Death at first site

Tired of your facebook ID? Now you get a chance to kill it by committing ‘virtual suicide’, a trend becoming popular online.

Tired of your facebook ID? Now you get a chance to kill it by committing ‘virtual suicide’, a trend becoming popular online. Seppukoo.com, a website created by an Italian art group, as a counter to Facebook, plays on the Japanese tradition of ‘honourable suicide’. Currently over 100 Facebook users, several of whom are Indians, commit virtual suicide every nine hours on Seppukoo.

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Once a user opts for this, Seppukoo hacks into Facebook and deactivates the user’s account. At the same time the user can write ‘Last Words’ on his Seppukoo Memorial Page where friends and family can also leave comments. Users of the site gain points by encouraging former Facebook friends to follow suit.

An official statement on the site explains that Seppukoo “subverts social networking by disconnecting people” from each other and “transforming the individual suicide experience into an exciting ‘social’ experience.” Despite its increasing popularity, many are not impressed. “This is rubbish. Why would I want to commit ‘suicide’, even virtually? The whole idea is just absurd,” says Raashi, a networking addict. “If I wanted to go off Facebook I would just deactivate my account. The whole virtual suicide thing sounds morose,” says Jhinuk Mukhopadhyay, a DU student.

However, Abhinav R, a student says, “I recommend this to my friends who are addicted to Facebook. They need to see life beyond social networking.”