Alt Suicide Holiday

[Famous Last Words]

I just found these articles about alt.suicide.holiday, the Usenet message board that was active in the late 90s and 00s. It was basically an early incarnation of this forum.

Sorry you're still here

That's the greeting awaiting people who log on to a macabre internet forum blamed for encouraging a pact between two men to jump off Beachy Head. Amelia Hill reports on the disturbing increase in suicide chat rooms.

www.theguardian.com

Caught in a web of despair

THE desperate messages that flicker on to my computer make for the darkest of reading. "I started cutting myself again today - I had to get some release," says one. "I haven’t laughed for so many years. I am beyond pain. I am numb," reads another.

www.scotsman.com

What struck me about these articles is that despite being separated by two decades, the cast of characters are exactly the same today. The suicidal people - despairing, sad, defiant in their right to choose - their messages could have easily been written on here this week. You have the experts who offer their expert opinion that the forums are dangerous and scratch their heads about what can be done. Then you have the journalists with their careers writing for a national newspaper, shocked and appalled that life has given some people a good kicking and they've found a place to congregate.

 

[Lullaby]

I was watching a Law and Order episode last month that was based on the website and I remember just reading so much about it afterwards. These people have moved on but others just end up taking their place, it was really surreal reading these posts. Nothing has changed at all.

 

[Famous Last Words]

I was watching a Law and Order episode last month that was based on the website and I remember just reading so much about it afterwards. These people have moved on but others just end up taking their place, it was really surreal reading these posts. Nothing has changed at all.

Wow, this has all played out before.

Perhaps there really is an inevitability about it. Trying to ban feelings and people connecting with others about how they feel is like trying to ban the wind.

 

[WanderingWater]

Wow! That's a blast from my past....

 

[Lullaby]

Wow, this has all played out before.

Perhaps there really is an inevitability about it. Trying to ban feelings and people connecting with others about how they feel is like trying to ban the wind.

It really it pointless, and the media seemed so much more back then about it too.

I can only imagine what new site will pop up 20 years from now talking about SS, in the same way we're talking about ash.

Also, That Guardian article really made me think. I was playing a game called The Outer Worlds, and there's this mission where you have to collect gravesite fees from residents in a town. One person was suspected of killing himself and you find out that would've brought problems to the town because suicide was considered vandalism of company property.

It really does feel like that at times now. These articles go on about wanting to save people, but their solution is locking them up like criminals.

 

[Famous Last Words]

It really it pointless, and the media seemed so much more back then about it too.

I can only imagine what new site will pop up 20 years from now talking about SS, in the same way we're talking about ash.

I was just thinking this! But will there still exist places where you can be anonymous and express yourself freely? What happens if the internet is so heavily monitored that no where is safe and expressing negative or anti-social sentiments impacts your social credit score.

 

[locked*n*loaded]

Nope, nothing ever really changes. Same stories. New actors.

 

[Loaf of bread]

alt.suicide.holiday - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Wikpedia page is fairly unbiased and neutral.

 

[symphony]

I'm fascinated by ASH. How incredible it must have been to see it play out in real time. I read these messages from the early days of the internet before I was born and see my own mind reflected right back at me. How incredible that the ASH community and culture just sprung up like that. I like thinking of SS as a descendant or successor of ASH and myself as an inheritor of that legacy, a part of the same story we've all been telling.

 

[°Celsuis_Caesar]

Does Alt Suicide Holiday have a Archive, is all of there information gone?

 

[Symbiote]

Does Alt Suicide Holiday have a Archive, is all of there information gone?

The archive: http://ash.notearthday.org/

 

[°Celsuis_Caesar]

The archive: http://ash.notearthday.org/

Thank you

 

[Loaf of bread]

That's the alt.suicide.holiday website, is there an archive of the alt.suicide.holiday newsgroup?

 

[Talvikki]

There is also a documentary : ASH world wide suicide https://www.walterstokmanfilms.nl/kopie-van-sly-stone
But I can't find a link that works. Does anyone know where to watch it?

 

[Ligottian]

I posted at ASH from about 2003-2010 or whenever the Suzy Gonzales fiasco was. The traditional greeting to newcomers was "Welcome to ASH, sorry you a here". I still have a copy of "Anthony's" suicide note he posted in 2008.

 

[The Final Solution]

These posts are always morbidly funny to me.

Unlike almost every other community on the internet, suicide clubs have no real collective memory to speak of (take a wild guess why!)

 

[Shu]

Wow. This page was last updated in 2001.

Thoughts from the Gateway Mailing List (part 1)

It's a bit hard to navigate the website at first but they even teach you how to die from getting struck by lightning

ashweb methods: Better Dying Through Technology

 

[Famous Last Words]

I'm fascinated by ASH. How incredible it must have been to see it play out in real time. I read these messages from the early days of the internet before I was born and see my own mind reflected right back at me. How incredible that the ASH community and culture just sprung up like that. I like thinking of SS as a descendant or successor of ASH and myself as an inheritor of that legacy, a part of the same story we've all been telling.

The internet was a wild west back in those days. People were still figuring it all out and it's interesting that sharing taboo thoughts on suicide was among the first communities established.

This Wikipedia article could have actually been written about Sanctioned Suicide - like the discussions taking place around the existence of it, the controversies, even the lingo!

alt.suicide.holiday - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I posted at ASH from about 2003-2010 or whenever the Suzy Gonzales fiasco was. The traditional greeting to newcomers was "Welcome to ASH, sorry you a here". I still have a copy of "Anthony's" suicide note he posted in 2008.

I just looked up Suzy Gonzales. That's a sad story, she was very young.

A VIRTUAL PATH TO SUICIDE / Depressed student killed herself with help from online discussion group

A VIRTUAL PATH TO SUICIDE / Depressed student killed herself with help from online...

www.sfgate.com

 

[whatevs]

Nope, nothing ever really changes. Same stories. New actors.

Parmenides

 

[CemetryGates]

Wow, this has all played out before.

Perhaps there really is an inevitability about it. Trying to ban feelings and people connecting with others about how they feel is like trying to ban the wind.

Yep, I think the mainstream media trying to smear something like this sort of thing will only grow it's popularity

 

[Shu]

The internet was a wild west back in those days. People were still figuring it all out and it's interesting that sharing taboo thoughts on suicide was among the first communities established.

This Wikipedia article could have actually been written about Sanctioned Suicide - like the discussions taking place around the existence of it, the controversies, even the lingo!

alt.suicide.holiday - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I just looked up Suzy Gonzales. That's a sad story, she was very young.

A VIRTUAL PATH TO SUICIDE / Depressed student killed herself with help from online discussion group

A VIRTUAL PATH TO SUICIDE / Depressed student killed herself with help from online...

www.sfgate.com

Her smile was so big andvibrant. .

 

[LacunaLacrimalis]

Ahhhhh I have fond memories of being on ASH. It was a safe haven when the world was hell. The overall tone was very much like here…I think ASH actually originated the euphemism "catch the bus" that we still use.

I was on for a few years, but they must have had a security issue, because years later I got an email from another poster's mom. He had CTB, and afterwards she found ASH and somehow sent me an email begging me not to CTB. Sighhhhhhhh ……..

 

[👁️👃👁️]

There is also a documentary : ASH world wide suicide https://www.walterstokmanfilms.nl/kopie-van-sly-stone
But I can't find a link that works. Does anyone know where to watch it?

There is also a documentary : ASH world wide suicide https://www.walterstokmanfilms.nl/kopie-van-sly-stone
But I can't find a link that works. Does anyone know where to watch it?

Bump still looking also

 

[achromatic]

Okay - crossed "Wanting to commit suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem," out of my bingo checklist. I would have felt so dissapointed if they didn't write that.

 

[Maudlin]

Does Alt Suicide Holiday have a Archive, is all of there information gone?

I think this came from there:

http://www.depressed.net/suicide/suicidefaq.txt

There's more, if you want to spend some time surfing around. There are other usenet newsgroups that took their place it seems, as well... but I can't recall the name. I don't spend any time in the newsgroups, anymore... too easy to stumble across things I don't want to see.

 

[👁️👃👁️]

I think this came from there:

http://www.depressed.net/suicide/suicidefaq.txt

There's more, if you want to spend some time surfing around. There are other usenet newsgroups that took their place it seems, as well... but I can't recall the name. I don't spend any time in the newsgroups, anymore... too easy to stumble across things I don't want to see.

a.s.h - alt.suicide.holiday website archive 1993 - Mid 2002

 

[Maudlin]

a.s.h - alt.suicide.holiday website archive 1993 - Mid 2002

You rock. I'll be distracted for at least an hour!

 

[👁️👃👁️]

You rock. I'll be distracted for at least an hour!

You're welcome there's also a couple of news articles about it up above. Everything that's going on with SaSu is nothing new history repeats itself.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

There's no shortage of miserable people. The fact that these kinds of groups sprang up immediately as the technology enabled it shows there's a fundamental need for community and being able to share these feelings. People against sites like this fail to recognize that there is a hole in society that these sites fill and if they don't want these sites to exist then society needs to do a better job of filling that hole. But it doesn't.

 

[willitpass]

a.s.h - alt.suicide.holiday website archive 1993 - Mid 2002

this is answering all the questions about full suspension that i haven't been able to find on here for the life of me