*Damn. When will the craziness of this “New World” we’re living in subside? We’d like to believe we raised our kids to know better, after all, no one can make you do anything, right? But this latest trend is something we need to take notice of…and with a quickness!
On Monday, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention called the Blue Whale Challenge, the latest trend causing devastation to families via a weeks-long social-media challenge where strangers compel others to commit a series of 50 acts — a new and dangerous online game that they suggest parents NOT bring to the attention of their children unless a child already knows about it or has played.
This, they believe, will minimize the risk that the child will look for information on it.
But these scammers have studied long and hard. They know how to use language, and your child’s love of all things online, to lure them in. To this targeted audience these monsters make it appear as just one more game. Just something else for the gamer’s to do.
The “Blue Whale Challenge” begins innocuously at first, but later escalates to the self-mutilating stage until finally, the challenge is suicide.
I know, WTF? MY child wouldn’t do this!!!
You sure? Again, we’d like to believe that.
One Wichita Falls, Texas family certainly never thought their grown daughter, a mother to a 7-year-old, would fall victim to something like this.
Natasha Cadena’s death has been ruled a suicide after she fell victim to the Blue Whale Challenge.
On Wednesday, her mother, Sandy Cadena, said: ?Natasha was told to do hurtful things to herself,? as she showed her granddaughter, 7-year-old Bella, a collection of photos showcasing happier days with her mother. ?She would cut herself, around her neck, other places and then show this woman, take a video of the cuts.
?These people pay top dollar to watch someone kill themselves,? she said.
Per the demand, the suicide must be on video. Sandy said her daughter’s phone was found near her feet. She hanged herself after kicking a child?s chair out from under her. But Sandy, who says her daughter would NEVER intentionally do anything to separate her from Bella, believes her daughter was planning the video to be fake. But it didn’t end up that way.
The woman they speak of shows up on Natasha’s phone as “Loretta,” a relationship that appeared to start innocently online with someone she believes lives in France because Sandy recognized it as an “international number.”
Sandy says, as the friendship progressed, the calls turned to challenges and demands for money.
Then, she says, somehow “Loretta” got her phone number and called one day saying…
‘Hey, you might want to go check on your daughter. I think she just killed herself.’
Sandy didn’t believe it, but her daughter was not answering her calls so she went to her apartment. No answer at the door either.
USA Today reports…
Almost a week after Natasha Cadena killed herself, a teen in San Antonio reportedly answered the challenge with his own death.
?It talks about satanic stuff and stuff like that and my son was never into that,? Jorge Gonzalez, the teen?s father, told WOIA-TV, San Antonio. His son was discovered hanging in his closet with the phone propped up for videoing.
CNN reported that a Georgia 16-year-old, whose family asked for privacy, took her life in May.
Parents please, let’s be nosy and stop trying to be “cool parents.” Our children may not be as smart in such areas as we’d like to think.
#gitwokestaywoke
