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More online deaths: one tragic, one faked

Gharlane, Nowheremom now Whitey and Divi-chan

The ongoing glut of newsgroup deaths continues. This time we have examples of both types: the real and the imagined.

Gameplay users have been saddened by the apparent suicide of one of the site's most popular users, Whitey. Yesterday, one of the moderators on the Counter Strike newsgroup posted a message stating that he had spoken to Whitey's brother Dan, and confirmed that Whitey had taken his own life.

The full reasons are of course not known in full but the moderator does include a section of a letter that Whitey sent to him and asked him to post on the group. It begins: "To my online friends, well how I will miss you lot. You kept me going through the hard times, you didn't know it but you did. In a way, you were my second family even, heh" before ending "I'll be seeing you all soon, try to understand and forgive me".

The news has greatly saddened online friends of Whitey and the newsgroup has been inundated with grieving messages. Parallels with sci-fi expert Gharlane are easily drawn, although Gharlane died in his sleep.

But at the same time, there is another case of what is a bizarre growing trend on the Net - the death of a fictional character that only existed in someone's mind and in online messages.

Except this time, the person does exist - it's just that they were wrongly declared dead. Confused? You will be. Last summer, the sister of poster Divi-chan announced that she was dead on the AnimeonDVD newsgroup.

However, last week, another poster revealed that he had heard reports that Divi-chan (real name Bethany Neal) was alive and well and spotted in Seattle. Later in the same thread, the same poster, with some more information, wrote that she definitely was alive.

Just five messages later, up she pops asking for forgiveness and going on a diatribe about trust and suchlike. Amazingly, other posters appear to have forgiven her and claim that it took courage to write what she did etc etc. Incredible.

In this sense she fared a lot better than Nowheremom, a fictional character that was created by a male poster on Anandtech which he subsequently killed off when it all got too complicated. And then there was the case of the girl who died of leukaemia, moving hundreds to tears who was outed as a fake a month ago.

It's a twisted world online. ®

Related Links

Announcement of Whitey's death
Bethany's still alive
She's definitely alive
And here she is

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