ALFA-GOOD # The Blue Whale Challenge! # What Is The Blue Whale Game?

Since I first wrote about the Blue Whale game in March, I've been asked many times if I can provide a link to the game's website or tell people where they can download the game for their smartphone.

In case you're unaware, Blue Whale is a sinister game which preys on vulnerable teens and encourages them to take part in a series of sick challenges spread out over fifty days. As part of the game the player can be asked to do anything from wake at odd times of day to performing acts of self harm.

These daily challenges are nothing compared to the game's conclusion when the player is convinced to commit suicide, often they are told that there will be consequences if they back out. Despite this, many people have been trying to track down the game, and the list of fifty dares. They're not trying to find it because they're feeling suicidal or intend to obey the rules of the game and complete the tasks, but because they want to learn more about it, as well as troll and expose those behind it.

Those wanting to play might find that it's not quite as simple to track down the game as they might think. Many people expect the game to be available as an APK file which would run on a phone, there are loads of teens searching for things like "wake up at 4:20am game download" in Google. Others seem to think its some kind of flash game that can be played on a website. Some are trying to hunt down a public group on a social media website like Facebook or more commonly, Vkontakte.

But you can't just go to VK.com/blue-whale or grab the app from your favourite app store. There is no "game" as such, players were previously sought out through "death groups" on the social media website, VK.com. VK is a popular social network in Russia and death groups are communities where likeminded Russian teens come together online to discuss suicide, admins of these groups often glamourise suicide in order to increase the number of members of their group.

It's claimed that members of these groups are approached by Blue Whale "curators" and the tasks are handed out to them in direct messages through VK's private messaging tool. These private chats are always initiated by the curator, usually a player isn't able to contact a Blue Whale curator directly themselves.

Of course as the game originated in Russian groups and was run by Russian curators, the conversations between players and curators were carried out in Russian and to date the only list of challenges published online has been in Russian.

So, even if you could find a Blue Whale curator on VK, unless you're fluent in the Russian language you're not going to be able properly converse with the curator and understand the challenges being set. But that doesn't really matter as you're not going to be able to track them down anyway.

It's described as a game, but the Blue Whale Challenge is far from a game. Young teens who accept the challenge are encouraged to complete a series of tasks which get more and more sinister and at the end of the game the player is urged to take their own life in order to "win."

The Blue Whale suicide game goes by many names including 'A Silent House,' 'A Sea Of Whales' and 'Wake Me Up At 4:20am.' It takes 50 days to complete and is played primarily via the website VKontakte, which is a popular social network in Russia. It gets its name from a common belief that blue whales voluntarily beach themselves in order to end their own lives.

The game's administrators or curator find players through "death groups" or "suicide groups" set up on VK.com (VKontakte). Police in Russia have shut down several of these groups in recent years but say that as soon as one is shut down, another starts up and this has driven them underground.

Once you've been accepted by an administrator, you are given your first of 50 daily challenges, these can be anything from simple tasks like listening to a certain song, watching unsettling videos and waking up at odd times to much more extreme requests like cutting words or whale symbols into your skin. The first challenge usually comes at 4:20am. Every time you accomplish a task, you must provide photographic or video proof of completion to the admin.

A journalist working at Radio Free Europe created an account on VK, posing as a 15-year-girl they attempted to join the Blue Whale game. After making contact with a curator they were given their first task, which involved deliberate self-harm.

https://steemit.com/@alfa-good
I got an unsolicited call from someone at United Data Claims, so told him I'd been involved in a high-profile shark attack. He hung up.

So far around 5k people have joined my Pink Whale game, although many more have been rejected due to the daily player limit I've had to impose, but the page has been visited over 100k times. All together my Blue Whale content has just broken the 1 million page views mark since the beginning of March.

There is a lot of interest in this topic, both from teens and parents trying to find out more about the game. All this buzz has made it my most successful strand of content I've ever written, it's received more traffic than anything else I've ever produced online, other than a handful of my YouTube videos.

It's interesting to see where this traffic is coming from, it originated in Easter Europe and Poland, then there was a sharp spike in visits in the UK as British papers tackled the story (I was ahead of them) and now there seems to be a wave of visitors coming from across Europe, especially Italy.

It seems the twisted "game" designed to prey on vulnerable teenagers has been spreading across Europe and one headmaster in the UK has even claims to have discovered the game in her school.