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From The Silent House meme to The Blue Whale-Game: the storyworld’s
transformation

Conference Paper · August 2017

DOI: 10.5593/sgemsocial2017/41/S16.032

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 Section Media & Communications

FROM THE SILENT HOUSE MEME TO THE BLUE WHALE-GAME:

THE STORYWORLD’S TRANSFORMATION

Assoc. Prof. Dr.Volkova Irina1

Assistant Prof. Kadyrova Shuanat2
Assistant Prof. Rastorgueva Natalya3,
Assistant Prof. Algavi Leila4
'RUDN-University, Russian Federation
2RUDN-University, Russian Federation
3RUDN-University, Russian Federation
4RUDN-University, Russian Federation

ABSTRACT
The Blue Whale contest is believed to be a sinister teenage ARG based on a series of
tasks given by the administrators of social network VKontakte (VK) groups over the
course of 50 days. The overall goal is committing suicide, on the 50th day. It is assumed
that by May of 2016 the game has been a reason of more than 130 juveniles’ suicides in
Russia. While the allegation on 130 deaths caused by game originally mentioned in the
“Novaya Gazeta” was not confirmed officially, the prototypes of the game apparently
existed on VK before. They included interactive quests, ARGs, the games with
augmented reality based on the myth of Deep Web and its map created within the
Russian net-stalking communities. The myth describes the abysmal cyber world filled
with "creepy" contents also known as deathly files. By early 2017 the rumors about the
Blue Whale suicide game moved beyond the national social networks and Russian-
language imageboard websites and induced a commotion in the national press and
reached the media of some neighboring states in the former USSR and even farther.
During transition from the social media to the Russian mainstream media and further to
the foreign media the story about the Deep Web and its storyworld were substantially
transformed into the story of the Blue Whale contest.
The aim of this paper is to identify the peculiarities of an elaboration of an ARG's
storyworld during transition from social media to mainstream media. For this purpose,
we focused on an analysis how the storyworld and narrative were affected through the
transition from Deep Web myth to the Blue Whale contest narration and the mainstream
media interferences from chronological perspective.
Keywords: The Blue Whale contest, mainstream media, myth, storytelling, social
media

INTRODUCTION
In a broad sense, the phenomena Blue Whale can be defined in context of binary
opposition “the individual - society”, carried over to game world. The problem reflects
on conflict between two communicative models that establish alternative reality in
World Wide Web different ways and with different objectives.

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The first “We- Model” is represented by self-organ izing network systems, which are
forming on the basis of common interests and take shape of communities, members of
which are solving issues that pose interest to them together. These communities are
self-contained in their content and multimedia functions and aren’t trying to broadcast
their views externally. This idea correlates to the theory of “true game” [15], where
game is perceived as self-contained positive process. Players enter the creativity-
strengthening state- “Flow”. According to the theory of Optimal Experience [7], the
game changes personality in positive way, broadens ability horizons, gives energy 0f
explorer. These attributes are inherent in close community games (for example, Role
Play), where the new players join a “magical circle” only after the initiation ritual.
“Blue Whale” predecessors were exactly situated within “We”-mode.
The second, individual “I”-mode is embodied in media portals, that portray traditional
mass media as means of influencing. Moreover, “I”-mode is implemented by individual
blogs and social network pages. The multimedia content in this case serves the interest
of translator, who, on his/her own, seeks to strengthen his/her extent of influence. This
corresponds with the theory of “manipulative game” [15]. The game is considered to be
a space of linear unidirectional impact. The players and spectators are under influence
of organizer(moderator) of the game, who has his own objectives outside. ARGs
primarily have manipulative nature, practice the motto “this is not a game” with
moderators of these games being called “puppeteers” on professional slang. Concept of
ARG is linked with narrative progression [3, 10], which in turn leads to formation of
large audience of followers and spectators. Blue Whale has been evolving and continues
to evolve as ARG within “F’-mode.
The hypothesis of research consists of idea that the game, originally based within “We-
Model” transits to “Me-Model” under the influence of changing of player types ratio.
With the help of transmedia storytelling they dramatize [5, 10] the original shared idea
and convert it in means of self-presentation, triggering moral panic.
METHODS
Research methodology is based on Gamification theory [5, 13, 14], which studies
gaming components in non-gaming processes. In order to recreate the motive power
behind the process of transformation from cryptic internet communities into depressive
ARGs, we decided to focus on comprehension of openly accessible set of empirical
evidence.
RESULTS
Games, which goals consisted of finding hidden meanings in the Internet, have existed
in Russian social networks long before the emergence of “Blue Whale”. In general, they
were associated with activity of netstalking followers- members of subculture that is
devoted to study of computer networking and meme designing. These groups,
particularly Synthetical Science, ISCOPAZI and Trailhead, were the precursors of the
game, that is known nowadays as “Blue Whale”.
Netstalkers were trying to find creepy artefacts in computer networks as well as
describe(picture) the laws and rules of virtual reality. They shaped their activity in game
form: interactive quests and ARG. As a result, part-real part-imaginary, the “Map of
Internet” was conceived. The biggest influence in creation of this map was provided by
 Section Media & Communications

Sci-Fi genre “Cyberpunk”, which describes future as “cyberspace”, where gadgets

merge with real world into the organic whole.
In 1998, a cult classic cyberpunk anime series “Serial Experiments Lain” about virtual
girl Lain Iwakura was released. In the story, Lain and her classmates receive e-mails
from their friend that committed suicide not so long ago. In these e-mails she writes,
that she is alive, not in physical world, but in virtual. Her suicide was a way to ascend a
new form of existence and she offers Lain to join her. While exploring virtual reality-
world, Lain finds out, that she gained supernatural powers, which couldn’t be possible
in real life. She meets the “God in the Wired”, who represents the Evil, and faces big
corporations. In the end, audience finds out that Lain is a program herself that “invaded”
the world of human in order to save them from the evil - “God in the Wired”.
Interesting fact: Originally, “Serial Experiments Lain” was supposed to be a computer
quest, where players were facing various challenges in the Tower. The game had 13
layers. Authors named the episodes “layers”, gave them eloquent titles as a homage to
the quest. For example, final 13th “layer” is called “Ego”. In 1999, year after the anime
series, another prominent cyberpunk movie was released - “The Thirteenth Floor”,
which plot is aligned with “Serial experiments Lain” as well as Strugatsky brothers’
“The Doomed City” and Steven King’s series “The Dark Tower”. Protagonist of the
“The Dark Tower” also experiences the loss, goes through level-cycles (real and virtual)
to save the world, and finds himself along the quest. In 2010, basing on these stories,
Synthetical Science creates the meme “Silent House”, which was known only by couple
of thousands interested users.
The world of Deep Web, suggested by the founders, had a base structure similar to
Dante Alighieri’s Inferno and looked like a funnel of several levels. Furthermore,
netstalkers, fully justifying their name, tried to give this creepy quest traits of
unreachable Room in middle of the Zone, making parallels to the events of Strugatsky
Brothers’ “Roadside Picnic” and its’ famous adaptation “Stalker” (by Tarkovsky). It
should be noted, that because of the movie, the word “Stalker” taken by Strugatsky
Brothers from English language doesn’t have negative connotation in Russian language.
Instead, it is used in its original meaning: person, who pursues and explorers abandoned
places [6]. Similar to the Zone, Deep Web is a world, where all the main events take
place. Following “stalker” (game administrator), player needs to reach hidden place,
where the “Silent House”- a mysterious Room, is located. Like a Strugatsky Brothers
Zone, altemate-reality Internet has its’ own character and “actively takes part” in events.
Resembling the Zone of Tarkovsky, Internet is a big “junkyard” of old and disused files,
artefacts, pictures, “secret documents” and etc. People fail to understand their purpose
and it is up to players to figure it out.
Many of Intemet-dump artefacts contain shock-content: scenes of strong violence,
brutality, murder, suicides in all naked truthiness. The player base, which consisted of
teenagers and youth from 12 to 19 years, was really interested in such material due to
age. For the sake of posting such materials the first “groups of death”, particularly
“F57”, have appeared. These public communities had mechanism of geographic riddles
(player had to search for answer on “Internet Map”), which, supposedly, was adopted
from another gaming legend - Cicada 3301(2012). According to it, a mysterious
organization was in search for geniuses and offered volunteers to solve various
challenging cryptographic assignments: to find an encryption in the file, decipher it with

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the aligned text to get a link to an image (in TOR, as the game usually was played in
Deep Web). Player, who succeeded in solving all the riddles, received a secret map with
the location of the new assignments. The same idea was used by organizers of “groups
of death”. Authors of special research RANEPA pointed out, “Situation, described
above is reminiscent of typical ARGs mechanics, which are based on the fact, that the
player doesn’t fully understand, if he’s playing or doing a real investigation. Issuance of
weird assignments, mentioned by many journalists (including viewing videos at
abnormal time), is also an example of ARG popularity” [4].
Initial stage of narrative was marked by creation of virtual universe, where users, while
putting on gaming persona, could move and solve tasks given by administrators. Main
goal of the game was the exploration of this universe and search for “Silent House”. We
can build assumptions about story creation stage only through memories of certain
players, since the access to information about “groups of death” is currently blocked.
The term “Silent House” in the meaning of the place, dangerous for lives and human
mind was actively used by “f57” community in 2015. After the suicide of Renata
Kambolina (Rina Palenkova) in November 2015, a rapid change of the image of these
groups took place in public discourse. The death of teenager wasn’t left unnoticed in the
modem information space, that was significantly changed by social media [2]. Rina was
17 years old teenager, studying in college in small town of Primorsky Krai (Maritime
Province). Palenkova posted the photo of railway tracks on her social network page
right before her death. Attached hashtag “#няпока!” (‘#nyabye!') quickly spread in
Russian internet and became a meme. The photo itself gained popularity among other
users and received 400 thousand “likes” after law enforcement officer had posted the
photos from the suicide scene [4]. The society became interested with details of her life
only after the girl’s death. Information about Rina’s connection to the shock-content
communities, that deciphered cryptograms, appeared. “F57”, where people tried to find
a way to “Silent House”, was one of those communities.
During this stage, news story has grown into “plot” and starts to be built according to
the laws of dramaturgic genres [3, 5, 10]. Let’s call this stage “period of socialization”.
The mystery of “Silent House” rises to the “surface” of the Internet, which leads to an
extra user activity and appearance of new actors. The story of Rina and “groups of
death” expands as well. New characters are being added to the game. Administrators of
“groups of death” decided to use the growing interest to their pages to raise the number
of subscribers, gain fame and profits. Filipp Lis (Filipp Budeikin, creator of “f57) joined
by Sea of Whales (Philipp Chelov, creator of a VK-group under his nakename “Sea of
Whales”) comes to the foreground. Together, they act as “soul catchers”, taking
responsibility for making decisions, who is to stay in the game and who should leave,
wearing the mantle of “antiheroes” that are distinctive for the most of dramaturgic
genres.
Rina’s story became the new plot twist along with the new myths, one of which is
people, while searching for “Silent House”, find a deadly video, that affects human’s
mind. Revealed truth gives the strong Epiphany while bringing weak to suicide. While
growing in popularity, Filipp Fox and Sea of Whales come up with an idea of flash mob
which would shoot off on 8th of December,2015. It was decided that players would post
suicide notes on the social network pages and wouldn’t appear ohline for a certain time.
Virtual death of a character isn’t uncommon: it is really popular on dating websites.

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Administrators also tried to advertise flash mob outside the social network “Vkontakte”,
but after a discussion happened one of local imageboards, they refused from doing so.
Imageboard users explained, that such act could be classified as a violation of Criminal
Code of Russian Federation. The flash mob was held at planned date, but a conflict
between administrators had arisen and led to cease of cooperation. As they had same
names, Filipp Fox gained publicity as creator of “whale groups” and later on tried to
impersonate Sea of Whales.
Eventually, Philipp Chelov (real Sea of Whales) stepped away from suicide theme in his
communities, whereas Filipp “Fox” Budeikin, in accordance to his chosen role,
continued the “game». In interview with journalist of digital publication “Saint-
Petersburg.ru” Mikhail Grachev, that took place right before the arrest, on 16.11.2016,
Budeikin stated: “I truly was doing that... They were dying happy. I was giving them
what they didn't have in real life: warmth, understanding, connections. There are people
- and there is biological waste. Those who do not represent any value for society. Who
cause or will cause only harm to society. I was cleaning our society of such people. It
started in 2013 when I created “F57” community. I made it in order to see what will
happen. Uploaded some shock-content, which made people interested. In 2014,
administration of VK banned it. I laughed really hard, watching people trying to figure
out what does “F57” mean. It is simple. F as in Filipp, my name. 57 were the last digits
of my phone number.
I’d been thinking through this idea for 5 years. It was necessary to distinguish normal
(people) from biological rubbish” [8].
There is no information about the amount of people who participated in flash mob
8.12.2015 as well as were there any suicides as a result of it. (In the same interview
Philipp Fox mentioned, that under his influence 17 people have committed suicide. In
commentary, author includes data from The Investigative Committee of the Russian
Federation: 15 victims are underage, who followed “groups of death” and committed
suicide in different constituent territories of the Russia [8]. Author of “Novaya Gazeta”
investigation insists on 130 people dead [11].) Parents of victims also did investigation
on their own. They were the ones who connected 3 fully established legends: quests for
hidden meaning, shock content online communities and their continuation - “Groups of
Death”. It is impossible to prove connection between teenage suicides and crypto
communities’ activity in the Internet. However, society mind, which is accustomed to
simplified version of dramaturgy laws, came up with a simple explanation of the events:
there are “suicide clubs”, which were created with only one goal: to separate the smart
children from others and bring them to suicide. Exactly these ideas existed in article of
Galina Mursalieva. With the release of the article, the period of socialization has ended
and narrative has finally been formed.
Now, the story around “Silent House” went into wide-range discourse in a very
simplified form, where it was misinterpreted by the parents, who neither were able to
think objectively because of the circumstances or wanted to critically evaluate it.
Afterwards, “storyworld” and narrative itself transited from virtual space to mainstream
media, as a result of which, the number of participants had significantly increased.
General public with its own stereotypes of plot development laws also joined the
discussion. Public thought, while not being critical, started to build its own version of
storyline, by taking any suitable plot from mass culture as a basis.

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Enlarged membership allowed narrative to expand in new spheres. On 20th of January

2017 Regional Organization “Center for Internet Technologies” (CIT) published the
report, where it noted a new spark of “groups of death” activity in social networks (with
VK communities being joined by Instagram pages) due to emergence of the new
“suicide game’ - “Blue Whale”. Therefore, narrative took a new direction of
development and started to build around ARG “Blue Whale’. The scandalous game was
a reason for broad discussion of danger that “uncontrollable Internet” poses for new
generation. The Mass Media mentions only some of the details about quest and its
participants- 50 challenges for players with last being a suicide commitment was one of
those details. The truth is that the first “groups of death” didn’t provide such extensive
list of tasks for players. The number 50 originates from Galina Mursalieva’s article,
where a book “50 days before my suicide” by S. Kramer was mentioned.
Eventually mass media version of events became canon and required further
development of “plot” and ending in line with literary traditions. Moreover, this is not
only about “identification of evil” but also about “just retribution”. This is an
emblematic example of how “folk tale” traditions depended on public demand. Another
good example is the story of European tale “Little Rod Riding Hood” adapted by
Charles Perrault and Grimm Brothers. Canonical version of Grimm vastly differs from
original story and C. Perrault’s version with its moralistic subtext.
It appears that in this story, where the main character is an anti-hero, the society
subconsciously waits for “hero saviours” that will punish the culprit and “save the
world”. In this narrative, the powers that “oppose the evil” are represented by the main
supervisory authority of telecommunications, information technology and mass
communications in Russia - Roskomnadzor and legislature of Russian Federation.
According to the Deputy Head of Roskomnadzor Valery Subbotin “Since the beginning
of 2017, there have been found around 4 thousand pages and communities, that contain
information about suicide methods and call to end your life”. (RIA Novosti;
2017/03/09). As a result, the government has submitted to Parliament a number of
prohibitions and restrictive initiatives.
Currently, “Blue Whales” are reaching new level, increasingly becoming a subject of
laughter, parody and “trolling”. Laughter has always been a weapon against individual
and social fears. In this particular case, it also helped the recession of moral panic, that
emerged in Russian society in February 2017.
CONCLUSION
As a result of reconstructing game history done by studying the collected empirical
evidence on “Blue Whale” and diverse typology of gamers [1,5, 13], we have outlined
the following final hypothesizes.

1. The narrative and world of “Blue Whale’ progresses under influence of gamers
evolution.
2. Development vector depends on dominant type of players. There are four
recorded psychological types that transformed the storyworld of Blue Whale:
• Creators: Fans of the game that are expanding the Universe. They create
artefacts (real and virtual testaments), which become source of world
knowledge. Two generations of creators have been found - Developers
and Persuaders. Former built the game and its world (ethos and topos)

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in accordance to cyberpunk movement and cyberstalking subculture.

The latter connected with virtual world, transforming it.
• Actionists: people, who actively acted in created world. They seek out
for experiences and want to become part of the history. Through their
actions, they helped the world to grow, foremost its main knowledge,
important for successful interaction and interpretation of events
happened. After the death of Rina Palenkova ethos (rules and moral
codex of in-game characters) was changed.
• Socializers: Communicators, that waste most of the time on socializing.
Usually, they do not interact with storyworld. However, they are the
ones responsible for introducing “another perspective” to the game. On
the one hand, they contributed to popularization of the story, but on the
other, to its’ simplification (transition to well-known scenarios and
delivery of sombemess, fear and thrill). An outside perspective
provided by imageboard users and professional press (“Novaya
Gazeta”) has reformatted the story of sophisticated, multidimensional,
deep world, depicted in “Map of Internet” into almost real, familiar
from many Hollywood movies, mundane and depressive “Map of
Suicide” of Galina Mursalieva. It is important, that it is socializers who
form so-called “collective memory”, that lies in core of Mursalieva’s
world view version canonization.
• Theorists: act as chroniclers, collecting lore knowledge and stories. They
interact with the World indirectly, through the artifacts of criticism and
commentaries. In other words, this is a group of experts, which assesses
different versions of story, and legates them as canon or fanon
(unofficial canon, which is popular within fan circles). Thanks to them,
Mursalieva’s version of “groups of death”, responsible for the suicide
of over than 130 teenagers in Russia, grew into the story about
dangerous leading-to-death game with new rules (50 challenges, in
particular) named “Blue Whale”.
3. There are 4 stages of “Blue Whale” evolution process:
• First stage (creation): fans create the world, which story was circulating
between several groups in “Vkontakte” social network.
• Second stage (reformation): Socializers domination period. They take
mythology and game stories outside the VK. Along with group maturing,
the mythology integrates the real world.
• Third stage (canonization): happened under the flag of Theorists, who
finally established canonical narrative of “Blue Whale”
• Fourth stage (expansion): Theorists are crowded out by the creatives.
Alternative versions of “Blue Whale” are being developed (“Hunt the
Curator”, “Dolphins vs Whales” and etc.). None of these games are as
popular as original was most likely due to them not having enough
Theorists and Socializers. However, tendency of socializers’ numbers
growing is clear: The “Blue Whale” has spread beyond Russian internet
communities.
4. Timeline, that visualizes four periods of “Blue Whale” development, has been
created (with F57 being a starting point).

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