Isolated incidents of coerced suicide are distressing to think about but with the growing popularity of social media sites it would seem there may be some people who want to play a deadly game. Sometime in 2013, rumors about a deadly suicide game began making their way across social media sites. VK, a Russian version of Facebook, seemed to be the source of the phenomenon, but like many creepy pastas, the game's true origins are muddy at best. What is well documented is the moral panic that began to spread through Russian tabloids about a game, known to teens as the Blue Whale Challenge, that some sources claimed had been responsible for a vast majority of the 130 suicides that occurred in Russia in 2016.

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