A new game that has already resulted in 130 teen suicides will almost certainly reach South Africa in the next three months, experts say. The game originated in Russia but are now sweeping the world.
The Blue Whale app can be downloaded. An ‘administrator’ or ‘mentor’ then gives the player a task every day for the next 50 days with the final task being suicide. Tasks include self-mutilation, watching horror movies, standing on the edge of the roof of a dangerously high building and listening to music the ‘administrator’ sends the player. The player must take a photo of every completed task to prove to the administrator that it has been completed.
Also Read: SA’s high suicide rate
Earlier this week the creator of the game, 21-year-old russian Philipp Budeikin, was arrested. Budeiken who confessed to being the creator said he thought his victims were just ‘biological waste’ and told police that they were ‘happy to die’ and that he was ‘cleansing society’.
He is being held on charges of inciting at least 16 schoolgirls to kill themselves.
Here is a full list of tasks:
1. Carve ‘f57’ on your hand with a razor and send a photo to the curator.
2. Wake up at 4.20am and watch psychedelic and scary videos the curator sends you.
3. Cut your arm with a razor along your veins, but not too deep – only three cuts. Send a photo to the curator.
4. Draw a whale on a sheet of paper, send a photo to the curator.
5. If you are ready to ‘become a whale’, carve ‘YES’ on your leg. If not, cut yourself many times (punish yourself).
6. Task with a cipher.
7. Carve ‘f40’ on your hand, and send a photo to the curator.
8. Type ‘#i_am_whale’ in your VKontakte status.
9. You have to overcome your fear.
10. Wake up at 4.20am and go onto a roof (the higher the better).
11. Carve a whale on your hand with a razor, and send a photo to the curator.
12. Watch psychedelic and horror videos all day.
13. Listen to music ‘they’ (curators) send you.
14. Cut your lip.
15. Poke your hand with a needle many times
16. Do something painful to yourself, make yourself sick.
17. Go to the highest roof you can find, stand on the edge for some time.
18. Go to a bridge, stand on the edge.
19. Climb up a crane or at least try to do it
20. The curator checks if you are trustworthy.
21. Have a talk ‘with a whale’ (another player like you or a curator) on Skype.
22. Go to a roof and sit on the edge with your legs dangling.
23. Another task with a cipher.
24. Secret task.
25. Have a meeting with a ‘whale’.
26. The curator tells you the date of your death and you have to accept it.
27. Wake up at 4.20am and go to any railroad you can find.
28. Don’t talk to anyone all day.
29. Make a vow that ‘you’re a whale’.
30–49. Every day you wake up at 4.20am, watch horror videos, listen to music ‘they’ send you, make one cut on your body per day, talk ‘to a whale’.
50. Jump off a high building. Take your life.
What is your view on this game? Do your children know about it? What are their views? Let us know in the comment box below.
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