Suicidal Blogger Outs Herself as a Hoax, er, "Art Project"

Tuesday, Ryan posted about 90DayJane, the "movie-centric" blogger who had created a blog dedicated to her intent to commit suicide in 90 days. Wednesday afternoon, Gawker posted that the young woman, known as "90 Day Jane," had outed herself on her blog, saying the whole thing had been a "personal art piece" (that's "hoax" to you and me) saying in part:

I feel a massive sense of responsibility to my art, but more importantly the readers of this blog. My closeness to thi project 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.

The folks at Gawker, bless their gawking little hearts, have preserved 90DayJane's final message to her fans and detractors for posterity (posted, fittingly enough, under their "Webtards" category), and you can read it in its entirety if you like. For me, the whole thing does kind of speak to the power of the internet for getting a message out there. 90DayJane was a hoax, but how much do you want to bet we're going to see a spate of "online documentaries" hoping to cash in on the (relative) success of her faux-suicide blog and videos?

Jane certainly isn't the first person to document her troubles, real or imagined, on the internet. I remember several years ago, back when the word "blog" was not yet a buzzword, happening across the website of a young man purporting to be documenting his sucky life, which largely consisted of being poor and miserable (but not too poor to afford a computer and internet access, apparently) and popping his mean, bitchy grandfather's boils and carbuncles. Thankfully, he was not documenting that experience on video for the world to see. Point is, between Google Video, YouTube, and blogs that make it easier than ever for the average Joe -- or Jane -- to put videos out there, anyone can become a documentarian of his or her own life, however exciting, mundane, depressing or asinine it may be.

If it makes you feel any better about 90DayJane not offing herself, the girl claims that although she received "mutliple offers from television, books, film, etc..." she has not profited from her hoax and does not intend to. The scariest thing to me? I bet that if Jane had been for real about committing suicide and posted her plans to show it happening on a live video feed, her traffic would have been through the freaking roof for the tragic event. Sad, but true. And so it goes ...