Blue Whale began in Russia in 2013 with "F57", one of the names of the so-called "death group" of the VKontakte social network, and allegedly caused its first suicide in 2015. Philipp Budeikin, a former psychology student who was expelled from his university, claimed that he invented the game. Budeikin stated that his purpose was to "clean" the society by pushing to suicide those he deemed as having no value.
In Russia in 2016, Blue Whale came into broader use among teenagers after a journalist brought attention to it through an article that linked many unrelated suicide victims to the Blue Whale, creating a wave of moral panic in Russia. Later, Budeikin was arrested and pled guilty to "inciting at least 16 teenage girls to commit suicide", leading to Russian suicide prevention legislation and renewed world-wide concern over the Blue Whale phenomenon.[11] It has also been linked to other rising self-harm trends, such as "human embroidery" in China.
Why Not to Play The Game
n March 2017, Romanian Minister of Internal Affairs Carmen Dan expressed her deep concerns about the phenomenon.Mayor of BucharestGabriela Firea described the game as "extremely dangerous".
The game has caused significant concern in Western Europe, including France[173] and the United Kingdom.[174]
In Brazil, in response to the game, a designer and a publicity agent from São Paulo created a movement called Baleia Rosa (Pink Whale),[which became viral and relied on the collaboration of hundreds of volunteers.The movement is based on positive tasks that value life and combat depression.Also in Brazil, Sandro Sanfelice created the movement Capivara Amarela (Yellow Capybara),which proposes to "combat the Blue Whale game" and guide people seeking some kind of help. Participants are separated between challengers, who are the people who seek help, and the healers, who are kind of godfathers of these people.An Adventist school in southern Paraná, in partnership with other education networks, also sought to reverse the situation by proposing another charity game, the "Jonas Challenge" (referring to the biblical character Jonah, who was vomited up by a large fish three days after being swallowed by it).Other games created in Brazil in response to the Blue Whale were the Baleia Verde (Green Whale) and the Preguiça Azul (Blue Sloth). In the United States, one site, also called the "Blue Whale Challenge" does not immediately identify itself as an effort to combat the game, but offers fifty days of challenges that promote mental health and well-being.
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