It finally happened. I was "unpublished" by Psychology Today. I was told my blog on in South Korea lacked sensitivity, and was insulting.

It is a strange feeling, being unpublished (or should it be "depublished"?): I imagine it is not unlike being too-quickly deflowered, or airbrushed out of that tarmac photograph with Chairman Mao after falling out of favor with the cadre.

I was accused of having a flippant attitude toward suicide. Interestingly, the tenor of my blog was assumed because I felt that the suicide "victims" had a flippant attitude toward suicide. The cases I described involved individuals not known to be ; these were murderers of self who could not get away with an insanity plea. And their glorification of their demise sickened me, and I reacted with the same nausea I feel when I read about a murderer.

Because these evangelicals of self-destruction in profound and heart-breaking ways also murder those survivors who cared for them; worse, they make it sexy to be young, beautiful, and dead by one's own hand. There is no sign this trend is losing steam in South Korea, and I just hope it does not become hip in this country. This is one ingredient the melting pot does not need.

The killing does continue, the South Korea entertainment and news media making movies and publishing lurid photos of their new-found primacy: According to a report by ABC News on May 13, 2010, nine people in South Korea committed suicide in three separate incidents within two days this past week, including four women and one man (in their 20s and 30s) found dead after sealing a passenger car with sheets of plastic and inhaling the toxic fumes from burning coal briquettes. Police assume this was one more internet-suicide-recruitment scheme, which has become increasingly common; in this case, the man recruited the four women to participate in a group suicide. Earlier that same week, three men in their 20s were found dead in a rented room, using the same method and sealing the doors and windows from inside with tape; police also assume this was another suicide pact cultivated online.

In my depublished blog, I discussed the spate of celebrity suicide, and the posting of blogs describing their feelings of fatigue and disillusion before these icons hang themselves, as if this will garner them immortality. But it is a false immortality, lasting only as long as the battery in your laptop. The tragedy is the youth who decide to follow in these stumbling footsteps. The ABC report describes online "suicide communities or chat sites", where troubled individuals "must accompany each other to death".

Maybe, just maybe, if a group of suicide buddies stop for even two seconds to consider that their death may not be met with Mylar balloons and flowers, but ridicule at the absurdity of their choice to end life with a couple of geeks they met online, then maybe my depublished blog would have meant something.

Now, we'll never know.