Blue Whale and the Normalization of Suicide

Suicide attempts in Iran are on the rise, especially among young people and teenagers. Few deny the reality, but the root cause of this harm is being projected. Is it the fault of the blue whale or generational confusion and social and economic frustrations?

Five voluntary deaths in one day in southern Tehran, the self-immolation of two women in Ahvaz and Saqqez, and the simultaneous suicide of two female students in Isfahan. These examples occurred only in the last week of October 2017 and have made their way to the media: a handful of examples…

Those who have reached a dead end try everything from drinking battery juice, pesticides, Vitex, ant poison, rat poison, and rice pills to hanging from a rope, subway tracks, and falling from heights. Who knows what goes through their heads and what the reasons for their decisions are. There are no official statistics on the number of suicides, nor are the motives and possible reasons listed anywhere.

There are no updated and verified statistics in this area because suicide in Iran is still kept secret for traditional and religious reasons. Many families declare their loved one's voluntary death as a result of sudden illness, improper medication, or an accident. Only in the last few years, and especially due to the prevalence of suicide in public, has this taboo been broken. The media and social networks also play a role in breaking the secrecy surrounding suicide news.

Now, the news of the simultaneous suicide of two Isfahan female students and their farewell voice message, rather than sparking an expert or popular debate about the reasons for the suicides, has become a field for confirming and denying the suicide model, the "Blue Whale" game.

The girls, aged 15 and 16, threw themselves off the bridge. One of them died and the other is in hospital with a broken body. Mehdi Masoum Beigi, the chief of Isfahan police, has explicitly stated that the two had recorded a voice message before free-falling off the bridge, saying that they were doing so because of the online game "Blue Whale".

The Isfahan Fata Prosecutor's Office and the Isfahan Fata Police, however, are emphasizing further follow-up and evidence; as if acknowledging the role of the "Blue Whale" casts a shadow on their authority and supervisory duties. Colonel Mostafa Mortazavi, the head of the Isfahan Fata Police, says that until a thorough investigation and sufficient documentation are obtained, it cannot be stated with certainty that the cause of the girls' suicide was the "Blue Whale" game.

At the same time, the Minister of Communications has called for greater parental control over how children use cyberspace. Mohammad Azari Jahromi says: “The government should promote tools for parents to monitor children’s use of cyberspace, as well as promote the correct use of this space by children and adolescents, and help produce content and services appropriate to these ages.”

The Minister of Communications had previously said in an Instagram post that the game had been removed from many software stores and that negotiations would be held to prevent the spread of violence through social media. Hossein Asadbeigi, head of the Social Emergency, had also warned against the publication of news and images related to the "Blue Whale".

But how can the "Blue Whale" capture people's souls to commit suicide?

Killer whale

The Blue Whale game, or challenge, created by 21-year-old Russian Philip Budkin in 2013, encourages teenagers to self-harm by completing 50 challenging levels. The game culminates in a suicide attempt at the 50th level, for which Philip Budkin was arrested and convicted. The Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reports that there are clues linking more than 130 suicides in Russia to Blue Whale in a six-month period.

Many who follow this game have tattooed or painted a "blue whale" on their hand or posted this image on their Instagram or profiles.

As young Europeans embrace the game, government officials in Britain and France have issued official warnings to families. In Spain, two girls, aged 15 and 16, died after jumping from a height onto a moving car.

Ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day (September 10), Facebook announced that it is working with its suicide prevention partners to collect phrases, hashtags and group names associated with online challenges that encourage self-harm. Facebook will remove such content from its social network.

Philip Bodkin said that his goal in creating this game was to encourage "useless" people to end their lives.

Suicide in the Mirror of Statistics

NAJA, FATA police, Isfahan prosecutor's office, Ministry of Communications and many media outlets are trying to block the "Blue Whale" influence and erase the issue rather than addressing the causes and factors of suicide. Isn't highlighting the disability in the suicides of Isfahan girls normalizing suicide and marginalizing the real issue?

Available statistics can shed some light on the issue.

The suicide rate in Iran is reported to be 3 to 5 per 100,000 people, and its age and geographical composition can be examined. In global statistics, the suicide rate of people over 70 is three times that of young people aged 15 to 24, but in Iran, this ratio is reversed: young people are 70% more likely to commit suicide than the elderly.

According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Statistical Center of Iran, 41,079 people attempted suicide between 1980 and 2012. Of these, 27,168 died, of whom 20,416 were men and 6,752 were women.

The same statistical yearbook states that the suicide rate in Ilam province is 71 per 100,000 people: sixteen times higher than the national rate.

But the Iranian Forensic Medicine Organization has announced the number of deaths in the same period as 38,691. The difference between the police and forensic medicine statistics is 11,523: a huge difference…

A void of trust and enthusiasm

Hassan Mousavichalak, the head of the Iranian Social Workers Association and the director general of the Performance Management Office of the country's Welfare Organization, said two years ago at the "Suicide and Public Opinion in Iranian Society" meeting: "The characteristics of our society in this regard are not promising. In our country, social satisfaction, vitality, and trust are low, and high levels of sadness and mental disorder in a society indicate that that society is not vibrant. In such circumstances, it is natural to have social complications, and suicide is one of these complications."

He reminded that no single factor can lead to suicide in individuals, but rather psychological issues, social connections, and the ability to resist and fight problems are among the most important: "We have become extremely distant from each other in terms of social connections, and the problem starts when people don't talk to each other."

This welfare official warned against social indifference and the lack of psychological support in this regard, saying that the media sometimes causes learning and attracts attention: "Some suicides are learned. In February 2013, in one region of the country, 45 suicides with rice pills occurred within a month, and the reason was that learning had occurred."

Generational crises

Sociologist Saeed Moeedfar also called the direct causes of suicide in Iran the "weakening of ties in society" and summarized the indirect causes as unemployment, inflation, economic and family problems, etc.

Moeedfar considers suicide in public places to be an individual's reaction to society and a form of protest against prevailing conditions. He also identifies the challenge to the institution of the family and the loss of strong traditional foundations as factors that are very effective in increasing suicides in Iran: "The Iranian family today is in crisis and is not as strong as it was in the past. Social institutions such as neighborhoods, kinship groups, or neighborhood relationships no longer come to the aid of the family, and past interactions have disappeared."

Most sociologists and psychologists consider the conflict between tradition and modernity, weakening of social bonds, identity breakdown, unemployment, and family problems as the main reasons for suicide attempts in the country.

A whale in a sea of ​​harm

In the spring of 2016, after news of a series of suicides was published in the media, Health Minister Hassan Hashemi Ghazizadeh convened an urgent meeting of policymakers and experts and called for an investigation into the root causes of the rising suicide rate in Iran.

He said in the meeting, among other things, "When talking about social dynamism, some people think it means holding concerts and the issue is moving in a political direction, but the number of depression cases in the country is high, and more than 12 percent of people suffer from depression and need treatment."

The "Jam Jam" newspaper writes on the sidelines of the suicide of two Isfahan girls and the discussion of online gaming: "It's not just the blue whale, but the harms, both small and large, have long broken the boundaries of adolescence and youth and have become a part of life, the harms that are mentioned in official education reports with these words: risky behaviors, delinquency, moral deviations, mental disorders, newly emerging harms and tendencies towards smoking, drug use, suicide, violence, etc...."

On the other hand, a user named Omid wrote on Twitter: "Our whole life is stage 50 of the Blue Whale. Every day we think about ending this damn life..."

Source: DW