Couple Let Baby Starve To Death While Raising Virtual Baby Online

A Korean couple allowed their child to starve to death because of their addiction to raising a 'virtual' child in a Second-Life-style game online known as Prius, reports say.

Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and Choi Mi-sun, 25, would feed their three-month-old baby only when not at 12-hour-online sessions in a local internet café. The pair were obsessed with raising their internet child, called Anima, resulting in the neglect of their unnamed real daughter.

After one such session in September the couple found their daughter dead and called police. An autopsy found the baby died from prolonged malnutrition.

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-Won, a police officer, told Korean press.

"They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."

The pair were arrested in the city of Suweon, south of Seoul, on Friday after months on the run.

"Online game addiction can blur the line between reality and the virtual world," Professor Kwak Dae-kyung of Seoul's Dongguk University told press. "It seems that taking care of their on-line game character erased any sense of guilt they may have had for neglecting their daughter."

Comments

[Dave Irvine]

02:54 PM on 04/05/2010

Quick! report this story to SL Herald so everyone on Second Life can attack this story, I hate stories that talk crap about Second Life.

[Elyriaohio]

07:54 AM on 03/08/2010

Sounds just like the anti-choice agenda. Worry about virtual fetuses while real babies starve.

[Lucille]

05:46 AM on 03/08/2010

The internet child's name was called "Anima", and that seems like a feminine name but was the pretend child really female? Many Asian countries still value males over females particularly their first born, and this couple never even named their real child, so that seems very hostile behavior towards their child from the start.

At this point I find it hard to believe this story about their video game addiction as they were aware enough to feed themselves and make a run for it before being arrested. If they were on drugs too, then that would explain much of it.

The child is with God now, God bless her baby spirit. Amen.

[poseA]

12:38 PM on 04/05/2010

"The internet child's name was called "Anima", and that seems like a feminine name but was the pretend child really female?"

No it wasn't really female because it didn't really exist ;)

[Cuthach]

05:31 PM on 03/07/2010

Thank god I was born in the age of the Laserdisc...

[Travis bdboy]

04:06 PM on 03/06/2010

This sounds soooo American....but they won't get a slap on the wrist in Korea...their internet playing

games are over....me thinks they won't have a computer where they're headed

[Cuthach]

05:26 PM on 03/07/2010

How does this crime sound American? Do you know ANYTHING about the levels of game addiction in Korea? It's insane, far worse than that of the United States.

[gra8whit]

11:40 AM on 03/08/2010

I'm with Cuthach. The Asians have got a thing for the unreal (robots, virtual girlfriends, virtual pets).

[JJ Park]

03:58 PM on 03/06/2010

Unbelievable.
I would have thought such event was impossible... It's disturbing and disgusting

[anthonytaurus]

04:41 PM on 03/06/2010

It's not the first time. I think there are quite a few stories of child neglect due to video game addiction and a few that end up with the death of the child.

[rbryanh]

02:05 PM on 03/06/2010

Real life, like combat, consists of long periods of stultifying tedium punctuated by moments of hysterical fear. In reality - as it were - reality is really not very appealing. Nature is all mudslides and cellulite, and God, if he exists, apparently finds dysentery very amusing.

I applaud these brave people in their attempt to turn their backs on "reality" in favor of the world of the imagination. The only thing of interest in the actual, physical universe is the puzzle of how it can be so soul-destroyingly horrible and yet so utterly dull. Reality is an offense against taste and should be snubbed as often as possible.

Certainly anything that reduces the legendary stupidity and selfishness of human infants would be an improvement. No doubt one of Baby 2.0's many advantages is that it can be cared for from anywhere, including prison. And I'm sure little Anima will not prove so absurdly fragile should her parents be momentarily preoccupied with some concern other than her.

But perhaps living in America has distorted my perspective. Here we have several popular religions that are as obsessed with the production of fetuses as they are indifferent to the welfare of children. If the babies die, we incinerate them as medical waste; if they survive, we put them in one of our country's many prisons where something similar is achieved, though more slowly and at greater expense.

[rbryanh]

01:35 PM on 03/06/2010

How very strange that the perfect metaphor for the American Dream would occur in Korea.

It truly is a global village.

[ilovemyprez]

06:04 PM on 03/06/2010

How so?

[sisyphus93]

01:23 PM on 03/06/2010

What a couple of worthless wastes of space.

[longtimegone]

01:17 PM on 03/06/2010

I'd say that this is an appalling metaphor for our future but, as usual, I'd be called a crazy Luddite. I'll keep checking back though as the anecdotal evidence mounts.

[Cuthach]

05:27 PM on 03/07/2010

I agree completely, and nobody can call you a Luddite due to your use of keyboard and mouse to post that message ;-)

[longtimegone]

09:43 PM on 03/07/2010

I use it grudgingly for a couple of things, this among them. It does not bode well for our humanity that what is unreal, or virtual if you prefer, has become more real to individuals than their own lives. This phenomenon is bound to become more common and we have no idea how this will resonate through the society, but it is not a world I want to live in.

[thebeautyoftheburst]

11:55 AM on 03/06/2010

life is stranger than fiction.

[TxWranglr]

11:44 AM on 03/06/2010

Thank goodness it was a sacred heterosexual pair. Imagine how horrible it would have been for the baby to be raised to healthy, happy adulthood by a (gasp) same-sex couple!

[Observer963]

03:16 PM on 03/06/2010

Another head line here says that one kid was expelled from Cath. school for that very reason .. gay parents. Twisted the world is!

[Cuthach]

05:30 PM on 03/07/2010

Ew, a business refusing service to someone. How horrendous.

And no, I am not Catholic.

[MikiCab]

11:34 AM on 03/06/2010

What happened to their online baby Prius? I hope she is ok.

[SharonaMonk]

01:19 PM on 03/06/2010

OK, I feel bad for laughing at that. lol

[Sing Out and Slap Iron]

04:19 PM on 03/06/2010

Don't feel too bad. Humor is one of the ways to deal with a horrendous story like this.

[Ricardo Valentin]

11:25 AM on 03/06/2010

I find disturbingly impressive how this couple managed to stumble into a new and unbelievably nit witted way to edit their genes out of the human race.

[chiara0]

11:20 AM on 03/06/2010

You've got to be kidding me.