Discussion People on the Internet who disappeared without a trace

[Spite]

Whether it's a friend, or somebody with a sizeable audience, do you know anyone who mysteriously vanished from the Internet?

I've known a few, and I always wonder whatever happened to make them disappear. I would imagine in probably over 90% of cases when someone abandons their account and is never heard from again, the person running the account probably just got bored, felt they didn't owe any explanation as to why they are leaving, and they just quit and moved on with their lives. Simple as that.

However, I can't help but think about the elusive, small fraction of people who may have disappeared under far more sinister circumstances. Like, I wonder how many abandoned YouTube accounts belong to people who are no longer alive and we just don't know. My morbid curiosity leads me to ponder over those who had the worst outcomes - people who disappeared because they committed suicide, or died (in an accident/natural circumstances/were murdered). It's definitely a thought that has kept me awake at night.

Listing a few examples off the top of my head. I genuinely wonder if some of these people are still alive or not:
RockmanKenny
SSoHPKC
HoltonStudios
Mikenanners
LinkOnDrugs

There's also penpals and various people I've known in my time on the Internet who logged out and never logged back in again and I wonder what happened to them as well.

 

[DarkRange55]

Death of Elisa Lam - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Death of Elisa Lam - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Somerton Man - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[violetforever]

i had a friend like this and i wonder if they're even alive because we discussed suicide so much. they even changed their phone number or it became disconnected. i'm realizing people i've known could easily write the same thing about me now, minus the phone number thing, since i'm totally off of social media.

 

[Spite]

How could I have possibly forgotten about Seinfeldspitstain? They disappeared very mysteriously over a decade ago.

 

[doomedbynarrative]

Not anyone well known but there was a woman I knew from an online RP group in the 2010s.She was actually one of the leaders of it. I guess she had a falling out with other leaders of the group and vanished from it but still left some of us her other socials and art sites. Then she just mysteriously vanished by 2022 altogether. No trace. Nothing. Poof! Always wondered what happened to her or how she is or if she's still making art like she wanted to.

 

[amor.dor]

Three people I met here committed suicide offline three made a farewell post, and I ended up following one of their suicides. This isn't a site to get attached to someone. There are others who haven't logged in for a while, but in most cases they either left the forum or are busy — yet it gives me chills to think that some may have disappeared or been murdered, since statistically it's more likely for someone to die from homicide or illness than suicide.

 

[Pluto]