PSYCHOLOGY PROJECT

An Analytical Study in Psycho-legal Perspective

Table Of Content :

· Acknowledgement..........................................................................3

· Introduction.................................................................................... 4

· Origin Of Blue Whale Game......................................................... 5

· The Psychology of Blue Whale Game Challenge………………..5

· The Victims……………………………………………………….6

· Is Blue Whale Game the cause of suicides?...................................9

· Stance Of Governments…………………………………………11

· Stance Of Social Media Giants………………………………….11

· Arrests…………………………………………………………...12
· Psychological Impact……………………………………………12

· Conclusion…………………………………………………… ....14

· Bibliography..................................................................................16

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to thank Ms. Tanya Dixit ma’am for giving me this

opportunity to make the project on such an immense topic and all the support and

guidance that I have received from her, without which this project could not have

turned into a reality. With her enthusiasm, her inspiration and her great efforts to

explain things clearly and simply, she helped throughout my analysis of work with

lots of encouragement, sound advice, and good innovation. I would also like to

thank all my colleagues and seniors for providing me support and material facts

and figures related to this topic.

I would also like to thank the librarians of Dr. Madhu Limaye Library who

extended their assistance to me by helping me out consult the relevant books.

I know that despite my best efforts some discrepancies might have crept in which I

believe my humble Professor would forgive.

Introduction

The Blue Whale game or Blue Whale Challenge is believed to be a suicide game
wherein a group of administrators or a certain curator gives a participant a task to
complete daily — for a period of 50 days — the final of which is the participant
committing suicide. Participants are expected to share photos of the
challenges/tasks completed by them. These daily tasks start off easy — such as
listening to certain genres of music, waking up at odd hours, watching a horror
movie, among others, and then slowly escalate to carving out shapes on one’s skin,
self-mutilation and eventually suicide.

If we go back into its history, Blue Whale Game was first commenced in Russia in
2013 with “F57” by the group titled as “death group”, on the social network site
called VKontakte. The first suicide case caused due to this game in 2015. The
game has been blamed by the Russian press, this game is the actual reason behind
the suicide attempt by the 80 to 130 children between November 2015 and April
2016. Blue whale game is trapping the teenager in Russian and now also in other
countries. Recently a news agency reported that this game could be spreading
across UK, US and Central Asian countries.
There is still uncertainty over how a participant plays the game. While some say
the user has to install some app on their smart phone, others say it’s via social
media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook where the administrators get in
touch with the participant after those interested throw out postings on social media
asking for a “curator”. A number of different hashtags— #bluewhalechallenge,
#curatorfindme, #i_am_whale—act as signals for the anonymous curators.

ORIGIN Of Blue Whale Game

The Blue Whale Challenge -- a dare-based "game" that requires participants to

complete 50 tasks in 50 days, and the ultimate task being committing suicide by
jumping of a high-rise -- originated in Russia in 2013. The creator of the challenge,
Philipp Budeikin, was arrested in May and sentenced to three years in prison. He
had confessed, in an interview, that he deliberately incited 17 teenagers into
committing suicide. Philipp, 22, said that he was eliminating people 'who do not
represent any value, cause harm or will cause harm to the society' from the
face of the Earth.
Philipp Budeikin – a former psychology student who had expelled out of his
college. He said that the reason behind to develop the game is “clean the society”
from the people who has no value to society and not more than a burden by simply
forcing the this kind people toward suicide.

The Psychology of the Blue Whale Challenge

The psychology behind the blue whale challenge is simple — find victims, create
an emotional bond with them through an arbitrary set of steps demanding
completion in order to move forward in the game, and then hope they follow
through to Step 50, “Jump off a high building. Take your life.”
This is the creation of someone who is likely a psychopath or sociopath, or has
significant tendencies of psychopathy. This “game” isn’t really a game at all. It’s
simply a control and manipulation scheme directed toward vulnerable people who
have serious thoughts of suicide, loneliness, and death.

When a person is suicidal, they feel most of all alone and worthless. The game
creator understood these feelings (probably having felt them themselves at some
point in their lives), and is taking advantage of these kinds of feelings.

What better way to make someone feel like they are together with others than
have them identify as an arbitrary mammal (a whale)? And what better way to
make them feel a little less worthless than have them succeed at a series of tasks
anyone could perform?

The Victims
People with sound mind and a healthy support group of peers, family and teachers
are less likely to be prone to this game. However, adolescents who are glued to the
social media, having low self-esteem, craving for peer acceptance are highly
prone to this deadly game. These people can be easily manipulated into
performing such acts which gives them a good social recognition.

· Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala: Manoj C Man, a 16-year-old from Kerala,

is the latest victim of the dangerous game as claimed by his mother. The
young boy was found hanging at his home on July 26. Earlier, the family
told the police that it was because of failed relationships and scoldings by
the boy’s mother. Three days ago, however, Man’s mother filed a fresh
complaint, saying the Blue Whale challenge could have led to his death.

· Mumbai: A 14-year-old boy jumped off from the seventh floor of building

in Mumbai on July 26 evening is another suspected case of Blue Whale

suicide game. The deceased, Manpreet, was a class nine student in a school
in Andheri East. While locals said he played the Blue Whale game, the
police said they are checking Manpreet’s cellphone and computer to
ascertain the same.
As per the forensic report, the boy died due to external and internal
injuruies. “He had a fractured forearm, fracture pelvic region and enlarged
liver,” the expert said. The boy suffered several trauma injuries as a result of
falling from the height. The police have registered a case of accidental
death.

· West Midnapore, West Bengal: Ankan Dey, a 15-year-old teenager from

West Midnapore, West Bengal, was the first suspected Blue Whale victim in
 India. The teenager committed suicide in the bathroom of his house on
Saturday morning, August 12, according to reports. While the police are
probing if the teen played the Blue Whale challenge, there were reports that
Ankan was addicted to online games.

· Solapur, Maharashtra: A 14-year-old Solapur boy who left home to allegedly

complete a task assigned to him in the Blue Whale game was rescued by the
police on August 10 on his way to Pune. The boy appeared to be lost and
silent at the time of rescue. “As soon as we were informed by our
counterparts in Solapur, we intercepted the bus and rescued the boy, who
was on his way to complete a task given by the Blue Whale Challenge game,”
a Bhigwan police station officer said. “The boy’s businessman father came to
the police station and took him home,” he added.

· Indore, Madhya Pradesh: A 13-year-old was rescued by his friends when he

tried to jump off the third floor of his Indore school on August 10. The boy is
a student of class VII at Chamali Devi Public School at Rajendra Nagar. “We
think he was tense in the last couple of days, thinking about committing
suicide to accomplish the final 50th task of the game,” Additional SP Rupesh
Kumar Dwivedi said.

This challenge has been linked to more than 150 deaths across the world. There
have been reported cases of suicide due to the challenge across the word: Three
cases from the United States, two from Brazil, two from Argentina, one from Italy,
more than 130 cases of suicide in Russia, one in China and at least 90 victims of
the challenge are identified in Portugal. Now, it is also being traced in India. The
first case of alleged Blue Whale suicide in India was reported on July 30, when a
14-year-old boy jumped to death from the seventh floor of a building in Mumbai.
On August 10, a Class VII student in Indore was pulled away before he could take
the final leap. He apparently recorded all 50 stages in his school diary. A Class X
student in West Bengal, allegedly playing the game, committed suicide on August
12. His body was found in the bathroom, his face covered in a plastic bag, with a
cord around his neck. Recently it was heard on the morning of 29 th August that the
next victim was a 17 year old boy in Tondiarpet, who left a suicide note and
evidence showed that the reason behind is suicide was the game, Blue Whale. The
most recent incident reported today, (August 31) is of a 19 year old, second year
college student, named Vignesh who was from Thirumangalam, Madurai. He
committed suicide by hanging himself on Wednesday at around 4:15 pm.

Is Blue Whale Game the cause of suicides?

The victims found implied that the shared involvement in the group pointed to
its causality in the suicides. This alone, however, does not guarantee a causality
to these groups, since teenagers with pre-existing suicidal thoughts are likely to
be attracted to similar online clusters, in search of like-minded people.
According to an investigation done by Radio Free Europe, there is no official
mention of death groups or the Blue Whale game in the police investigations of
the quoted teen suicides yet. The point is that in the suicides said to be caused
by the Blue Whale game, the onus is still in the suspicion/theory stage, and even
then, the game can hardly be held directly responsible.
With rise of social media, people more often post their so called perfect life sharing
pictures of their holidays, having fun on facebook, instagram. This leads to many
others feeling depressed since we more often compare others with our own lives.
We often ask ourselves

· Am I the only one not living a good life ?

· What’s the point of living like this ?

The teenagers being depressed and bored with their lives, look for some respite at
the internet and thus they come in contact with these dangerous online games like
Blue Whale Challenge. Since the victims themselves find these games and not vice
versa.

Schools too usually does not provide respite as the institutions tend to be
underfunded, understaffed and have been widely criticized for neglecting the
issue of bullying among children. Alcohol abuse and the frustration of living in a
corrupt system where lack of ties to the economically and politically powerful
still dim one’s chances of growth are other known factors. In other words, it is
quite possible that the suicides suspected to be connected with the Blue Whale
game may be of teenagers already running a high risk of ending their lives. The
game may have acted as the tipping point in time.

The hysteria surrounding the Blue Whale “suicide game” needs to be re-focused
on issues of adolescent depression that invite it. Addressing the root causes of
vulnerability of young adolescents and talking to them about such harmful
groups and what they contain is perhaps a better defense against the Blue Whale
game and co, rather than getting caught a panic of half-baked sensational
reports. Teenagers and students need to know how to support each other and
whom to unconditionally turn for help when concerned. 

The game is easily defeated by talking to your teen, child, or young adult about
their suicidal feelings, and encouraging them to reach out to get help for them
through psychotherapy or counseling. It’s not an easy conversation to have, but it
may be a life-saving talk.
Teens and young adults need to understand — you’re at the very beginning of
your life. No matter how bad you feel right now (and I understand, as I felt as bad
or worse than you when I was a teen), it will get better. You may not believe me,
but why take the words of a stranger in the first place — whether it’s to play a
dumb game or something else? Reach out to your friends (or an adult, if you can)
and see if you can find a different way to cope with these feelings.