HOAX UPDATE: I'm going to kill myself in 90 days

This 24-year-old Los Angeles blogger says she's going to kill herself--and she wants you to help her plan it.

UPDATE: 90DayJane has pulled the plug. Her project was "a personal art piece," and "must have made art seem like reality to many people. That is not a reaction that I expected nor can I morally justify. This is why my project, 90DayJane, will be taken down in the next few hours."

Well, guess that's it then. Just when we had our magnifying glasses polished and our pipes nicely stoked...

This is either a very serious and unfunny situation where someone's young life is at stake, or--much, much, much more likely (given the precedent of pretty-young-women-in-trouble hoaxes), it's the latest envelope pushing net publicity stunt. 

"This blog is not a cry for help," writes 90 Day Jane in her blog's bio.  "Or even to get attention. It's simply a public record of my last 90 days in existence. I'm not depressed and nothing extremely horrible has lead me to this decision. But, does it really have to?"

No, all you need is a sensational idea, some web savvy, and a crew of gullible web detectives to take the bait.  That latter element has been taken care of by myself and web myth buster extraordinaire Richard Rushfield, who led the charge in cracking the famous lonelygirl15 hoax.

So, as we digest our hook, line and sinker, let's go over what we know so far:

-- Basic info:  Jane is* 24, lives in Los Angeles, has family back east.  She is slim and attractive (see this partially NSFW YouTube vid of her trying on her dress for the "blessed day.")  She clearly knows how to edit video.  And she's going to stay anonymous and not grant any interviews. 

-- Other characters:  Guy at work she's going to go out on a Valentine's Day date with.  "I just hope he's not looking for anything long-term," she writes.  Clever, but suicidal?

-- Web clues:  The blog.  The video (where is this vintage clothing store?).  The Facebook profile and group. The strange bulletin board she plugs without explanation.  The picture of a Hollywood-adjacent location near her favorite Starbucks--can anyone give the precise intersection?

Let us know if we're being too skeptical--if anyone has any reason to believe this should be taken more seriously, we're all ears.  There have been Internet-related suicides before--including the recent and tragic case of 13-year-old Megan Meir, who killed herself after allegedly being bullied on MySpace by a friend's mother. 

90-day Jane may be 'riffing' on this unhappy trend.  But her take on suicide is so slick and glib, it's hard to think it's the real thing.

*here we use the 'to be' verb in the loosest possible sense.

Comments

[John]

I'm not suicidal or have any plans but the idea of checking out is attractive sometimes. I think this 'performance art' is valuable and may cause people to look at themselves in a new way. I support her removal of it as well knowing that the responsibility of the artist cannot be fully removed from the reaction to the art and here if the reaction is permission to committ suicide then the artist may pay a price she doesn't want to pay.

[Lhorentso Nurmi]

Not particularly original. Nor sensational.

Whether it's art or not it don't matter - it's just... mediocrity.

[Patton]

I knew it! Had to be fake.

[bobdoor]

Not many facts here but a least you didn't lie like most of the other blogs.

"Not particularly original. Nor sensational.
Whether it's art or not it don't matter - it's just... mediocrity.
Posted by: Lhorentso Nurmi | February 13, 2008 at 06:34 PM"

This certainly WAS sensational though, the biggest thing on the net for a while. In my opinion a slightly misguided piece of art that got out of hand, but finished with a bit of heart and intelligence