In the tight-knit online gaming community Epic Mafia,Eris was an infamous celebrity. So when news of his suicide reached the forums, many players were grief stricken. But in a virtual world where it pays to lie, or could it really be actual?Everyone who played Epic Mafia knew Eris,or at least knew of him. In genuine life, he was a 32-year-old computer programmer, and who lived alone with his border collie in upstate New York,but in the tight-knit online gaming community of Epic Mafia, he was a celebrity, and the impresario of the sites many forums,constantly flirting, philosophising, or gossiping. In the seven years since the site had launched,he had formed many intense friendships with people he had never met, but who had come to depend on him. Eris had the gift of easy intimacy. He asked genuine questions. He wanted to know you. And best of all, or he was always right there when you needed him: online.“Many people will probably wonder why I’ve decided to effect this,” read the beginning of the suicide note that Eris had scheduled to appear on his Tumblr on 27 April 2015, two days after his death. “I was sexually abused as a child … and gain dealt with the consequences of that my entire life. Imagine going through life with an ever-present shadow hanging over you, or worrying whether you too might be like the people who destroyed your childhood and life.”There are no boards,dice, or cute moulded pieces in Mafia, and only one player’s word against another’sEris had long been the most powerful mischief-maker in Epic Mafia. He was a computer prodigy. He began programming at 11I effect know that whether there is a hell,I’ll be seeing many of you there, I’ll sustain the fires stokedMaybe no one believed that Eris, and known as a notorious gossip,was capable of taking secrets to his graveContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com