Petersburg, Anton Breydo, launched an investigation on Blue Whale in Russia and was working with a girl who had survived a suicide attempt, according to the news outlet Novaya Gazeta. The colonel of justice for the Investigation Committee Department of St. However, he reiterated that “there is no need to panic, because this is not yet a crisis, rather a caution to alert people in advance.” He encourages asking kids whether they are playing Blue Whale or have friends who are playing. Dan Reidenberg, executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, a national nonprofit for suicide prevention, warns that parents need to be watching their children for any of those signs. Each task becomes riskier, and on the 50th day, players are reportedly instructed to commit suicide.ĭr. In some cases, they go to the top of a tall building, in others a train station. It is reported that the curator sends teens to scope out the location of their deaths in advance as one of the challenges. Demands may increase to watching horror movies all night or secretly cutting oneself. Some reportedly start with simple things like drawing a blue whale on a piece of paper. While authorities investigate whether there are curators who directly communicate with teens or whether the game is simply internet folklore, the challenges are said to begin at 4:20 a.m. Authorities from the St Petersburg District Court confirmed in a press statement that there is an open investigation into his charge of “incitement to suicide.” The Investigative Committee press release says that Budeikin has confessed to creating the game and used the VK.com social site to encourage 15 to 17 teenagers to commit suicide. According to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he was arrested in November. One man who may be connected to Blue Whale is a 21-year-old psychology major named Philip Budeikin. The curator gives players daily tasks to accomplish and requires them to submit photographic evidence that they have completed each, keeping their communication private. The “game” is said to be administered by an online curator and takes place over 50 days. The Washington Post reported about another teen suicide in Texas that occurred in early July and is suspected to be linked to Blue Whale. Since then, suicides suspected to have been inspired by Blue Whale have been reported in parts of central Asia, Europe and South America Nadia’s suicide appears to be the first in the United States influenced by the concept. I spend a lot of time online and hadn’t come across it until it happened.”Īs Nadia’s family researched the Blue Whale connection, they discovered what appeared to be an online suicide challenge that reportedly began in Russia two years ago.
“None of us knew about the Blue Whale game. He looked through her sketches and found pages of whale drawings and magazine cutouts with the words “I Am a Blue Whale” pasted over them, accompanied by drawings indicating self-harm, suicidal statements with words of goodbye and multiple entries written in Russian. The photo went viral on the Russian social media site VK.com, and the attention from her death led to the discovery of her supposed involvement with something online called Blue Whale.Ĭontinuing to research, Marty remembered the picture of the blue whale taped next to the mirror in his sister’s room. He noticed an unusual pattern among drawings and journal entries, including a small sketch of a girl with a name beneath it in Russian.Īn internet search of the name turned up the story of Rina Palenkova, a 17-year-old girl who posted a “goodbye” selfie moments before committing suicide in Russia in November 2015.
Nobody who knew her could have anticipated what they would find after her death.Īlmost immediately, her devastated older brother, Marty, started going through her things to look for signs. Nobody who knew her suspected that she would take her own life one early morning in May. This girl was a gifted artist, sister, daughter and friend. Near a full-length mirror, recent artwork showed a printed photo of a blue whale overlaying a hand-painted background. Her real name is not Nadia we are keeping her identity hidden at the request of her family, out of respect for her memory and their privacy.Ī beautiful painting covered the wall along the length of her bed the bookshelf was adorned with books, knickknacks and childhood photos. ATLANTA - The walls and décor of 16-year-old Nadia’s room looked like that of any other high school teenager.
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