At the beginning there was Friendster. Then Myspace, then Facebook, the boom of blogging and finally Twitter.
Then came something that almost brought it full circle, something that nearly marked the end of an era. Then, for a briefly, came Seppukoo, the worldwide virtual suicide network.
While I was in the midst of discovering Twitter I discovered that a new Internet phenomenon emerged for those that want to leave their online identity behind. The website allowed you to commit virtual suicide from Facebook, as a more dramatic alternative to simply de-activating your account. Unfortunately for my curiosity, it looks like Facebook has caught on and blocked it, and also blocked any sharing of Seppukoo links with other users.
Seppukoo was inspired by the Japanese Samurai act of ritual suicide or Seppuku. Rather than die at the hands of their enemies, they preferred to die by their own sword.
Besides the obvious concern that the website promotes something as troublesome as suicide, the concept is quite amusing. You enter in your login information and you receive a memorial page where you can choose your backdrop, you may enter last words and people can leave you final/goodbye messages. There is a top 100 section as well listing the people who have influenced the most friends to commit virtual suicide. Apparently, and fortunately for the indecisive (like me), resurrection isn’t a problem. You can just log back into Facebook and without the need for any sort of superhuman powers, you are a live social networker once more.
Whether Seppukoo will return or not to full operation, it has in some way shape or form, made things come full circle. The most ironic part of all is that you can follow Seppukoo on Twitter.
Scribblemarks 