Family says teen killed himself in online challenge
Fifteen-year-old Isaiah Gonzalez was a soon-to-be sophomore who just joined the ROTC program at his high school. But on July 8, Gonzalez’ father Jorge stepped into his son’s bedroom in their San Antonio home. Isiah was dead, hanging from the closet, an apparent suicide. Next to his body was a cell phone propped up on a shoe, broadcasting the suicide, according to KSAT.
If the teenager’s sudden suicide wasn’t tragic enough, the Gonzalez family quickly learned Isaiah’s end was possibly tied to macabre online spectacle known as the Blue Whale Challenge.
Essentially a dangerous personal obstacle course of 50 daily tasks that include everything from watching horror films to self-multilation, the game is rumored to be behind unexpected deaths across the globe. But because the challenge plays out on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the reality is hard to prove. In fact, due to the extreme premise alone, some say it’s just an Internet hoax invented to frighten parents and other adults.
Isaiah Gonzalez’s family says their son was definitely involved in Blue Whale and was sending friends pictures of the completed tasks. “It talks about satanic stuff and stuff like that and my son was never into that,” Jorge told WOAI. “They blew it off like it was a joke, and if one of them would have said something, one of them would have called us, he would have been alive,” his sister Scarlett Cantu-Gonzales said.
Isaiah’s story is not unique. CNN reported on Monday that a 16-year-old unidentified girl in Atlanta is believed to have recently taken her life while participating in the challenge. If true, the two cases appear to be the first deaths in U.S. linked to the Internet fad.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 24, according to the American Psychological Association. While media portrayals of teen suicides often link them with some specific event or provocation, the APA notes that a combination of circumstances and risk factors are generally associated with suicides, among them mental disorders and substance abuse that make teens less able to cope with the stresses of adolescence.
That said, the game has reportedly popped up all around the globe, from Eastern Europe to Brazil.