Ten years ago, kids everywhere were told to watch who they chatted with online. Not to talk to strangers they didn’t know, and especially not to get into a car with a stranger. Today, chatting with strangers online is commonplace, and you can even use an app to call a car, driven by a stranger, to take you to meet a stranger you’ve been chatting with online. But what happens when that stranger, turns out to be so much worse than you expected?
Since late July 2018, a new stranger has appeared in the social media spotlight. Kids, not realizing just who, or what Momo was, were not afraid of speaking with her on the app, WhatsApp. And once they started, they could not stop. Momo would challenge the user to complete a series of challenges or tasks. If they refuse, they are threatened with violent images, or having their phone hacked. As time goes on, the challenges become more violent, dangerous, and ultimately end in suicide, just like the deadly Blue Whale Challenge.
The worst part, today’s youth find it exhilarating to participate in the “Momo Challenge,” thinking they’ll be the one to survive, to win.
Momo began as a joke among friends in Japan. In Tokyo, there is an art gallery, the Vanilla Gallery, that is dedicated to displaying the most peculiar and strange sculptures of independent artists in Japan. Momo started out as just another sculpture titled, Mother Bird by Link Factory; she has a half body of a woman, but with the legs of a bird. Her face is distorted, with large eyes, and a creepy smile; and she stands at just over 3 feet tall. Visitors to the museum have been known to pose with the art, and in this case, Momo. One of these pictures went viral on WhatsApp, and it took off from there.
Several WhatsApp users reported receiving the following message, “You can not allow Momo to write to you twice in a row, you will not have to be repetitive, you can only fail once, if you fail twice you will disappear from the planet without leaving trace,” with the photo of Momo.
Searching for an answer, users began spreading the message, sharing screenshots across various social media networks. Then, a Facebook group took the message and the number and “challenged” its members to communicate with Momo. It all went downhill from there; and there are now multiple numbers associated with Momo, in Japan, Mexico, and Columbia.
In Mexico, Momo has threatened to lay a curse on a person’s family if they do not respond, whether it be day or night. Police believe Momo is utilizing this “game” to not only encourage users to commit suicide or other violence, but also to steal personal information.
In late July, a 12 year old girl from Argentina, who’s identity remains protected, killed herself in the final challenge from Momo. Prior to taking her life by hanging herself from a tree in her family’s backyard, the girl had filmed all her activities on her phone. In late August, two more children from Columbia, aged 12 and 16, completed the final challenge from Momo within just 48 hours of each other, ending their lives.
Government officials are taking this challenge very seriously. Computer Crime Investigators from the Mexican State of Tabasco has asked young people to, “Avoid talking with strangers.”
Momo has become its own urban legend with stories about Momo popping up wherever you go. Redditor arlidem has said, “Apparently a boy chatted with Momo via whatsapp (with the real number from Japan) and ‘she’ answered in spanish. Momo sent messages refering to his little sister’s doll. How did she know about the sister? And here is where people started to presume Momo can obtain your personal information using your phone number and doxxing you. But here comes the creepy part and, to me, the most horrifying. Momo “apparently” sent several images of mutilated kids. I quoted apparently because all the images are blurred, so you can’t tell if they are real or not. So i started to search everywhere I could for chats with Momo, looking for gore images but I found nothing. I’m not thinking of chatting with Momo myself because I’m afraid of getting my personal information compromised. Personally I think the gore images part is fake. Otherwise, someone would have already leaked such images, succesfully obtained from Momo, making this go even more viral than now.”
Redditor jul10bcn wrote: “A student of mine did this yesterday and after receiving some gore images, insults and dead threats through WhatsApp she covered her face with her hand while holding her phone and she immediately received a message saying ‘stop covering your face with your hands.’ So this proves to me that they have installed spyware on her phone.”
We here, at The Scare Chamber, have acquired 4 separate numbers known to belong to Momo. Despite all efforts, we have yet to receive a response. Just who is behind the Momo Challenge? Will we ever know?
Looking for another story out of Japan? Check this one out.