Discussion How long will it be before people online notice you're gone?

[charaunderground]

Half discussion, half vent post.

Went MIA off of my "posting" socials for over a week because the seasonal depression on top of the usual depression is becoming extremely obnoxious. By "posting socials" I mean sites I actually bother making (re)posts on, think Twitter, Tumblr (yes, in 2025), etc. Not other sites I just scroll through because mindless scrolling requires next to no effort or concentration.

Made a very rushed post announcing a "semi-hiatus" and even said it was due to me being suicidal/depressed a week or so ago and then went mostly offline. Mind, I almost Never am open about these things, even on anonymous socials, so this was out of character. I have over a hundred followers on the main site I use. Not a ton, but not zero.

Came back to check.

No messages. No asks. Very few notifs (and I had a queue running, mind you, so it wasn't like less notifications because the posts stopped). Next to no interactions on my very rushed hiatus post.

I don't really know what I expected because meaningless platitudes would have probably annoyed me, but it's almost worse to see absolutely Nothing, literally No response, after vaguely implying I'm suicidal and openly saying I'm becoming more depressed.

It just makes me wonder how long a suicide note would take to get truly noticed if I posted it outside of this site. A couple hours? A couple days? It would probably barely be read anyways so I don't even know if there'd even be a point, especially after this.

Don't even know why I'm writing this because I'm sure I'll think it's dumb in the morning, but it's just a reminder how fleeting things are. I could have just never come back or announced it and really what would have changed?

 

[SomewhereAlongThe]

I know the feeling. Of wanting to be noticed and thought of. I feel that way on this site, but then I watched two very popular people and friends of mine CTB and saw how hardly anybody took notice of it. The next day the chat was back to normal as if these two people didn't even exist. So, sometimes even no matter how known you are, you fade away from the world in the exact same way. All you can do is leave your suicidal note and hope people read it and it means something to them.

 

[diy-event]

I find that is an interesting question, and its roots are in whether online friends are real friends.

I have an online friend with whom I have an agreement that if I CTB, I will send her a time-delayed email before hand. If I am alive, I can stop the delayed email—if not, well...

In the email is a list of people I want her to tell, that I have died; in the email is my real name, Facebook page etc, so she can double-check that I am gone - like with obits

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

To answer your question, I honestly feel that I'm rather forgettable. I believe most wouldn't even notice my absence besides a select few.

 

[JustHere1]

I believe authorities will be notified with the loudness of the gunshot, but my door is locked and I (obviously) will not be answering. May barricade to prevent entry if I feel safer with that. If they find the right apartment and break in, they will find my corpse.

If they don't figure out what apartment it is (or authorities aren't called) it will probably be never discovered until the apartment themselves investigate due to lack of payment, or concern of smell. My family will not check on me, only one primary family member lives nearby but this person does not care and would not demand entry. It's possible neighbors with cameras would notice a lack of activity from my house but they would probably not put 2 and 2 together.

So yeah I'm not going to be discovered for a very long time, I figure. I have messages I've written though and that will go out when discovered.

I deleted my facebook over a week ago. Privatized all remaining accounts. Deleted all friends and blocked accounts that I didn't want people digging into. Informed one person who is reliable but will not be giving them a date, as requested.

 

[tiredash]

nobody will notice because there is nobody to notice

 

[Tuonetar_]

I deleted most of my social media accounts back in ~2021, and I don't post very frequently on the ones I still have. I think there are maybe two people who would actually notice my disappearance but even they would only notice after weeks of inactivity. I plan on deleting all my accounts (except here) right before I CTB since there's not really much point in keeping them up otherwise

 

[Arrival03]

Went on a break for a month and only one person noticed I was gone, and it took him 2-3 weeks to realise.

 

[HereTomorrow]

I stopped posting for 3 months recently (no reason, I just had nothing to say) and no one reached out to me or send a private message, including my online friends. So I would say longer then that.

 

[ScaredOfMachines]

I have lost contact with any online friends I had, and I don't really use social media either. My guess is never.

IRL I guess about 8 hours or so? I don't live alone so someone's got wonder where I am or so. But even then, it'll just be shared amongst family, I didn't impact any lives enough for anyone outside of them to care. Maybe not even family though, if anyone decides to actually acknowledge my identity after death.

 

[passer-by]

Realisation of our own insignificance in a grand scheme of universe can be tough, but meditate on it long enough, a sense of freedom might emerge

 

[charaunderground]

Realisation of our own insignificance in a grand scheme of universe can be tough, but meditate on it long enough, a sense of freedom might emerge

Yeah. It's not Distressing, but just somewhat disheartening. Again, if someone messaged me platitudes I'd probably be annoyed, but knowing literally no one on my main site said anything in response to what was basically "I'm super suicidal and the double depression has kicked in, going on hiatus for awhile" was a bummer. I'm sure it was just people not wanting to pry or be invasive, but still sort of further tanked my belief that some of them would even read my eventual suicide note if** I posted one instead of just immediately forgetting my existence.

**May be dumb, but figure I'll leave one on my "private" (read: niche sites I'm open about things on vs public stuff like Facebook) socials regardless so people don't think I just dropped off the face of the Earth...but again, now starting to wonder if it's even worth doing if it's not likely to be read or acknowledged. I guess it's better in a way if no one was upset by it though, so maybe the ignorance about it would be a good thing.

 

[Reflection]

I don't really use social media because it brought me nothing but pain in the past.

 

[passer-by]

Yeah. It's not Distressing, but just somewhat disheartening. Again, if someone messaged me platitudes I'd probably be annoyed, but knowing literally no one on my main site said anything in response to what was basically "I'm super suicidal and the double depression has kicked in, going on hiatus for awhile" was a bummer. I'm sure it was just people not wanting to pry or be invasive, but still sort of further tanked my belief that some of them would even read my eventual suicide note if** I posted one instead of just immediately forgetting my existence.

**May be dumb, but figure I'll leave one on my "private" (read: niche sites I'm open about things on vs public stuff like Facebook) socials regardless so people don't think I just dropped off the face of the Earth...but again, now starting to wonder if it's even worth doing if it's not likely to be read or acknowledged. I guess it's better in a way if no one was upset by it though, so maybe the ignorance about it would be a good thing.

Whenever I go public with something, I always take into account it might not be acknowledged at all. Some days I'm ok with that, some days I'm not. I do it for myself though. If it gets read, that's a nice bonus.

I remind to myself people can only meet you and understand you on a level on which they met and understood themselves. It can be disheartening, we're social animals and we crave connection and that's absolutely natural and also necessary for our mental health. Maybe you just need to find a different circle. This community for example helped me tremendously. Or finding people who relate to your passion, hobbies or your philosophy.

Bottom line is basically every relationship is transactional in one way or another so I think the goal is to find someone with whom you'll have mutually beneficial relationship. Did you have any closer relationship with your followers or were they just randoms or acquaintances? I think that's a huge factor. You can only expect so much from strangers.

 

[Namelesa]

I am sorry that no one thought to say anything to you :< I understand that you feel worthless or that you don't matter as I suffer with feeling that a lot of the time.

I was surprised to see after one day of me not interacting with this site that quite a few people missed me, most of them being people who play in the boys vs girls counting game thread. I have very low self-worth sometimes so I find it hard to see why others would care for me. Outside of this site tho it would only be one person who would miss me as I don't really have any friends except him.

 

[Forveleth]

I made a point to remove myself from all social media years ago, so nothing there. I even spontaneously disappeared from here a while ago and came back to nothing. So, no one is going to notice. That's fine actually. I would rather no one give a shit that I dropped off the face of the earth.