What does Marc's sick and twisted hoax tell us? To not care? To not trust anything we see online? To not believe in what people ever say, even if they've been trustworthy—helpful, even—before? To not have friends? Maybe. It's the internet, your e-reputation is thrown around when people e-respect you, but easily tossed out because there's no real-world value to it.
But by doing that, it means they—the hurtful pranksters, the cynical, the awful—win. They converted you into one of them. That's not what a community is about. You don't second-guess the people you trust in your life. You don't let an asshole's mistake dull your true friend's problem. You stick around. You offer a shoulder. It's your community. It's your friends. It matters to you, even though it never mattered to them.