On Saturday, July 29, a Mumbai teen leapt to his death from the terrace of his seven-floor building. He was just 14. Even though the exact reason behind the teen killing himself is not known, many have linked his death to the infamous Blue Whale Challenge.
While this might be the first suicide in India that has been linked to the social media game, numerous incidents have come up until now worldwide.
There are numerous posts online about the game, but the evil and bizarre trend first made news when a Russian schoolgirl posted an image of a blue whale on Instagram and committed suicide by jumping off a 14-storey building. She was accompanied by her best friend, who jumped along with her, reported The Sun.
So what is the Blue Whale Challenge and how are teens falling for it?
The Blue Whale Challenge, also called the Blue Whale Game, is said to have started as a social media game, in which a self-harm group identifies disturbed teens online and encourages them to commit suicide.
Teens are said to be an easy target as they have easy access to the internet in the age of smartphones and it also isn't a tough task to strike up a conversation with them.
The group administrator, after identifying these teens, assigns them daily tasks over a period of 50 days. While the tasks initially involve staying awake at off hours of the night, watching horror movies and self-harm, they get creepier by the day, eventually encouraging the victim to commit suicide on the 50th day. Many have also been posting images that show a whale carved on their forearms.
The teens taking up the challenge find it hard to withdraw halfway as the group is known to threaten them with harm to their families.
Why is it called the Blue Whale Challenge?
The game's title is derived from blue whales that are often believed to strand themselves on beaches in a bid to commit suicide.
Who created the game?
While we can't even begin to imagine why anyone would come up with a "game" like this, the creator seems pretty proud of it. According to Metro UK, Philipp Budeikin, a Russian, has admitted that he created the game and convinced about 16 girls to end their lives.
"Do something beautiful at least once in your life, it is so good to die young. Life is awful, it will not get better. You are rare, a selected one," is what he told his victims. However, Budeikin, 21, seems to have no remorse and instead explained that he was "cleansing the society" of "biological waste" who were "happy to die."
Currently lodged in the Kresty Jail in St Petersburg, Budeikin was asked if he really did drive these girls to suicide and he said: "Yes. I truly was doing that. Don't worry, you'll understand everything. Everyone will understand." Revealing that he even got tonnes of love letters from young girls he added: "They were dying happy. I was giving them what they didn't have in real life: warmth, understanding, connections."
While the Blue Whale Challenge started in Russia, it went on to become quite a menace in the US, UK, Brazil and France. Such was the scare, that the French police was even tweeting warnings against the game in May and also asked the teens as well as the parents to be careful.
With the Mumbai teen suicide case, it looks like the trend has reached India as well. Post the incident, a WhatsApp message is reportedly being circulated in Mumbai and advises parents to keep an eye on their children's social media activity so that they do not fall into such traps.
Meanwhile, therapist Kati Morton believes that the self-harm group has formulated the tasks in such a way that they work. Take a look.
