The so called “Blue Whale game” or “Blue Whale app” or “Blue Whale challenge” is getting so much attention, Google Trends reports “ Blue Whale game ” as getting more than 20,000 searches on Thursday, May 11. That’s because there has been movement in the news about the Blue Whale challenge, which encourages Blue Whale game participants to go through a series of scary tasks over a period of 50 days that culminates in trying to get the Blue Whale gamers to kill themselves at the end of the 50-day period, according to the BBC .
One of the creators of the Blue Whale challenge has pleaded guilty to trying to convince teens to kill themselves. Philipp Budeikin called Blue Whale suicide game victims “biological waste,” and claimed that his Blue Whale game was cleansing society. Warnings about the Blue Whale game have been circulating for months, with parents being warned about the Blue Whale game, which encourages suicide, self-harm, and cutting. The Blue Whale challenge comes with a series of tasks over 50 days, with challenges that try to convince the Blue Whale game participants to wake up at 4:20 a.m. and watch scary videos or horror movies.
The 21-year-old Budeikin is currently in prison, being charged with encouraging at least 16 teens to commit suicide via the Blue Whale game. Previously, Budeikin said he was just having fun in his role in the creation of the Blue Whale game, and he is thought to be not the only creator of the Blue Whale challenge. He said his Blue Whale game victims had no value to society. He is also thought to have told his Blue Whale game victims to remove all traces of the Blue Whale challenge from their devices. Officials received evidence from a teen who almost made it to the end of the Blue Whale game but stopped playing the dangerous Blue Whale challenge.
Amazingly, the Blue Whale game was begun by Budeikin in 2013, giving him time to perfect the Blue Whale challenge. He is being charged with attempting to attract a large amount of kids with the Blue Whale game, then ascertain which ones of those Blue Whale challenge victims would bow the most to psychological manipulation and pressure.
As reported by Snopes , the Blue Whale game is still listed as “unproven” as of this writing.
On Instagram, searching for the #bluewhale hashtag brings up a warning about the Blue Whale suicide game, which is likely better than banning the #bluewhale hashtag altogether.
“Can we help? Posts with words or tags you’re searching for often encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death. If you’re going through something difficult, we’d like to help.”
The #bluewhale hashtag currently has 52,425 posts on Instagram. Some of them contain graphic photos of blue whales carved into forearms like the below photo.
Warning: The following Blue Whale game challenge photo is graphic and disturbing.
Other fake photos of a Blue Whale game carving are also disturbing, even though the Instagram user noted that it was a fake cutting.
The hashtag #bluewhalechallenge contains 2,643 posts on Instagram, and comes with the same suicide warning prior to allowing people to view the photos on Instagram.
The #bluewhalegame hashtag currently has 846 posts on Instagram, and also has a similar warning about harmful images and ideas about death.
As seen in the above Instagram post, the 50 steps of the Blue Whale game challenge culminates in trying to get the Blue Whale app participants to jump off of a tall building.
One Reddit user posted what they claim was the level of access the Blue Whale game creators had to his or her phone.
Now that enough warnings have emerged about the dangers of the Blue Whale game, and at least one of the Blue Whale challenge creators has been imprisoned, the Blue Whale game itself just might die out.
[Featured Image by Elaine Thompson/AP Images]