![]() In response to such claims, YouTube issued a statement last week saying, “We’ve seen no recent evidence of videos promoting the Momo Challenge on YouTube.” While there is no evidence that the “Momo Challenge” exists, parents have reported that the figure has been spliced into kid-friendly content on YouTube, including a video of Peppa Pig, issuing a rejoinder to children to harm themselves.Īlthough a clip has been circulating on social media featuring a sing-song voice singing, “Momo is going to kill you” over an image of Aiso’s sculpture, Rolling Stone could not track down an original source for the clip, and requests to the original poster to supply the link went unreturned. He also issued a message reassuring children who had been spooked by rumors of the “challenge”: “The children can be reassured Momo is dead - she doesn’t exist and the curse is gone.”Īs The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz has reported, rumors of the Momo Challenge first gained traction in the Spanish-speaking world last year, after tabloids started publishing reports that young people had taken their own lives after being encouraged to do so by a ghoulish figure named “Momo.” (These reports are unconfirmed, and none of these deaths have ever been definitively linked to the “challenge.”) “It doesn’t exist anymore, it was never meant to last,” he said (he does, however, have a rubber mask replica of Momo that his friend made for him). I feel like I am in trouble but it’s all out of my hands.”įortunately, Aiso says he threw the rubber sculpture last year after it succumbed to the natural process of degradation. People do not know if it is true or not, but apparently the children have been affected and I do feel a little responsible for it. “But the way that it has been used now is very unfortunate. “When Momo first appeared, it was good in a way that it had received some attention. So he was shocked when he started seeing reports linking his artwork to a WhatsApp “challenge” that encouraged children to harm themselves. ![]() Via The Sun, Aiso revealed that the sculpture (which is inspired by the Japanese folk figure the ubume, or bird woman), it didn’t get much attention when he first exhibited it at Toyko’s Vanilla Gallery. And fortunately for parents (and the rest of humanity at large, I guess), Aiso has finally weighed in on the panic his artwork has inadvertently inspired, revealing i n a video interview that the sculpture was destroyed after it was subject to degradation.Ī post shared by j_s_rock on at 7:13am PDT The image of “Momo” is actually based on a sculpture by Japanese artist Keisuke Aiso, who initially exhibited it in 2016 at a Tokyo art show. That doesn’t mean, however, that the grinning, wraith-like image that inspired Momo came out of a vacuum. As Rolling Stone reported last week, the Momo Challenge is just the latest of a string of creepypasta-inspired internet urban legends that have gained traction due to parental fears about technology, from Slender Man to the more recent Blue Whale Challenge. There’s just one problem with the Momo Challenge: it’s not a real thing. Hell, even Kim Kardashian West posted on Instagram about it. Schools have sent emails to students about it. ![]() Sheriff departments have issued Facebook posts warning parents about it. The Momo Challenge, an alleged social media-based challenge featuring a bird-like wraith encouraging children to harm themselves, has sparked an internet-based moral panic.
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