200 people watch live stream of young man trying to set himself on fire

A young man has reportedly attempted to burn himself to death on a live stream watched by 200 encouraging people on the internet.

The incident took place on Saturday evening and involved a young man who identified himself only as a 20-year-old named “Stephen”. It is unknown exactly where the suicide attempt took place and whether Stephen survived.

Stephen is said to have logged-on to the controversial anonymous imageboard website 4chan on Saturday evening, stating his intention to take his own life. He posted that, as he’d been a long-time user of the website, he was willing to broadcast his suicide as a bizarre form of entertainment for fellow 4channers.

He posted: “Hi /b/. This is it. Tonight I will be ending my own life… As an oldfag [long-term user] who’s been on 4chan since 2004, I thought I would finally give back to the community… All that I request is for you guys to link me to a site where I am able to stream it”.

According to the Daily Dot, a 4chan user quickly set Stephen up with a broadcast on another website where 200 viewers logged-in to watch.

In the footage Stephen can be seen consuming pills and vodka before starting a fire in his room. He then climbs under his bed as the room fills with smoke, updating his feed twice by posting “#imdead #omgimonfire” and “I’m fuck3d”.

While some users encouraged Stephen and sickeningly pondered how long he may have to live, others complained that “the smoke is obscuring the camera” and demanded still images of the suicide be immediately posted on 4chan.

Shortly afterwards, firefighters were seen arriving and dragging Stephen out of the smoke-filled room. Because of the anonymous nature of the sites he was using to stream his suicide attempt, it is not yet known if Stephen survived.

In an effort to work out what actually happened to him, a number of websites linked to newspaper reports about fires in North America that took place at around the time of Stephen’s suicide attempt.

YourAnonNews – a Twitter account linked to the hactivist movement Anonymous – posted a link to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazettereferring to a fire in the city’s Spring Garden Avenue in which a young man died.

Other users, some who claim to know Stephen personally, say that the Pittsburgh fire victim is not him. They add that Stephen’s suicide attempt took place in a university dorm room on Guelph, Canada and that he survived.

A report in the Guelph Mercury newspaper says a 20-year-man was taken to hospital with non-life threatening but severe burns following a fire at the local university’s Dundas Hall student residence at around 7.51pm on Saturday.

From Independent