When I was in my second year of university, I made the mistake of watching The Ring. I’d watched plenty of horror movies before and wasn’t bothered — well, except for that one traumatizing viewing of Candyman when I was eight.
I can’t say what it was about The Ring. Maybe Samara’s twisted, pale face and dark, wet hair kind of reminded me of myself when I get out of the shower, but that movie scared the crap out of me for years.
So, I guess it’s no surprise that when a certain pale, dark-haired, scary-faced girl started popping up in our social media feeds — the dreaded Momo — I was spooked every time. I’d literally shudder and hide the post.
If you managed not to hear about the Momo Challenge, it was supposedly a series of videos encouraging kids to hurt themselves and the videos were said to be slipped into popular YouTube videos kids were already watching, like Peppa Pig and Minecraft.