A copycat suicide is defined as a duplication or copycat of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media. Sometimes this is known as a Werther effect, following the Werther novel of Goethe.The well-known suicide serves as a model, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide. This is referred to as suicide contagion. They occasionally spread through a school system, through a community, or in terms of a celebrity suicide wave, nationally. This is called a suicide cluster. Examples of celebrities whose suicides have inspired suicide clusters include the American musician Kurt Cobain, the Japanese musician Hide and Yukiko Okada.To prevent this type of suicide, it is customary in some countries for the media to discourage suicide reports except in special cases.

FIRST-year college student Natasha Randall was much liked by her friends, seemed happy and was not on drugs. A week ago, the 17-year-old hanged herself in her bedroom in what police believe to be a chain of “copycat suicides” fuelled by a desire to become “tragic heroes” on the internet.....

The sad news that seven young people from Bridgend in South Wales killed themselves in an apparent “chain” of copycat suicides has led police to fear some hoped to gain “web fame”. One post read, "this is all to do with suicide girls, like the models, so yeah lifestyle like them ... glamorous, pretty, suicide"

Police fear her death could be linked to six other copycat suicides in the same town, all of which appear to have been prompted by messages on networking websites.

A small town has been rocked by the copycat suicides of seven young people.Local people fear the hangings are linked to a chilling internet cult which has become "a cool thing to do" in the town.Within 24 hours of the latest death last week, two friends of the teenage girl had also attempted suicide.

The copycat suicides of seven young people in a Welsh town have sparked fears of an internet death cult.