Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

First, this.

While the article pinpoints a few possible causes of the rise of suicide rates in South Korea, like “the stresses of rapid modernization and the degradation of rural life,” the increasing pressures to succeed in work and school, and high divorce rates, it also essentially blames the Internet, the venue for online suicide pacts and where at least one actress who offed herself posted her death-loving thoughts:

For no reason at all, I am going crazy with anger. Then, as if lightening had struck, all becomes quiet. . . .Then the Lord comes to me. The Lord says I will be O.K. YES, I WILL BE O.K.

Get that girl some Paxil.

So how do they propose fixing this problem? Counseling? Therapy? Rethinking priorities that focus on how you look and how much money you make? Nope.

Number one solution: censorship. According to the article, “Web portals, acting under pressure from civic groups, have banned words like suicide and death from the names of blogs.” But, a good thing, “If a user keys in ‘suicide,’ search engines display links to counseling centers at the top of their search results.”

How else? “Since nearly 40 percent of South Koreans who kill themselves do so by drinking pesticides or jumping, the government is considering making pesticides less toxic and is installing more barriers on rooftops and bridges.”

Also, the “Seoul subway system began erecting glass walls on platforms after 95 people. . .threw themselves in front of subway trains in 2003.”

Aren’t these sort of after the fact solutions? Not that they’re not needed, but what about the WHY these poor people want to kill themselves? I know it’d be difficult to transform an entire society that doesn’t like to show and talk about its feelings, but it’s like the same idea of building more prisons in order to stop crime.

If someone wants to kill him or herself, they will find a way.

~ ~ ~

Second, this. Although I’ve made fun of Ghost Hunters, I watched it last night – and it was scary! Mostly it was the guys in the dark, going, “What was that?” and “Did you hear that?” which was still creepy. (If you didn’t think Blair Witch was scary, then you won’t find Ghost Hunters frightening either.)

For the most part, they came away from the situations with nothing except the heebie jeebies, except for one house. Even just the way the woman described her sightings gave me the willies, like that once in her bedroom, she saw this black figure that was about waist high. It hovered for a moment before – whoosh! – disappearing quickly under the bed.

I thought there weren’t supposed to be monsters under the bed. What the hell?

That night, with the family out of the house, the guys set up surveillance. Two of the guys were in the master bedroom, trying to coax out the spirit, asking what its name was. While the guys were being filmed, nothing seemed to happen. But when they played back the audio, there was definitely a little kid’s voice on the tape.

After one of the guys spoke, the voice said, “Who’s Jason?” Jason was one the hunters, lying in the bed of the little girl the ghost usually manifested itself to. Then after the other guy asked its name, it just hummed a little tune.

YIKES!

This is assuming it was all real, but I think it was. It was so fucking scary, I was a little creeped out when I went to bed.

Nothing happened with any of the other investigations, which made that one piece of evidence seem ever scarier and more real.

I think I found a new show to be addicted to.