I keep seeing the phrase “I TOLD YOU I WAS HARDCORE!” used to make fun of people who have commited suicide.
Could someone please explain this?
Callous fuckers, mostly, referencing the unfortunate overdose case in January of this year, in Phoenix, which subsequently became a huge media spectacle. There’s stupid, unfeeling children everywhere.
Sorry about the personal rant mixed up in there. On this particular subject, I can’t seem to help it.
I guess is wasn’t a huge enough media spectacle, because I have no clue what you are referring to, and your post does not seem to answer the OP question.
Some teenager was chatting on a public IRC channel with his webcam on, bragging about the vast amounts of drugs he was high on. Onlookers were amazed at how intoxicated this kid was, and he replied with the infamous “i told u i was hardcore” line. Eventually, he stopped moving, and people started to worry that he might have died. They were right.
The entire chat log, along with some webcam captures were available online immediately following confirmation of his death. I forgot his name, but a careful search might yield results.
He has become a legendary figurehead for stupidity in the meantime.
I didn’t know either, but here’s a link:
Well, if being in most national and some international media (including television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and, yes, ALL OVER the Internet) and having a goddamned documentary in the works isn’t a media spectacle, I guess I don’t know what is. I could be overreacting, but it seemed like it was everywhere I looked for awhile, at the worst possible time for me.
At any rate, the phrase the OP is asking about is from the IRC log of Brandon Vedas, who OD’d while other users in the channel urged him on. Brandon appeared to have been showing off.
Since then, unruly children have been tossing around the phrase 'I TOLD U I WAS HARDCORE" and “Ripper was a gangster!” and so on. In fact, I saw someone on a different popular message board making a goddamned t-shirt…
Brandon Vedas didn’t get as much play as Chandra Levy or Laci Peterson - but probably because it was more complicated. Nonetheless, media spetacle fits.
The phrase has a history in punknes, which sort of prepared the ground.
Well, you guys are smart and all, but a little out of touch with the kids today.
That phrase is more typically used as a sarcastic term indicating moronism. Its used in a derogatory way towards kids who think they’re cool because they do drugs or think they’re hackers or whatever. Basically its the idea of being a “poser”.
Why get so uppity about it? Honestly, it’s a catch phrase for abject stupidity, which is exactly what these wastes of space were demonstrating.
Panzerfaust, It may have been a media spectacle where you live, but this is honestly the first time I’ve heard about it. As far as I can tell it didn’t make any of the national news weeklies, the nightly national news, or the headlines on my internet news page.
You just can’t make assumptions about what everybody else knows.
What Panzerfaust appears to be hinting at in both his posts is that he also lost someone in a similar way. I think that maybe it’s better to just come straight out with any unsolicited personal information that is unrelated to the thread question, rather than dropping cryptic hints. But I also note from his details that he has not been registered here long, so I think Chutwig’s response was a bit harsh. (I’m relatively new here myself and still suffer from severe foot-in-mouth syndrome occasionally.)
No offence intended Panzerfaust, you have my sympathy. 
But best not to hijack the threads, or people get “uppity.”
Of course, Brandon Vedas might very well have been simply using the pre-existing phrase, and wasn’t really a source for it.
If you’re interested, the logs (along with other information about Brandon) are available at http://www.brandonvedas.com/internet.html
about the case.
The first was started by Malkavia.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=158648&highlight=overdose
Another Pit thread, when Debaser heard the item in the news
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=160560&highlight=overdose
Panzerfaust-
Actually, I got the impression that Brandon was (as the cliche goes) crying out for help. He had problems. He chose a very slow form of suicide and had numerous witnesses. But none of the bastards in the chat room cared enough to make an anonymous 911 call. Brandon now had his final proof that nobody cared whether he lived or died. Unable to cope alone, he chose death.
You’re seeing something I’m not, then. However, if this is the case, then I apologize to Panzerfaust (and also note that I have been registered here and have been reading for a long time, even if I post about never).
Maybe I’m just reading too much into the above extracts. Panzerfaust?
And of course I’ve seen your registration date. I just felt it was a bit harsh to lay into the guy like that, him being new and all… 
No offence intended.
Anyway, enough of this hijacking or something nasty will happen. :eek:
Um, not similarly. Brandon was a good friend of Panzerfausts and mine.
The three of us bummed around together on almost a daily basis for a couple of years.
We knew him for about 7 years and it’s been about 6 months since he’s been gone.
So I’m sure you can understand the slight hijack in this situation.
It hurts to see someone so close to you ridiculed for what was, yes, a stupid situation but also not a situation that should have been used to cleanly summarize a young mans entire existence.
I think part of the horror of this incident was that some of the kids on line were sort of egging him on…daring him to do it, blah, blah, blah. The other posters were unaware that he was hell-bent on actually doing it.
Very sad…I’m sorry your friend was in so much pain.
I rest my case. I’ve been doing a lot of googling on the subject recently (I too, had managed not to hear of it at the time). It’s a very sad story.