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The blue whale challenge from urban legend to real harm: Case study analyses of Chinese suicide attempters

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Abstract

Since 2015, there have been numerous reports, mostly unsubstantiated, of teen suicides associated with an online contest – the Blue Whale Challenge (BWC) in Russia, Europe and India. Recently, reports emerged of possible BWC cases in China. 7 Cases were selected from Chinese media reports by online searching. Multiple sources of information (e.g., published reports, social media entries) were searched and examined for detailed information about cases, to collect information on pre-game situations, game activities, and post-game conditions. Thematic analysis was used to determine themes in BWC victim antecedents, behaviors, and consequences. Two of seven cases were female. Ages ranged 11-19 years (M = 15.57, SD = 2.94). Thematic analysis of the seven Chinese cases revealed a predisposition phase (low mood, interpersonal problems, poor school performance) followed by a five-stage process of BWC involvement: 1) contact with a death-oriented game (BWC); 2) acceptance of the game’s rules and the escalating challenges; 3) BWC incidents conclusion – a suicide attempt/completion; 4) discovery by others and/or game rejection, followed by 5) personal recovery. Analyses revealed interventions are required at each victim stage, and the necessity for increased online efforts. As most adolescent cases showed school problems (e.g., poor school performance, absenteeism), we recommend increased efforts at primary to tertiary schools to assess for and address personal difficulties of students demonstrating poor school performance. Results call for a new wave of revised suicide prevention methods led by digital natives but in collaboration with government, media and communities to address unique contemporary risks.

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Data Availability

All the data are public available on the Internet via the search strategy indicated in the method section. Original data is in Chinese, and could be provided upon request.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Di Zhu, Weihong Dou, Junjie Luo for their work of news collection.

Funding

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 7210041729), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University (No. 2019CDJSK07XK02) and Chongqing Talent Plan Project (No.cstc2021ycjh-bgzxm0194).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Political Science and Public Administration, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    ChengYan Zhu

  2. School of Psychology, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, NSW, 2640, Australia

    Keith Harris

  3. School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072, Australia

    Keith Harris

  4. School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, China

    Wei Zhang

  5. Center for Sociological and Internet Research, Saint-Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia

    Ksenia Tsyganova

  6. Center for Intelligent Media and Computational Communication, School of Journalism and Communication, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 401331, China

    Menghan Li & Runxi Zeng

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  1. ChengYan Zhu
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  3. Wei Zhang
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  4. Ksenia Tsyganova
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Correspondence to Runxi Zeng.

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The study was reviewed and approved by the Academic Committee of School of Journalism and Communication at Chongqing University (It acts as an ethics committee). According to the committee’s review report, the object of this study is online reports, and the full text analysis and citation do not involve specific names and locations, which can effectively protect the privacy of participants and does not need Informed Consent.

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Zhu, C., Harris, K., Zhang, W. et al. The blue whale challenge from urban legend to real harm: Case study analyses of Chinese suicide attempters. Curr Psychol 42, 15295–15306 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02793-w

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