Many people are talking about a challenge that has been going on since 2018 but recently started getting even more popular this february when it resurfaced. Supposedly, a frightening sculpture which is named Momo, pops up on adolescent’s screens on certain apps telling them to commit violent acts like murder or suicide.

This “challenge” first became a problem when police reported that a 12 year old girl in Argentina commited suicide. This has sadly not been the only incident caused by the Momo challenge that police reported.

Viviana Del Real, a freshman at Pitman High, said that she doesn’t know what this challenge is.

“I’ve heard of it and I see the picture of Instagram. The sculpture is very ugly and scary. I started seeing pictures and memes of her on my feed but I don’t know what it is specifically,” said Viviana.

Although Viviana has not heard of the challenge, another Pitman student, Avery Peterson, has. Avery agrees with Viviana that the picture of Momo is very scary. She also said that it has actually given her nightmares before.

“I have heard of this challenge. Well, I don’t think it’s really a challenge, but more of a make believe thing that hacks youtube videos that tells them to do bad things or else they will get hurt. I feel that it’s not real at all and people are just overreacting about it,” stated Avery.

Another person that feels the same with Avery is the freshman, Annahi Carbajal. Annahi has heard of this challenge just like Avery and knows what it is.

“Momo has never actually popped up on my screen but I’ve seen many pictures and my mom even talked to me and told me that I should not be believing that kind of stuff. I obviously didn’t believe it because i’m smarter than that. I think it’s kinda stupid because it influences kids to commit dangerous acts. It gets to certain kid’s heads and it scares them. I mean, especially if I was younger. It would definitely haunt me and i’d probably believe it. Since i’m older, I can make sense that it’s just one of those stupid things that go around,” said Annahi.

The sculpture was made by a Japanese artist named Keisuke Aiso. Something that a few people don’t know is that this piece of work is not actually named Momo. Aiso actually named this sculpture “Mother Bird”. He did make the sculpture to scare people but had no intention whatsoever of having it become something that would be used to make people harm themselves. Before it was used for the famous hoax that it is today, it was shown in 2006 at an art show in Tokyo.

Keisuke Aiso threw this sculpture away before it started roaming the internet. According to Aiso, the sculpture was much more terrifying in the new state it was in. It was rotting and falling apart because it not supposed to be a long-running piece of art.