Momo? No No! The Truth Behind The Fear
If I am to believe the shares and warnings circulated among friends a “deadly new game” is spreading among kids in the UK, the Momo Challenge! Much like Blue Whale that gained notoriety in 2016, the Momo Challenge supposedly exhorts its child victims to fulfil a series of tasks that end with their death by suicide. Clearly a horrifying prospect. Also like Blue Whale, there may be significantly more fiction than fact to the real story.
The warnings currently circulating on social media state variously that the Momo Challenge specifically targets children, some reports say it spreads through WhatsApp, through Minecraft, and others through “Kids YouTube” (sic).
What is the evidence?
Erring on the side of cynicism I began digging for evidence to support the existence of this “deadly craze”.
The first mention of this “challenge” I can locate dates back to a reddit post on July 11th 2018, when a cropped image of the Japanese sculpture called Mother-Bird by Keisuke Aisawa (featured above) was shared on the r/creepy subreddit. That image has since become known as “Momo”. One redditor from Mexico commented:
“I’m from Mexico and yesterday that image became popular on Facebook in a post telling you to message a phone number. That number has the pic as a profile photo. Idk if I can share the number here.”
The OP also commented that they had initially found the image on Facebook. The original Facebook post, which seems to have been long removed, challenged readers to message a number, while at the same time warning that messaging the number carried significant risk. Three different telephone numbers accompany the earliest reports of “Momo”, one with a Japanese country code, one Colombian and one Mexican. When added as WhatsApp contacts, all three of those numbers communicated in Spanish and would insult threaten and bombard their interlocutor with obscene and horrific images.
The existence of “Momo” spread very quickly through sites like 4chan and YouTube with several videos uploaded in June and July of 2018 of people attempting, and succeeding in contacting “Momo” over WhatsApp.
On July 26th the Buenos Aires Times linked something they called “the Momo Game” with the suicide of a 12 year-old girl in Ingeniero Maschwitz and noted that police were investigating an 18-year-old teenager the victim is believed to have met on social media, and whom the police were yet to locate. By August the aggressive meme had spread throughout the world, with reports in Argentina, Spain, the United States, France and Germany, with some indication that the amount of unique “Momo” phone numbers being used were also growing. As is often the case with memes, public interest waned as rapidly as it had grown.
Fast forward to 2019
Momo appears to be getting a second wind in the UK. A story in the Mail Online has begun to circulate widely on social media. The story is based on a Facebook post by a mother from Bolton, who had been informed by a teacher that her 7 year-old son had been making threats to other children at school. He had “‘made three kids cry by telling them that ‘Momo was going to go into their room at night and kill them’”. We have seen warnings posted from schools, child protection organisations and even police forces.
It is unclear whether the 2019 cases are actually related to real telephone contact with someone posing as Momo, but seem to be more likely a result of children scaring each other and themselves by accessing and sharing the plentiful videos and images from last year’s activity. Any evidence in the form of videos or screenshots of actual interaction and exhortation to self-harm is simply impossible to find currently.
So what can you do?
There is a strong kernel of truth to the Momo story, but just as with anything that reaches meme status, this is inflated way beyond the actual risk level, so firstly and most importantly, DON’T PANIC. Keeping your children safe online is of course a primary concern for all parents, but it doesn’t help the cause when parents begin scaring one another by sharing exaggerated Facebook accounts of the threat, or when trusted media brands turn anecdotal stories into life or death situations.
Parents, help each other by checking into the facts before you share scare stories online. Rather than our children being scared it seems it is more the parents in a panic over something which appears to be yesterday’s news. Encourage open communication with your kids about the threats, dangers and crucially the opportunities available online. Reinforce the advice you have already given them about stranger danger, and make sure that they know they should never be scared to tell you about something that has worried or scared them, whatever the circumstances. If you are looking for a repository of advice and ideas, Internet Safety for Kids and Families is a great place to start. If you are looking for specific advice relating to Momo, it’s simple; don’t text any number relating to the Momo Challenge, don’t add any to your address books and don’t respond to any.
We are never going to stop kids from telling each other ghost stories but we can make sure we give them a place to go when they are scared.
