18 pm
This reminds me of the Kitty Genovese murder, wherein a dozen or more people heard her cries for help but no one called the police.
November 22, 2008, at 3:05 pm
The psychological terms for theses behaviors are “bystander non-intervention”, “diffusion of responsibility”, and “deindividuation”, all of which partially help explain some of the behaviors of these groups. As others have mentioned, this group behavior isn’t new but I think the Internet amplifies these behaviors and makes them more likely.
It’s quite sad and unfortunately, I’ll have a new example to illustrate these processes with the students in my psychology classes.
November 22, 2008, at 4:42 pm
I would never claim that the Internet of the communities that form around it are uniquely evil.
I would say that the element of life being cheaper when seen at the distance of cyberspace MAY be uniquely evil, with the way this technology is BEING USED in some online communities. I mean, I do think that technology shapes content….
November 22, 2008, at 5:05 pm
“They got hits, they got viewersâ€
In a few days they’ll have the mother of all lawsuits.
November 22, 2008, at 5:08 pm
Regarding the internet being evil: The Romans staged death for fun in stadia. Is the stadium across town evil because it could be used for evil?
November 22, 2008, at 5:20 pm
MattK:
But who made that argument?
There are, however, evil communities that meet in stadiums and there are good communities that meet in stadiums.
November 23, 2008, at 12:10 am
You are right. I read the post and article too quickly. A wicked community found a new place too meet.
November 23, 2008, at 12:17 am
I’d like to stop and offer a little perspective on this story. I’m a 20-year-old college student who indeed is a frequent user of Facebook and other forms of Internet communication (though not webcams), and I’d like to let everyone know that my peers would be just as horrified at this story as the rest of us. It’s incredibly sad, and I’m going to keep this young man’s family in my prayers. But I really think that this story, as Jerry and Jonathan have pointed out, is really just another example of something that has been going on for a very long time. Does the Internet “amplify and make these behaviors more likely”? Probably.
But I’d say it amplifies and makes more likely a variety of behaviors, good and bad. I think Terry understands that when he notes that if it can be used for evil, it isn’t necessarily evil. Not that I think the commenters here think the Internet is evil— just the fact that they’re posting on a site such as this shows that they appreciate its value.
I hope, though, this doesn’t lead people who don’t understand things like Facebook, MySpace, etc. (which are quite different from webcams) to condemn them. There are a lot of misconceptions about these sort of new technologies, and frankly, they’re rooted in misinformation and fear of “the new”— every generation is suspicious of what the younger generation is doing. Can they cause harm? Absolutely. But, generally, do they? Absolutely not.
I frankly think that an attitude of “What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?” is a gross misrepresentation of my and my peers’ attitudes, and I’m surprised that a professor of popular culture would have such a perception. Again, rooted in misconceptions and lack of knowledge.
November 23, 2008, at 1:12 am
Tyson,
I don’t think that it’s a misperception that an attitude of “What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?” prevails among some in the 20s-30s group on the net (I’m in the upper part of that group and teach others throughout that age range). I think it’s more accurate to say it’s an overgeneralization to say that all 20- to 30-somethings on the net have this attitude. I am on Facebook but rarely on and I find that friends and others get annoyed that I’m not regularly updating my status. I have a number of “friends” who seem content to tell me (and everyone else who’s their “friend”) what they’re doing, no matter what. So, there’s truth to the professor’s perception, though he may have overstated the case.
I agree that the Internet amplifies all sorts of behaviors, both good and bad. It seems to me that, knowing what I know about human nature (especially the flawed areas), the potential anonymity of the net might have a greater amplification effect on the bad behavior. (Though admittedly, I would need to design an actual study to test that hypothesis. As soon as the government redirects some of that bail-out money towards research funding, I’ll get right on it.)
November 23, 2008, at 4:08 am
Jonathan,
I generally agree. I certainly am aware of (and friends with) those people who are constantly telling you, via Facebook, everything you don’t want to know about their personal lives. But that group is a minority. I also know plenty of people who rarely if ever update their status, and are very careful with the information they put online. I think your description was most apt— the assertion had some truth, but was overstated. I suppose what irked me was that she made it sound as though this was how everyone in my age group thinks. Overgeneralizations are a bad thing.
You’re also probably right that the Internet is more likely to amplify bad behavior than good. That sounds like something that would be quite difficult to measure in a study though, given that you’d have to define “bad” and “good” and deal with a host of other non-empirical issues. But I’d certainly be interested in seeing the results.
I guess my main concern was that stories like this inevitaby lead a certain segment of the population to say, “Oh, see, all this newfangled technology stuff I don’t understand has to be bad, people are communicating with other people too much, yada yada yada…” I think people probably said the same thing when the telegram came around. And the telephone. Automobiles. You get the idea. Facebook and web cams are just kind of the logical next step to that.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Erm, why are we having this discussion on a blog ostensibly about religion?
November 23, 2008, at 7:16 am
It may also have to do with the distributed responsibility of the online world, a lack of ownership if you will, or perhaps a tendency to mob action. The sort of action of the web was caught in this story about cell phones, and how one person came to morally regret the action he incited. New technologies give new opportunity for the self (and so for sin).
November 23, 2008, at 12:21 pm
[…] ~ WELCOME TO soulless evil online, for entertainment …. (getreligion.org) […]
November 23, 2008, at 12:30 pm
Harris:
That is such a great story about the cell phones living on after being stolen and, essentially, calling out for help.
In watching the photos being taken by the thiefs, the owners must be having something akin to an out of body experience.
Really strange world we live in these days.
November 23, 2008, at 7:43 pm
Of course Internet technology amplifies both good and bad behavior. We will never know how many kids have not commited suicide thanks to friends they made via the Internet when they had none face to face.
What calls our religious curiosity is whether this technology, not just amplifies, but creates bad behavior. Are there people out there with a numbed sense of the value of human life who would not have become so numbed but for the Internet?
November 25, 2008, at 12:00 pm
[…] Evil?: GetReligion comments on the story of a young man who killed himself by overdose while many watched over webcam feed. […]