there’s no backing out on this game. Once you start, you must finish. The administrators already have all your information, and if you decline, they will find a way to torture you.
This online suicide game was first reported to have started in Russia, but so far there haven’t been any verified reports of kids taking part in the challenge here in the U.S. But this game has spread towards Europe and Latin America. The creator of this game, Philipp Budeikin, from Russia, is being held on charges for inciting at least 16 schoolgirls to kill themselves by being a part of game he invented called “Blue Whale”. The 21-year-old, who has now pleaded guilty to the crimes, said he thinks that his victims were just “biological waste’ and told the police that they were ‘happy to die’ ” and that he was merely “cleansing society’’.
So far, there have been 130 teenage suicides that took place between November 2015 and April 2016. According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, most of the fallen belong to a private group on Facebook and VK一Largest European online social media and social networking service. It reads that, “Almost all these children were members of the same internet groups and lived in good, happy families.” In Russia, two schoolgirls, aged 15 and 16, fell to their deaths from a 14-story building. While a 14-year-old girl died after being hit by a train. Yulia Konstantinova, 15, left a note on social media saying ‘end’ shortly after posting a picture with a blue whale while her friend Veronika Volkova, 16, wrote ‘Sense is lost… End.’ before she took her own life, the day after. In Colombia, there have been 3 suicides that are presumed to be related to this game. In Brazil, there have been 4, apparently also related.
Though panic has escalated over rumors, and parents are getting even more worried, especially since the rising popularity of the Netflix show series "13 Reasons Why," that deals with a teen's suicide. This game represents an effective threat, and we must be aware of the use of social networks.
Katerine Chung Chen