The Blue Whale Challenge : Death’s whim

How did such a thing spread?

The Blue Whale Challenge is hardly that. It is not what its name makes it out to be. It is not a challenge, because it cannot be won. It is a ‘game’ in which a series of tasks are assigned to players by administrators over a period of 50 days, with the final task requiring the player to commit suicide. Having claimed the lives of many innocent and gullible teenagers, this inglorious internet fad is not something to be trifled with. Read on as we discuss about it’s origin, the maniacal yet scheming reason behind its creation and its impact on India and mankind in general.

The Blue Whale challenge started as a simple post on the infamous VK group ‘F-57’ not more than two years ago. ‘A sea of Whales’ and ‘Wake me up at 4:20’ are few other names the game is known by. A concoction from the malicious mind of Philip Budekin, the game has a sinister but simple motive — to eliminate the weak from the pack. Though the creator has been arrested, his loyalists still keep the game alive.

The blue whale challenge is rumoured to have caused hundreds of cases of self harm or suicides across many countries, but reportedly, the challenge has claimed victims in over 19 countries till date, including six cases of suicide or attempted suicide in India alone. Thus the game has managed to elicit reactions from government organizations and the mainstream media alike. This being quite an uncommon problem, government authorities of different countries are scrambling to control the spread of the challenge.

While countries like Mexico and Brazil have issued warnings regarding the blue whale game to be issued in schools, countries like China and India have been endeavouring to stop the problem at its source. Tencent, China’s largest ISP, has closed down suspicious Blue Whale Challenge related groups on its social media platform QQ, and the Government of India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information and Technology has directed several internet companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook to remove all links which direct users to the game. The challenge has even prompted legislation in the Russian Duma (parliament), which passed a bill on May 26, introducing criminal responsibility for creating pro-suicide groups on social media.

Will these measures be enough to stop this infection from spreading? They might. Will they stop a similar event from happening again? To answer that, we must analyze why something like this garnered such a following among the younger generation. One possible explanation could be the so called ‘Dare/Challenge phenomenon’, which refers to the rising fad among the younger generation in which videos of possibly lethal acts are done in the name of ‘challenges’ and shared in social media platforms. Examples of such challenges are:

· Cinnamon challenge, in which teens swallow a spoonful or more of cinnamon without drinking any water.

· Choking challenge, where teens choked themselves for a period of time to supposedly get a euphoric experience due to the lack of oxygen.

· Ice and salt challenge, different from the rather more noble ALS ice bucket challenge, instead involves pouring salt over one’s body and following it by placing ice over it.

Such challenges, despite not sounding as morbid as the blue whale challenge, cause a lot of deaths, with the choking challenge alone reportedly having claimed 250 to 1000 lives in around two decades in the United States. It is possible that the blue whale challenge could have started out as such a fad. But what could cause someone to commit such stupid acts? There are a multitude of reasons. Some do it for the euphoria, or the ‘high’ that they get from completing a dangerous challenge. The success of their friends on social media spurs them to try it on their own. In some cases however, it could also be peer pressure. In the particular case of the Blue Whale Game, psychologists suspect it could have been cyber bullying or manipulation that could have been the cause that drove innocent teenagers to take the challenge up, leading to their deaths.

These are problems that have existed for quite some time now, and are ones which even experts have not reached a consensus on any surefire ways to solve them. As of now, the best solutions we have are the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) and the slightly ambiguous ways of reporting cyberbullying. Thus, to arrive at an appropriate solution, it is important to have a more organized conversation about suicide, mental health and cyberbullying, on a global level.

However, all is not lost, and there is progress being made. Just on social media alone, there have been multiple exemplary responses to counter the havoc wrecked by the Blue Whale challenge. An especially popular antidote for this game is the pink whale challenge. It has been made to do nothing but make you and the people around you feel happy and realise that life is truly worth living. The pink whale doesn’t need to be kept a secret, it doesn’t need you to follow a path of self of destruction, it merely shows you that you are worthy of living.

— An article written in collaboration with Siddarth Arvind