Who really is Jonathan Galindo?

Like the phenomenon Blue whale but with a reinterpretation of Momo in the effigy of a disturbing character created a few years ago: Jonathan Galindo It is the new social phenomenon that would cause acts of self-harm among the youngest web users.

Who really is Jonathan Galindo?

To understand the phenomenon, which after having “appeared” in the Italian newspapers in July between Ancona and the province, he returned to debate after the death of a 10-year-old boy in Naples we have to go back a couple of steps. Three months ago the Postal Police had released a series of tips to avoid being the victim of a certain “Jonathan Galindo”, who asked children and adolescents for friendship on Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok, sending a private message and asking if they “want to play”. In reality, whoever hides behind the account would drag their victims into a series of “challenges” that would go as far as self-harm and suicide.

The profiles used would be recognizable by the photo, the haunting image of a “human Goofy” that actually seems to have been created several years ago: Gianmarco Zagato discovered that the first to upload the photo to the web was a cinematographic special effects producer, such Samuel Catnipnik in 2010 he had made this particular mask. In 2012-2013 the same mask appears in some sexually explicit videos of an American artist and videographer who identifies himself on social media as Dusky Sam, Sammy Catnipnik or Samuel Canini.

Hi everyone. This Jonathan Galindo madness seems to terrify a great number of impressionable young people. Photos and videos are mine from 2012-2013. So they were for my own weird amusement, not for a modern thrill seeker looking to scare and intimidate people.

– Dark Sam (@DuskySamCat) July 3, 2020

Returning to the archives of the web, it can be seen how since 2017 the images of the “Human Goofy” have been transformed into those of Jonathan Galindo but the renewed interest is due to his success in Tik Tok from a user registered in Fall 2019 as jonathangalindo54. Since then, accounts with similar names have multiplied. Success goes global when a Mexican influencer named Carlos Name, and about 1,700,000 followers on Instagram, relaunches the story of the “Human Goofy”, recounting having seen him lurking outside his house at night.

Thus Jonathan Galindo of the web “meme” becomes an urban legend: a disturbed individual with a mask that covers a physical deformity, who would send a message to Galindo would receive in return disturbing, terrifying videos, and in some cases even a photo of their own house. Shot from the outside endorsing the skills of a stalker capable of discovering the IP code of users.

The same goes for the analogous blue whale phenomenon: the advice is always not to give your personal data to a stranger who contacts us on the Internet.

Jonathan Galindo a deadly game

But how is this web phenomenon related to the death of a child in Naples? Were you the victim of a deadly challenge like the one we talked about a year ago with the blue whale?

What led researchers to back this hypothesis is the last message the boy wrote to his mother, apologizing and talking about having to follow the black in the hood.

“Mom, Dad I love you but I have to follow the man in the hood”

Investigators do not rule out that he may have been the victim of a game that takes place entirely online, which includes acts of self-harm up to suicide. According to what has emerged so far, it seems that the boy, who lives with his family in the Chiaia district of the city, was healthy and happy, played sports and was perfectly integrated. Massimo Polidoro, national secretary of Cicap (Italian Committee for the Control of Claims on Pseudoscience), affirms that this is a false news, and there is no evidence of the relationship between this specific game and the suicide instigation that it would have triggered in this and others. cases.

But, as we have seen, the case of the Neapolitan child may not be the only one. From the province of Ancona comes the story told to the Rest of the Pug who in July published the testimony of some mothers who had denounced the “game that is spread through the profiles of Instagram, Facebook but also Tik Tok”.

“Jonathan Galindo’s contact request arrives – a worried mother informs – and if you accept, a link will be sent to you via messaging that offers you to enter a game in which challenges and tests of courage are proposed until self-harm. In fact I know that there are those who have received even more requests for similar profiles, differentiated perhaps by a period or a dash between the words Jonathan and Galindo. My daughter told me that among the tests you have to engrave the initial letters of her name on the skin of the abdomen, but also the devil’s number 666. I was scared and luckily nothing was hidden from the parents. Unfortunately today children at 12, despite our resistance, parents already have their smartphones and various social profiles but are exposed to dangers of this type.

Also in this case, the parents reportedly turned to the police. In short, Galindo’s story may be born as a joke but it could end up putting the most fragile adolescents at risk. The advice is to block the user and for no reason try to contact him to protect himself from cybercrime.