What Is MOMO And Why Everyone Is Afraid Of It?

What do we know about MOMO? The hype around it emerged in August 2018, when Argentinian 12-year old committed suicide. Police started investigation and soon after they checked her smartphone – they found a bunch of texting and call logs on WhatsApp from user MOMO with super scary photo of woman in profile. Further examination proved those were some messages with threats that could scare kid to death. MOMO also sent some creepy images to poor girl.

Soon this story took over the press and everyone wanted to know if there was any danger. Parents wonted to know if their kids could also fall under its influence.

Police didn’t plant to stop until they find out who that user was. And soon their identified MOMO as a virus. It could get to anyone’s smartphone. The virus was spreading from multiple servers, but the first activity was detected in Japan (who else could create an image like that). And it was nothing more than just a bot, who found place in contacts and started sending some random messages and pictures. All of them were of the creepiest nature and could guarantee nightmares. MOMO started different topic chats to users, but all of them had one similar feature: sooner or later MOMO demanded users to kill themselves, otherwise…

The virus easily detected users’ locations and even names. It sent some bloody images to their phones to disregarding of the fact if it was chatting with adults or kids. The virus is too mean to differentiate.

Police tried to analyze the image and it turned out, the woman on photo was not an actual person with photoshopped face, no. It was a sculpture of a Link Factory, which designs special effects, dolls and sculptures for Japanese movies. Mostly horror. The one we call MOMO was a project of it’s head – Keisuke Aiso. And we bet he is satisfied with the result.

MOMO is a woman with chicken feet instead of hands or legs. The original image, which created a Creepypasta and urban legend based around being cursed if one contacts Momo was made right there and the master posing alongside with his creation has been cut off later.

The grotesque work of art is based off of the tale of the Japanese yokai (apparition) Ubume, the spirit of a woman who haunts the area in which she gave birth and offers those who pass by with her baby, which gradually turns into a heavy stone that crushes them to death. Because of the different characters used to write the name, she is sometimes linked to another spirit – the ubumetori, or “child snatching bird”.

But teens all over the world don’t really care of Japanese myths and legends. They are trying to hype on the so-called MOMO challenge. Kids rush to look for the number of this creepy user all over the world wide web and then they call and text MOMO just to prove they are not afraid. YouTube is stuffed with it.

As you can see, there is nothing super scary about MOMO and it hardly can be deadly for anyone. The only thing that can cause a wall of bricks in your pants is that photo of antagonistic sculpture.