4Chan User ‘Stephen’ Live Streams Suicide Attempt, Sets Self On Fire
A member of the popular imageboard site 4Chan has apparently attempted suicide in front of a livestream cam. The unidentified 20-year-old user cheerfully announced on Saturday that he would kill himself and would do so in front of a camera.
The 4Chan member, known only as “Stephen,” announced his plan on the notorious /b/ board, or also known as the “Random” board which is the Web site’s most popular.
The Daily Dot has first reported and captured the screen shot of Stephen’s chat.
“This is it. Tonight I will be ending my own life. I’ve been spending the last hour making the preparations and I’m ready to go through with it,” Stephen wrote.
“As an oldfag who’s been on 4chan since 2004, I thought I would finally gie back to the community in the best way possible: I am willing to an hero on cam for you all. All that I request is for you guys to link me to a site where I am able to stream it for you guys, then I will gladly fulfil my promise.”
“An hero” is a 4Chan term that means committing suicide.
Another user helped him by setting up a video chatroom on the site Chateen, and Stephen joined in as “LOLDoge.” When he has gained audience, the maximum allowed of 200 viewers, he then swallowed unidentified pills and drank vodka before lighting fire in the corner of his room. He crawled under his bed and waited for the fire to spread.
His actions have been captured on the live cam. He was even able to type the hashtags “#dead” and “#lolimonfirw.”
The video, which is still available on LiveLeak, shows the room quickly filling up with smoke. It also captured firemen entering the room and saving him.
It’s unknown if Stephen has actually survived; there are conflicting reports that people believe refer to Stephen.
There are 4Chan users that claim Stephen is a student at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, and the Guelph Mercury has reported that a 20-year-old man was rescued from a fire at his dorm room on Saturday evening. The unnamed man was taken to the hospital with serious burns but with non-life threatening injuries.
However, Twitter account YourAnonNews, which is associated with the hacker group Anonymous, said that Stephen died from the fire, citing a news report from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
According to the report, a man was pronounced dead at the scene of a house fire. Fire fighters have found the victim in the second floor of a house in Spring Garden around the same time Stephen’s live suicide attempt was taking place.