http://en.wikipedia....i/Brandon_Vedas



Loser, comes to mind.



Could shroomery run into trouble in anyway? I think not, I hope not.

They'll sure get some additional (unwanted) traffic.

Well, if that IRC chatroom runs into trouble, there will be more that'll crop up to take its place. It's one chatroom out of many - in my opinion investigators and authorities have bigger fish to fry in the virtual world and real world.



I think people are looking to point a finger at the big bad internet. In my opinion it would be one thing if Brandon were a kid still in high school succombing to the peer pressure of an online community, it's another thing all together that Brandon was an adult who, sadly, was an attention whore too. Nobody made him do the things he did. He was looking for an audience, he got what he wanted.



I find it sad that the fear of bringing authorities into this situation, which could've resulted in saving a life, played such a big factor. This fear overriding common sense. This happened online, but these types of situations happen all the time in the real world.



The last bit of the wikipedia entry kind of struck me as interesting for discussion:

"It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it. These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world. They forget it's not just words on a screen."

What do you think? Do you think the group mentality was a contributing factor to this person's death? Or do you think it would've happened at another time, another place with another audience? I tend to think the latter.



Given that these types of overdose situations happen all the time in real life, and given certain online communities (such as this one for instance) - do we pass off our corner of the internet universe as not somehow being a part of the real world? Since the internet is becoming such a large part of peoples' lives, the whole "just words on a screen" argument just doesn't quite wash with me...

i think it was the drugs, on tht egroup mentality that killed him! X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D X-D

Will come back, but i haven't read much bout it, just that wikipedia page, and to me he seemed like a real loser, or "attention whore" like whirly defined him aptly. The whole thing sounds like a kid tryin to prove to his friends he's so fuckin cool, it's just plain fuckin sad.