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. Thematic analysis was used to determine themes in BWC victim antecedents, behaviors, and consequences. 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. 7 Cases were selected from Chinese media reports by online searching. Recently, reports emerged of possible BWC cases in China. 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. Therefore, it would be advisable to address the help and preventive measures for users of social media. At the same time, there was alarming suicidal content at Twitter. There is no clear link between the popularity of BWCh and the increased suicidal behavior on national level. However, the overall annual statistics for 2017 did not differ from the long-term trends. There was a slight increase in suicidal behavior during April-May of 2017 in the 19-24 age group, compared to 2018-2019. 240 clinically-significant tweets were identified, 65.7% of which contained thoughts of suicide, 11.7% as plans to commit suicide and 1.3% as encourage to suicide.
Internet interest in BWCh was limited to March 2017. Data on suicides and suicide attempts were obtained from The National Police Headquarters. Each tweet was reviewed to identify suicidally significant content. Analysis of Twitter content containing the word "suicide" was carried out. Media reports on BWCh were analyzed using Google News. The Google Trends tool was used to estimate the timeframe of Internet users' interest. The aim of the study was to analyze the scale of BWCh interest and the suicidal content in polish Twitter and suicidal statistics. The actual link between this internet phenomenon and the suicide remains doubtful. The Blue Whale Challenge (BWCh) was a widely reported media hoax in 2017, presented as a online game that encouraged teenagers to commit suicide.
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