By GAYLA CAWLEY
SWAMPSCOTT — Superintendent Pamela Angelakis is warning parents about a new social media app that encourages participants to inflict self-harm and eventually commit suicide.
Angelakis recently sent a letter home to parents, which she also posted on her blog, warning them about how “The Blue Whale Challenge” could affect their children.
“As we begin summer break, I have been informed from colleagues about a new social media app which could have serious implications for our children,” Angelakis wrote. “The Blue Whale Challenge is an app that instructs its participants to carry out increasingly dangerous tasks and self-harm over 50 days.
“My understanding is the app is geared toward preteens and teens. Users are encouraged to tag friends on social media and ‘challenge’ them to participate in the ‘game.’”
The superintendent quoted a recent USA Today article breaking down how the game works — an anonymous administrator assigns kids self-harm tasks over 50 days, which may start by asking them to watch a movie, and then intensify in danger to include acts like cutting, before reaching a climax on the 50th day when they are supposed to commit suicide.
Kids may find the game through popular social media methods such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube or texting.
Angelakis urged parents to monitor all of the social media accounts used by their children. She said parents should also ask their kids if there are any new games or popular challenges that they or their friends are hearing about, or playing on social media or online, and search for hashtags such as #BlueWhaleChallenge, along with photos of a blue whale on their children’s social media accounts.
The family of a San Antonio, Texas teenager, Isaiah Gonzalez, has come forward and blamed the 15-year-old’s suicide on the game. According to the Washington Post, Gonzalez’s father Jorge went into his son’s bedroom last Saturday to find Isaiah dead and hanging from the closet, with a cellphone nearby that had been broadcasting his suicide.
According to CNN, an unnamed 16-year-old Atlanta, Ga., girl’s recent suicide has also been linked to the Blue Whale Challenge.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.