Blue Whale Challenge Blamed for Teen Suicides
The Blue Whale Challenge remains a popular and trending game among social media users but it has been recently linked to at least two teen suicides in the United States.
Authorities have issued warnings for parents to watch out for telltale clues that their kids might be participants. There's an inherent danger in playing the Blue Whale Challenge as, allegedly, the last challenge commands the kids to kill themselves.
Marty from Atlanta discovered a little too late that his 16-year-old sister Nadia, whose real name has been kept hidden, participated in the Blue Whale Challenge. But he discovered she had an "I Am a Blue Whale" sticker in her room and a bunch of blue whale artworks.
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Further digging into her sister's belongings after her death revealed that Nadia played the game among other kids in Russia, Europe, South America and Central Asia. Allegedly, someone took charge as the game's curator for 50 days.
Participants of the Blue Whale Challenge will be asked to finish tasks. They confirm this by submitting photos or artworks on social media so that it will go undetected.
The tasks range from the simple to the complicated, such as self-harm. But as the challenge progresses, the tasks grow riskier until the curator will ask the participants to kill themselves.
The family of 15-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez from Texas also believe the boy killed himself because of the Blue Whale Challenge. He hanged himself and took a live video of his act for his online followers.
Authorities said the game originated in Russia but some call its ties to teen suicides as an urban legend. Nevertheless, warnings were issued by the Parkrose School District and the Baldwin County Public Schools in Alabama for parents. The Miami Police Department also made a video explaining the dangers of the Blue Whale Challenge.
"I want them to go through their phones, look at their social media," Isaiah's dad Jorge Gonzalez advised parents. "If they're on that challenge already, they can catch that from happening."
