I've just been browsing around on deviantART and I'm really quite disturbed by a couple of things.

Clearly I've been hiding in the nicer areas of the internet where trolls are amusing and sarcastic pranksters, but I came across several areas - on profiles, journal entries, deviations, etc - where users had posted comments urging their target to kill themselves. You can dislike someone's art, or even dislike their personality outright, but quite what kind of twisted mind thinks that gives them reason to urge someone to commit suicide is beyond me.

Some even suggested ways that they should do it, and that the world would be better without them. Some were as blunt as actually stating the reason that they should die was their mediocre art. If not being an expert to everyone in something was a reason to die there wouldn't be a single person left alive.

Now, I'm no artist and I don't claim to be one. I just like to draw and wanted a new hobby and to have something to work on and improve (and I'm not about to kill myself for it). I don't get in anyone's way and am open to constructive criticism and enjoy praise. But telling someone the world is better off without them is not constructive criticism. That's not even trolling. That's just hateful and disturbing.

Every time on the news there's a story about someone killing themselves after receiving torrents of abuse like this I feel terrible - it seems so easily avoidable. Maybe if the people who left these sick comments were come home and find their loved one hanging from a light fixture or with slit wrists maybe they'd understand how terrible their 'joke' is.

There's a lot of hate in the world over things that might impact a lot of lives in terrible ways - but so much over a few drawings? I hope it's not too much of an ask to hope that one day these people feel completely ashamed before someone actually acts on their advice. I just hope they really wouldn't be as happy as they claim if their target were to commit suicide. What can you possibly say to people who take such joy in tormenting someone to that extreme?