Anything goes viral nowadays. And the sad truth is that sometimes, something which is pure evil gets widely circulated for all the wrong reasons and ends up claiming the lives of innocent people.
Just a few months back, the deadly ‘ Blue Whale’ challenge surfaced and ended up taking hundreds of lives. And now, to replace it there is another game called ‘Momo’.
It began as a Facebook and WhatsApp game. Ominously similar to blue-whale, the game Momo too asks the player to perform some tasks. A fun challenge is given which asks you to talk to a stranger but later turns into a gruesome game of a dare to kill yourself while streaming live on social media.
What’s with this new life-threatening game?
The game features a main character named ‘Momo’, which is a horrifying woman with eyes gauging out of the socket. She also has a gnarly smile which makes her look even creepier. This game targets teenagers and children who are interested to play new games. They are then told to talk to one of the random numbers. Once the contact is established, the game takes an ugly twist.
The players start receiving suicidal and disturbing images along with the claim that the game apparently knows everything about them. This game has already claimed the lives of countless young people so far.
The worst part is that children and teenagers are more prone to fall victim to such games. They end up believing whatever the game says and get convinced about the threats that the game supposedly places on their families and other personal things
The origin of suicidal games
It all began in 2014 in Wisconsin when two twelve-year-old girls lured their classmate into a forest and stabbed her 19 times in the name of this scary being called Slenderman. They claimed they did it to secure a spot in his mansion in the woods. Then came the wrath of the blue-whale game.
Momo is the second game that seems to be specially crafted to target the naive minds of teenagers who are hardly aware of the danger when they excitedly join a new game. Children and teenagers have an impressionable and feeble mind. They can’t tell right from wrong without an aid from their guardians.
How can you make the situation better?
Parents should keep a close watch on the behavior of their children and take necessary precautions.
We must also not leave kids alone in their bedroom for long hours. They should be encouraged to spend time with family and even if they are doing something, to do it in the living room with others present. The rules should be set for the surfing time and other mobile games as well.
Instead of drowning them in mobile and computer games, more focus should be on outdoor games. It is one of the sad evils of social media, some sicko somewhere is always targeting innocent kids to play the game of death. And we don’t realize it until something unfortunate happens. There are signs.Always.We must learn to read those signs.
In conclusion:
We need to spread awareness about such life-threatening games. People need to be more vigilant in terms of what their children are up to, rather than leaving them on their own to surf the internet. The need of the hour is to educate the younger generation about the facts. And also help them figure out the difference between a game and real-life situation.