A first-year Indian-origin student at the University of Massachusetts was found dead in March, and the authorities are investigating it as an apparent suicide. The 20-year-old is reported to have been playing the “Blue Whale Challenge,” an online game also known as a “suicide game.”
What is the Blue Whale Challenge?
The Blue Whale Challenge is an online game that started in Russia and is notorious for its dark themes. It often consists of a series of assignments or dares assigned to players by a curator over 50 days.
The first assignments could involve obstacles like “waking up in the middle of the night” or “watching a horror film.” However, they gradually progress to more dangerous and scary ones, such as “stand on the ledge of a tower block” or “cut a whale into your arm.” The last task finishes with the user being asked to murder themselves.
Participants are frequently forced into completing these tasks via threats, extortion, or psychological manipulation. The game’s name is drawn from the behavior of blue whales, which are known to deliberately beach themselves, often resulting in the whale’s death.
In 2019, reports of the alleged link between the “Blue Whale Challenge” and hundreds of suicide deaths expanded from Russia to neighboring nations like Ukraine, India, and the United States.
The Blue Whale Challenge story revolves around the tragedy of Rina Palenkova. On November 22, 2015, Palenkova, a teenage girl from Russia, shared a selfie online. In the photograph, she stands outside with a black scarf covering her mouth and nose and displaying her middle finger. The caption said, “Nya bye.” Palenkova died by suicide the next day.