7 ms·

At Japan’s cliffs, he's walked more than 600 people back from the edge (2018)

187 points by joshfraser 7y ago

zapzupnz 7y ago
Just an interesting aside: whenever I see Japanese articles translated, the reported speech ascribed to older Japanese interviewees often includes such language as "I'm like, 'Hey, how are you doing?'". I wonder if that's an indicator of the translator's age. The Japanese person in question is 73, and I wouldn't expect the average 73 year old English speaker to use that sort of language. 'Like' as a substitute for 'say' seems to be more recent, generationally-speaking. I would be curious to know what the person would have said in Japanese.
- asutekku 7y ago
  The thing with japanese is that such translation is absolutely plausible in english. The language has nuances which are almost impossible to translate into concise english. Thus some completely mundane phrases (in japanese) might sound funny or weird in English so the closest english equivalent is used. Anyhow in this context i’m quite sure it’s more descriptive of the author’s usage of english than anything.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    Oh, I understand that it's plausible. It just seems idiomatic to the author or translator, that's all. Nothing wrong with that, no judgement here. :-)
- freeopinion 7y ago
  USian English speakers have lots of filler noises they make that take the shape of words. We even make fun of some of them. 'Like' is one of those. 'K, so' is another., 'Um', 'Uh', 'Errr'. In Japanese, 'Ehhhttoh' is common. But there are others. They are often just sounds. But just like in English where 'Errr' tells me something even though it's not really a word. It sets a tone for what's to follow differently than the tone set by 'K, so'. In your quote above, though, I don't think 'like' is a filler noise in the original Japanese. It may have just been the article 'to (と)' marking the quote as the words that were spoken. The speaker may have even left off the verb "said" and just left the quote tagged with an assumed verb. If so, that would be an incomplete sentence, which is common but obviously less formal. So the translator might reach for more colloquial English.
  - Swizec 7y ago
    As an aside: I used to hate “So, ...” and “Ok so, ...” until I realized they’re like TCP/IP or Aloha handshakes. You announce to the channel you’re about to send a message, if the channel seems clear, you proceed. If not, you wait until the channel is clear. It’s a pretty neat solution to how distracted modern humans are. Good luck getting someone to look up from their phone without sending a string of buffer sounds to clear the channel first.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - xwdv 7y ago
      Personally I still prefer my conversations to be like UDP.
      - a_t48 7y ago
        You yell at others and don’t check to see if they heard or understand you? :)
      - butteroverflow 7y ago
        The absolute best is WireGuard-style: don't open your mouth if nobody is talking to you directly.
- getoj 7y ago
  I can't find this particular quote, but if you can read Japanese there's an interview with this guy here [1]. For this example in particular, the grammar for reported speech in Japanese is pretty much the same for a 70 year old and a 25 year old, so I agree that "I was like" is a weird choice for what was probably って言った. In [1] the guy has some pretty old-person vocabulary like "どうや", but basically talks like a normal person (of any age). [1] https://plus-handicap.com/2016/03/7306/ https://plus-handicap.com/2016/03/7306/
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - whym 7y ago
    The Japanese transcription in that link can be misleading because it seems to redact the manner he speaks. (They do this kind of editing a lot when they transcribe dialects.) Here is a recording of how he speaks: https://youtu.be/zz3tuIbYvmY?t=60 https://youtu.be/zz3tuIbYvmY?t=60 - he has a grandpa-like way of speaking to some extent, but I don't think it's age as much as it's dialect. Many younger people with his dialect speak similarly. For example, どうや and 何や are perfectly normal for a 20 year old from the region to say.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rtpg 7y ago
  This is also an editorial style of Japanese publications in general. You can see this in how some people write blogs too (titles for tech blogs will be “I tried out Rust!”). It’s an extremely conversational style that is easy to read. I think the nearest equivalent is “oral history” articles that are the rage recently
- euske 7y ago
  As a non-native English speaker, I'd be curious of how an old person would say that in English. "I'm like..." is such a convenient phrase that I can't think of any other replacement that sounds equally natural and spontaneous. As for the original Japanese phrase, I can imagine it's something along the line of "「おい、どうした」とか言って" or something like that, where "like" can be literally replaced with とか (alike, etc.) which has been a common phrase in Japanese for decades.
  - azernik 7y ago
    Older native English speakers usually just go with "I said", at all levels of formality. You might hear "I says" in the past tense too. The increased separation of a "natural and spontaneous" register of English seems to have been mostly a function of 1970s-1990s youth culture - you can hear this in "candid microphone" radio shows before this period [1], where there's surprisingly little difference (to a young-ish native speaker like me) between the recorded colloquial usage and the formal standard English of speeches/literature/film. Lots mid-century film sounds stilted to us, but people actually spoke like that. [1] A big chunk of recordings are at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znyNNn5esXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znyNNn5esXg
  - monetus 7y ago
    In my experience, most older people would be more literal: I told him/her, I said, I says (pronounced sez, informal). If it wasn't speech but another action, it would be similar. "I'm like" is probably from the 70's, so it is pretty common.
- azernik 7y ago
  > 'Like' as a substitute for 'say' seems to be more recent, generationally-speaking. It is indeed! Earliest academic mentions seem to be around 1980, and as of 1990 it was used mostly by people under 30: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/455910.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/455910.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_... The "be like" quotative is popularly thought to have specifically originated in Southern California youth culture, but I'm not finding any good studies that address this (the one I linked mentions regional differences as a subject they didn't have the data to investigate).
- metters 7y ago
  A simple "Hi, how are you?" can change a lot and doesn't cost anything more than a few seconds.
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Did you mean to respond to me or someone else?
    - metters 7y ago
      Dann want to say that asking someone who might be suicidal doesn't cost much. And if he is not suicidal he might just say that he/she is fine and move on. I stated this because you said you usually don't speak to ppl who stand on the bridge, even though you should talk to them.
      - zapzupnz 7y ago
        I didn't say any such thing. I think you might have meant to respond to a different comment.
yingw787 7y ago
God bless Yukio Shige. It's pretty impossible to describe what depression is like. You just have to experience it for yourself. One book I read by Gary Paulsen (I think maybe "The Raft"?) when I was younger described "true hunger" as "not 'oh I missed a meal', or 'I will go hungry today', but 'I believe in my bones there will never be any food on this earth ever again'". That's kind of what depression is: a "true hunger" of some sort.
- craigzucchini 7y ago
  My first thought in response to you was "ah comeon it's not that bad". But then I thought back to when I was fired from my dumb corporate stooge job that burned me out. I literally had an existential crisis during the interview gauntlet where I couldn't see a place for myself in tech anymore. So actually I think you've pegged the feeling quite well. Though I wasn't remotely suicidal, the hopelessness of the job hunt amd my diminished interest in my field of expertise took a massive financial and emotional tole.
  - nashashmi 7y ago
    I think the ingredient missing from your anecdote is pressure. Idea of suicide comes when there is pressure to deliver. Like someone yelling at you to get a job. Or constantly calling you worthless because of some personality trait. Or when there is a scenario where if not something gets accomplished then disaster will follow.
    - sysbin 7y ago
      Not necessarily the case. I'm a visibly transgender woman because of puberty and religious abuse when young preventing access to hormone blockers. I would say what encompasses me is to blame for suicidal ideation. The behaviour of people I have no control over and how they constantly invalidate me; possibly threaten or harm me. Furthermore, the cost of actually fixing what makes me visibly transgender is like putting a downpayment on a house and people refuse to consider it medical treatment. Reality can just hate a person and that's really what's to blame. I likely wouldn't be talked away from the cliff.
aecorredor 7y ago
Documentary on YouTube featuring Yukio Shige: https://youtu.be/Nj1QHZTokWE https://youtu.be/Nj1QHZTokWE
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
graeme 7y ago
For anyone who's played Zelda, Breath of the Wild, there is a character who patrols a bridge to keep it safe from monster. If you jump on the edge of the bridge, he will talk you down and then offer to continue conversation. I thought I read it was based on a japanese person, but it may have been based on an american cop who patrolled a bridge in san francisco. Either way, it reminded me of this story. At the point at which you find this bridge character you are likely feeling quite down about the game world, and isolated. So it's a more poignant scene than I can describe in text. https://checkpointorg.com/zelda-mental-health/ https://checkpointorg.com/zelda-mental-health/
- iscrewyou 7y ago
  The cop, Kevin Briggs, you maybe thinking of did a TED talk for a person he saved on the Golden Gate bridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIq4mtiamY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIq4mtiamY The Zelda game character maybe based on the person, Chen Sah, who talks to people who are about to jump off a bridge in Naan-jing, China. You can listen to it here in Act One: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/407/the-bridge https://www.thisamericanlife.org/407/the-bridge While we are at it, I was reminded of this podcast as I was getting the above two links for you:https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i-go https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i... The phone booth one brought me to tears. I think the link is related to the above two links i posted. Listen at your own risk.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  Great article, thank you for sharing the link. I forgot what else prompted me to consider playing Zelda on the Switch. The last Zelda game I played was the free one that came with the black Gameboy Advance which was a Black Friday special about 15 years ago. I don't even have a Switch (the Gameboy Advance was my last console), but I think I'll buy one just to play this game.
  - graeme 7y ago
    It's worth it. I recommend reading/watching nothing about the game, if you can help it. Including while playing. Eventually you'll get the sense of it and likely want to look some stuff up, but I'm very happy I went into it with literally no idea what to expect. I got through 30-50 hours that way.
kyleblarson 7y ago
Great article about a great human. I just wish they hadn't mentioned that piece of garbage youtube person as any press is good press for people like him.
- lettergram 7y ago
  YouTubes algorithm also put it as trending for quite a while. Having seen it the dude was literally out there to find a body and then played up how “crazy” it was. No empathy at all, very much a psychopath
- dorchadas 7y ago
  Agreed. And the mention seemed so unnecessary to me. Like, it just brought up a touchy subject by someone who (IIRC) really was pretty unrepentant about it, despite "apologizing". It just wasn't needed at all in the article.
- sus_007 7y ago
  Exactly, the guy's irrelevant given the context of the article.
deleted 7y ago
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beforeDishonor 7y ago
Yeah, great but suicide isn't always about depression. Sometimes it's about a lack of rational alternatives. Gee, why not pump gas or wait tables for a living? Why not work a cash register for the rest of your life? Lots of people do it. It's a reasonable alternative. Yeah... I'd rather be dead.
obviousChoices 7y ago
Sometimes, when you get to a certain age, you reach the conclusion that everyone is out to block your path. What you want doesn't matter. What matters most to the rest of the world is the prevention of anything and everything you might deliberately invest effort in. Anything you willfully try to accomplish will be destroyed. What you want doesn't matter. "I want [x]." [x] is rendered impossible. "I want [y]." [y] is rendered impossible. "I want [z]." [z] is rendered impossible. Now watch as others simply cruise effortlessly toward their goals, with little to no resistance. Where you behave, play fair and follow the rules, others barely lift a finger and the world falls right into their lap. When you realize you'll never get anything you set your sights on, for so long as you might live, the only rational choice left is death.
iratei 7y ago
Timely article considering the suicide of popular Youtuber Etika. He jumped off a bridge in NYC almost a week ago i think. #OpStopSuicide
- progman32 7y ago
  A similar fate claimed a YouTube maker and old timer, aussie50. Rest his soul if such a thing exists. The scary thing about some suicides is how "sudden" and "unexpected" they can be. I use scare quotes because I strongly believe the signs are there in advance... We owe it to our fellow humans to figure out how to detect them and provide compassionate support. It's not easy. At all. Maybe even scarier is that in many cases of depression, basic cognition breaks down in the sufferer. Like trying to run a program with a faulty CPU. That's why a support network is so important. Sometimes you just have to offload the processing to someone else...
  - iratei 7y ago
    So very true.... Even when I think of LiLPeeP and his flagrant disregard for his own wellbeing, popping huge amounts of prescription pills and sharing vids of the same on his IG... to millions of adoring fans. No one took it seriously until he died. Social Media is so invasive, mind-warping and a harmful drug in it's own right. Thank you for your comment, will have to check out aussie50's story.
  - iratei 7y ago
    https://www.austech.info/showthread.php/116335-Ed-quot-Aussie50-quot-Jones-Dead https://www.austech.info/showthread.php/116335-Ed-quot-Aussi... NOOOOOO! :-( Very sad and F*ked up bah even as an Aussie myself, I struggle so much seeing how many boys, teens and men here are suffering unto suicide.
cabaalis 7y ago
Self worth is so fragile. I remember vividly being called a loser just one time in middle school. It has occurred to me at various times in life, even though I know the person who said it doesn't remember it, and they were also WRONG. Still, it gets me down. I've not been seriously suicidal in life, but it occurs to me that thoughts of suicide maybe is not as difficult to reach as first appears.
- paulkon 7y ago
  I've had to adopt the "couldn't care less" approach when someone directs what I feel to be an unsubstantiated claim in my direction. Of course when the moment has passed, I'll mull over it if the person is usually friendly and then work through the claim like a detached third party to figure out how I should really feel/think about or act on what they said. It's the only approach that has successfully worked to keep my feelings from obliterating my psyche for the rest of the day/week if a confrontation like that does happen. I keep them insulated and examine them later.
  - atom-morgan 7y ago
    Another way of looking at it is the "do I respect this person" approach". More often than not, someone just calling you a loser probably isn't someone you look up to. They're a hater and weirdly enough, we often let their opinions influence us more than people we cherish.
- deleted 7y ago
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intruder 7y ago
I live in front of a bridge in Japan and every other weekend late at night I hear/see firetrucks and ambulances rushing to the river side. I've never seen anyone jump but I know it's happening. Sometimes there are flowers near where the person jumped. Whenever I cross the bridge and see someone standing by the edge I always wonder if they're there for that... I've never talked to anyone. I should.
- jesterson 7y ago
  Yes, you should if you have a chance, just like I should do the same. Especially in Japan where people live secluded life and even a short encouraging conversation can change someone's life
wespiser_2018 7y ago
I used to think "people would just go somewhere else". This is wrong. In my mind, there is a demand, and the user would just find a new supply. With suicide from bridge jumps, this is not the case, and there is quite a bit of evidence that suggests intervention in these acute situations can save peoples lives, and they will go on to live 90% of the time. http://seattlefriends.org/files/seiden_study.pdf http://seattlefriends.org/files/seiden_study.pdf

187 points by joshfraser 7y ago

Just an interesting aside: whenever I see Japanese articles translated, the reported speech ascribed to older Japanese interviewees often includes such language as "I'm like, 'Hey, how are you doing?'". I wonder if that's an indicator of the translator's age. The Japanese person in question is 73, and I wouldn't expect the average 73 year old English speaker to use that sort of language. 'Like' as a substitute for 'say' seems to be more recent, generationally-speaking. I would be curious to know what the person would have said in Japanese.

asutekku 7y ago
The thing with japanese is that such translation is absolutely plausible in english. The language has nuances which are almost impossible to translate into concise english. Thus some completely mundane phrases (in japanese) might sound funny or weird in English so the closest english equivalent is used. Anyhow in this context i’m quite sure it’s more descriptive of the author’s usage of english than anything.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  Oh, I understand that it's plausible. It just seems idiomatic to the author or translator, that's all. Nothing wrong with that, no judgement here. :-)
freeopinion 7y ago
USian English speakers have lots of filler noises they make that take the shape of words. We even make fun of some of them. 'Like' is one of those. 'K, so' is another., 'Um', 'Uh', 'Errr'. In Japanese, 'Ehhhttoh' is common. But there are others. They are often just sounds. But just like in English where 'Errr' tells me something even though it's not really a word. It sets a tone for what's to follow differently than the tone set by 'K, so'. In your quote above, though, I don't think 'like' is a filler noise in the original Japanese. It may have just been the article 'to (と)' marking the quote as the words that were spoken. The speaker may have even left off the verb "said" and just left the quote tagged with an assumed verb. If so, that would be an incomplete sentence, which is common but obviously less formal. So the translator might reach for more colloquial English.
- Swizec 7y ago
  As an aside: I used to hate “So, ...” and “Ok so, ...” until I realized they’re like TCP/IP or Aloha handshakes. You announce to the channel you’re about to send a message, if the channel seems clear, you proceed. If not, you wait until the channel is clear. It’s a pretty neat solution to how distracted modern humans are. Good luck getting someone to look up from their phone without sending a string of buffer sounds to clear the channel first.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - xwdv 7y ago
    Personally I still prefer my conversations to be like UDP.
    - a_t48 7y ago
      You yell at others and don’t check to see if they heard or understand you? :)
    - butteroverflow 7y ago
      The absolute best is WireGuard-style: don't open your mouth if nobody is talking to you directly.
getoj 7y ago
I can't find this particular quote, but if you can read Japanese there's an interview with this guy here [1]. For this example in particular, the grammar for reported speech in Japanese is pretty much the same for a 70 year old and a 25 year old, so I agree that "I was like" is a weird choice for what was probably って言った. In [1] the guy has some pretty old-person vocabulary like "どうや", but basically talks like a normal person (of any age). [1] https://plus-handicap.com/2016/03/7306/ https://plus-handicap.com/2016/03/7306/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- whym 7y ago
  The Japanese transcription in that link can be misleading because it seems to redact the manner he speaks. (They do this kind of editing a lot when they transcribe dialects.) Here is a recording of how he speaks: https://youtu.be/zz3tuIbYvmY?t=60 https://youtu.be/zz3tuIbYvmY?t=60 - he has a grandpa-like way of speaking to some extent, but I don't think it's age as much as it's dialect. Many younger people with his dialect speak similarly. For example, どうや and 何や are perfectly normal for a 20 year old from the region to say.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rtpg 7y ago
This is also an editorial style of Japanese publications in general. You can see this in how some people write blogs too (titles for tech blogs will be “I tried out Rust!”). It’s an extremely conversational style that is easy to read. I think the nearest equivalent is “oral history” articles that are the rage recently
euske 7y ago
As a non-native English speaker, I'd be curious of how an old person would say that in English. "I'm like..." is such a convenient phrase that I can't think of any other replacement that sounds equally natural and spontaneous. As for the original Japanese phrase, I can imagine it's something along the line of "「おい、どうした」とか言って" or something like that, where "like" can be literally replaced with とか (alike, etc.) which has been a common phrase in Japanese for decades.
- azernik 7y ago
  Older native English speakers usually just go with "I said", at all levels of formality. You might hear "I says" in the past tense too. The increased separation of a "natural and spontaneous" register of English seems to have been mostly a function of 1970s-1990s youth culture - you can hear this in "candid microphone" radio shows before this period [1], where there's surprisingly little difference (to a young-ish native speaker like me) between the recorded colloquial usage and the formal standard English of speeches/literature/film. Lots mid-century film sounds stilted to us, but people actually spoke like that. [1] A big chunk of recordings are at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znyNNn5esXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znyNNn5esXg
- monetus 7y ago
  In my experience, most older people would be more literal: I told him/her, I said, I says (pronounced sez, informal). If it wasn't speech but another action, it would be similar. "I'm like" is probably from the 70's, so it is pretty common.
azernik 7y ago
> 'Like' as a substitute for 'say' seems to be more recent, generationally-speaking. It is indeed! Earliest academic mentions seem to be around 1980, and as of 1990 it was used mostly by people under 30: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/455910.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/455910.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_... The "be like" quotative is popularly thought to have specifically originated in Southern California youth culture, but I'm not finding any good studies that address this (the one I linked mentions regional differences as a subject they didn't have the data to investigate).
metters 7y ago
A simple "Hi, how are you?" can change a lot and doesn't cost anything more than a few seconds.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. Did you mean to respond to me or someone else?
  - metters 7y ago
    Dann want to say that asking someone who might be suicidal doesn't cost much. And if he is not suicidal he might just say that he/she is fine and move on. I stated this because you said you usually don't speak to ppl who stand on the bridge, even though you should talk to them.
    - zapzupnz 7y ago
      I didn't say any such thing. I think you might have meant to respond to a different comment.

yingw787 7y ago

God bless Yukio Shige. It's pretty impossible to describe what depression is like. You just have to experience it for yourself. One book I read by Gary Paulsen (I think maybe "The Raft"?) when I was younger described "true hunger" as "not 'oh I missed a meal', or 'I will go hungry today', but 'I believe in my bones there will never be any food on this earth ever again'". That's kind of what depression is: a "true hunger" of some sort.

craigzucchini 7y ago
My first thought in response to you was "ah comeon it's not that bad". But then I thought back to when I was fired from my dumb corporate stooge job that burned me out. I literally had an existential crisis during the interview gauntlet where I couldn't see a place for myself in tech anymore. So actually I think you've pegged the feeling quite well. Though I wasn't remotely suicidal, the hopelessness of the job hunt amd my diminished interest in my field of expertise took a massive financial and emotional tole.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  I think the ingredient missing from your anecdote is pressure. Idea of suicide comes when there is pressure to deliver. Like someone yelling at you to get a job. Or constantly calling you worthless because of some personality trait. Or when there is a scenario where if not something gets accomplished then disaster will follow.
  - sysbin 7y ago
    Not necessarily the case. I'm a visibly transgender woman because of puberty and religious abuse when young preventing access to hormone blockers. I would say what encompasses me is to blame for suicidal ideation. The behaviour of people I have no control over and how they constantly invalidate me; possibly threaten or harm me. Furthermore, the cost of actually fixing what makes me visibly transgender is like putting a downpayment on a house and people refuse to consider it medical treatment. Reality can just hate a person and that's really what's to blame. I likely wouldn't be talked away from the cliff.

aecorredor 7y ago

Documentary on YouTube featuring Yukio Shige: https://youtu.be/Nj1QHZTokWE https://youtu.be/Nj1QHZTokWE

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

graeme 7y ago

For anyone who's played Zelda, Breath of the Wild, there is a character who patrols a bridge to keep it safe from monster. If you jump on the edge of the bridge, he will talk you down and then offer to continue conversation. I thought I read it was based on a japanese person, but it may have been based on an american cop who patrolled a bridge in san francisco. Either way, it reminded me of this story. At the point at which you find this bridge character you are likely feeling quite down about the game world, and isolated. So it's a more poignant scene than I can describe in text. https://checkpointorg.com/zelda-mental-health/ https://checkpointorg.com/zelda-mental-health/

iscrewyou 7y ago
The cop, Kevin Briggs, you maybe thinking of did a TED talk for a person he saved on the Golden Gate bridge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIq4mtiamY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CIq4mtiamY The Zelda game character maybe based on the person, Chen Sah, who talks to people who are about to jump off a bridge in Naan-jing, China. You can listen to it here in Act One: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/407/the-bridge https://www.thisamericanlife.org/407/the-bridge While we are at it, I was reminded of this podcast as I was getting the above two links for you:https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i-go https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i... The phone booth one brought me to tears. I think the link is related to the above two links i posted. Listen at your own risk.
RandomBacon 7y ago
Great article, thank you for sharing the link. I forgot what else prompted me to consider playing Zelda on the Switch. The last Zelda game I played was the free one that came with the black Gameboy Advance which was a Black Friday special about 15 years ago. I don't even have a Switch (the Gameboy Advance was my last console), but I think I'll buy one just to play this game.
- graeme 7y ago
  It's worth it. I recommend reading/watching nothing about the game, if you can help it. Including while playing. Eventually you'll get the sense of it and likely want to look some stuff up, but I'm very happy I went into it with literally no idea what to expect. I got through 30-50 hours that way.

kyleblarson 7y ago

Great article about a great human. I just wish they hadn't mentioned that piece of garbage youtube person as any press is good press for people like him.

lettergram 7y ago
YouTubes algorithm also put it as trending for quite a while. Having seen it the dude was literally out there to find a body and then played up how “crazy” it was. No empathy at all, very much a psychopath
dorchadas 7y ago
Agreed. And the mention seemed so unnecessary to me. Like, it just brought up a touchy subject by someone who (IIRC) really was pretty unrepentant about it, despite "apologizing". It just wasn't needed at all in the article.
sus_007 7y ago
Exactly, the guy's irrelevant given the context of the article.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

beforeDishonor 7y ago

Yeah, great but suicide isn't always about depression. Sometimes it's about a lack of rational alternatives. Gee, why not pump gas or wait tables for a living? Why not work a cash register for the rest of your life? Lots of people do it. It's a reasonable alternative. Yeah... I'd rather be dead.

obviousChoices 7y ago

Sometimes, when you get to a certain age, you reach the conclusion that everyone is out to block your path. What you want doesn't matter. What matters most to the rest of the world is the prevention of anything and everything you might deliberately invest effort in. Anything you willfully try to accomplish will be destroyed. What you want doesn't matter. "I want [x]." [x] is rendered impossible. "I want [y]." [y] is rendered impossible. "I want [z]." [z] is rendered impossible. Now watch as others simply cruise effortlessly toward their goals, with little to no resistance. Where you behave, play fair and follow the rules, others barely lift a finger and the world falls right into their lap. When you realize you'll never get anything you set your sights on, for so long as you might live, the only rational choice left is death.

iratei 7y ago

Timely article considering the suicide of popular Youtuber Etika. He jumped off a bridge in NYC almost a week ago i think. #OpStopSuicide

progman32 7y ago
A similar fate claimed a YouTube maker and old timer, aussie50. Rest his soul if such a thing exists. The scary thing about some suicides is how "sudden" and "unexpected" they can be. I use scare quotes because I strongly believe the signs are there in advance... We owe it to our fellow humans to figure out how to detect them and provide compassionate support. It's not easy. At all. Maybe even scarier is that in many cases of depression, basic cognition breaks down in the sufferer. Like trying to run a program with a faulty CPU. That's why a support network is so important. Sometimes you just have to offload the processing to someone else...
- iratei 7y ago
  So very true.... Even when I think of LiLPeeP and his flagrant disregard for his own wellbeing, popping huge amounts of prescription pills and sharing vids of the same on his IG... to millions of adoring fans. No one took it seriously until he died. Social Media is so invasive, mind-warping and a harmful drug in it's own right. Thank you for your comment, will have to check out aussie50's story.
- iratei 7y ago
  https://www.austech.info/showthread.php/116335-Ed-quot-Aussie50-quot-Jones-Dead https://www.austech.info/showthread.php/116335-Ed-quot-Aussi... NOOOOOO! :-( Very sad and F*ked up bah even as an Aussie myself, I struggle so much seeing how many boys, teens and men here are suffering unto suicide.

cabaalis 7y ago

Self worth is so fragile. I remember vividly being called a loser just one time in middle school. It has occurred to me at various times in life, even though I know the person who said it doesn't remember it, and they were also WRONG. Still, it gets me down. I've not been seriously suicidal in life, but it occurs to me that thoughts of suicide maybe is not as difficult to reach as first appears.

paulkon 7y ago
I've had to adopt the "couldn't care less" approach when someone directs what I feel to be an unsubstantiated claim in my direction. Of course when the moment has passed, I'll mull over it if the person is usually friendly and then work through the claim like a detached third party to figure out how I should really feel/think about or act on what they said. It's the only approach that has successfully worked to keep my feelings from obliterating my psyche for the rest of the day/week if a confrontation like that does happen. I keep them insulated and examine them later.
- atom-morgan 7y ago
  Another way of looking at it is the "do I respect this person" approach". More often than not, someone just calling you a loser probably isn't someone you look up to. They're a hater and weirdly enough, we often let their opinions influence us more than people we cherish.
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intruder 7y ago

I live in front of a bridge in Japan and every other weekend late at night I hear/see firetrucks and ambulances rushing to the river side. I've never seen anyone jump but I know it's happening. Sometimes there are flowers near where the person jumped. Whenever I cross the bridge and see someone standing by the edge I always wonder if they're there for that... I've never talked to anyone. I should.

jesterson 7y ago
Yes, you should if you have a chance, just like I should do the same. Especially in Japan where people live secluded life and even a short encouraging conversation can change someone's life

wespiser_2018 7y ago

I used to think "people would just go somewhere else". This is wrong. In my mind, there is a demand, and the user would just find a new supply. With suicide from bridge jumps, this is not the case, and there is quite a bit of evidence that suggests intervention in these acute situations can save peoples lives, and they will go on to live 90% of the time. http://seattlefriends.org/files/seiden_study.pdf http://seattlefriends.org/files/seiden_study.pdf