I confess I would have encouraged

I would have silently called him a doofus and moved on. I'm not a big fan of huge attention-getting ploys.

I believe that people have the right to choose suicide. So if I believe him to be an adult I would leave him to his business and to myself be disgusted that he would do it in such a public way sure to be even greater hurt to his family.

I may have made some effort to notify the hosting site since there is a chance there'll be an attempt to hold them at least partially liable. If I believed there was a chance he was a minor I'd probably make some effort to make sure authorities are notified but must admit that the near certainty of it being an attention getting hoax would probably stop me from going all out.

I too have had too much experience with sympathy trolls to default blindly into "it's real" mode. One massive board was brought to its knees with grief back in 2000 by a prominent member faking his own death (not on camera, obviously).

agreed

I'm with ^ them.

It's really quite sickening. I want to be able to judge the onlookers who did not act, and though I would never be the sort of person who would egg them on, attention-seeker or not, I likely would also have assumed it to be fake, some twisted sort of fun.

I can't imagine finding myself in the sort of situation where I was watching the web cam of a stranger- just laying there. This calls into question those who did the egging on.... and then the watching. At what point was it clear they were peering at a cadaver? How many were watching? I'm sure they could speak to one another, and yet, only one called. One.

At least it was one, and not none.

Ugh.