Announcing Suicide on an Anonymous Board: How the Internet Responds

Someone Announced They Were Going to Commit Suicide on an Anonymous Board

Someone posted on an anonymous message board that they were going to end their life. It wasn't a threat, they clarified: they were serious and asked anyone who wanted them to live to say so. The thread gathered about fifteen messages from strangers who don't know their name.

There's no data on how many cases like this occur. However, it's the type of message found in communities accessed with an alias and no photo. What's striking isn't that someone writes it. What's striking is the response.

What Does the Internet Say When Someone Announces They Want to Die?

Responses range from get a hobby – the advice not to give – to the most literal companionship. "You come here because it's the only place you'll be read," writes another, adding that the same happens to him, though he has no intention of doing it. From this emerges the argument that is repeated in the conversation, and it's not sarracena but almost arithmetic. One of the participants formulates it this way: the problem with taking one's life is its irreversibility, because those who attempt it may regret it, and there's no going back, whereas those who don't retain the option to change their mind. Another message reiterates the same point from the other side – you can't regret it once you're dead – and admits, without fanfare, that he too has thought about it countless times.

No one disputes the distress. They discuss how to name it.

The Dark Humor That Sustains the Conversation

A good part of the exchange is done with banter. Someone suggests painting miniatures and calculates that it's expensive, and in the same message, without further details, mentions gambling debts and a family alcohol problem. Another summarizes his life and looks at others' to conclude he's in the same boat, or maskedly better. A detail that portrays the era also appears: "I got a modern vaccine and I'm still alive," he says, as if presenting credentials for having endured what came his way.

Dark humor here doesn't deny the problem. It keeps it open. It's a way to keep writing when no one has the tools to console.

Anonymity as a Support Network

Halfway through the conversation, the person who had announced their intention opens up. They explain that they wrote to someone they care about, that this person has been in a relationship for four years, that they congratulated them, that they swallowed their pride, insulted them, and started crying. The collective response comes in the form of a slogan: the community identifies with him and assumes the downfall as their own. "Come on, we love you," they reply. He thanks them.

It's an old mechanism with new packaging: the anonymous board as what's left when there's no one to call at three in the morning.

Whether these spaces function as real prevention or just as a two-way outlet hasn't been measured by anyone, and perhaps it can't be measured without digging into conversations people believe are private. It's predictable that they will remain, and that those who don't dare to raise their hand in their own home will continue to find them.