How One Man Faked His Own Internet Death

Death is scary. Suicide is scary. And when you're a valued member of a long-standing community who supports and helps one another, you don't fake awful stories about either to sadden and embarrass your friends. You don't ruin years of relationships to pull a stupid gag that demeans true tragedies. You don't create a fake account—pretending to be your wife—and post on Metafilter that you killed yourself.

Which is to say: You don't do exactly what Marc, aka holdkris99, did last week.

Marc faked his own suicide and tricked a whole community into feeling sorry for him. He's still alive in real life, but he killed himself online. For what?

"A Bad Experiment"

Metafilter, the pristine oasis in a world of smudgy, circle-jerking Internet forums, fell victim to a man who disregarded the six years he spent developing relationships, writing long posts, and dispensing advice and instead chose to run a "bad experiment or joke or whatever" that in his words, "carried too far." That's a juvenile and terribly selfish way to put it, to say the least.

The Metafilter community prides itself on supporting each other. What's strange is that Marc once used his handle, holdkriss99, to do just that. For six years, he helped people. People recognized him and the posts he wrote. He became an important part of the Metafilter fabric. He was what made Metafilter different from other forums. And when he faked his death, people were genuinely sad. They had lost other members before. It was a horrible feeling. The members were there for the people it really happened to, then, and they were there for Marc, now.

So what happened? How did Marc kill holdkriss99?

Read more about this here: http://gizmodo.com/5912465/how-one-man-faked-his-own-internet-death