Thursday Rave and Rants: #EP5 “Charlie in Imbaba” or “Insidious: Imbaba school

Here is the latest episode of my Podcast in Arabic “Thursday rave and rants” and yet I publish it on Friday instead of Thursday.

I am sorry for the delay, but I think that if you follow this blog, you will know that I was not idle.

Between work, covering COP27 then procrastination then World Cup 2022, I could not find time to record episodes on time.

I was not idle also when it comes to completing the story of that Egypt’s Upper-Class girl called Safsaf that turned out to be the country’s most famous spiritual healer in the 20th century and the wife of the red Djinn king according to YouTubers in the 21st century.

Ms Safsaf took me down the rabbit hole for real transferring me to the uncharted world of Egypt’s Western spirituality that still thrives to this day and moment.

I planned initially two episodes but after research I found a huge subculture that needs to be brought to light, at least to stop the myth from spreading. The names I met in that research from presidents “you read it right”, artists and highly esteemed academics were a surprise to me, and they will be a surprise to you when you hear and read that story.

Anyhow here is tonight’s episode and it is about what happened last Thursday in an Imbaba school when a group of girls decided to play a Tiktok challenge called “Charlie”.

Here is the episode

Now here is what I ranted about it on Thursday.

Simply on 8^th December, we found news claiming that a group of girls played a “Charlie, Charlie” challenge in the bathroom of some Imbaba district’s school and allegedly one girl died while other girls had a nervous breakdown.

Officially according to the Ministry of Education’s spokesperson Shady Zalt, no one passed away but at the same time, he urged the parents to check what their kids have on their mobile phones because there are some electronic games that impact their health and mentality and thus their performance in school.

The Education Ministry also issued directives to its directorates to raise the awareness of schools and students about the harms of e-games on mobile phones.

On 9^th December, a warning message went viral on social media whether on Facebook or WhatsApp especially on the famous or infamous “it depends on you” mommies' groups. I failed to know its origin, but I think based on the language used, it was written by a concerned father.

The message alleges that on 8 December a group of 4 girls or even more gathered in the school’s bathroom to play the “Charlie” game, which is an American game that wanted to try and one of the girls read from some paper strange world and suddenly she was possessed by some entity. The alleged possessed girl’s eyes as her skin suddenly blackened and then she walked on the wall!!

Another girl’s heart stopped when she saw that scene while another jumped from the fourth floor “was the bathroom on the fourth floor ??” the fourth girl started to injure herself. The possessed girl tried to choke the school manager “how he suddenly appeared” and he escaped and hid in his office.

The teachers and administrators locked up the girls before the parents came and opened the school’s gate.

The ambulance and the police came.

That was the viral message which I saw on Facebook, and it attracted hot comments from people claiming to have sisters and friends in that school and confirmed what happened. That’s why I thought it was a high school because that’s the normal age for girls to have group hysteria in nutshell thanks to the hormonal changes, social and academic pressures.

But interestingly I found out that that school is a private preparatory or lower secondary school in the heart of famous Imbaba and the girls were in the first grade of the Preparatory stage. We are speaking here technically about 11-12 years old children technically so I was amazed that at this age they would suffer from group hysteria.

On 10 December I found a video on Tiktok shot reportedly on Thursday outside that school which is called “Future school” where concerned parents stood outside the gate surrounding an ambulance.

إغماءات وانهيارات للطالبات بمدرسة #إمبابة بسبب #لعبة_تشارلي#مزيد pic.twitter.com/45PMKuFD7I

— مزيد - Mazid (@MazidNews) December 10, 2022

On the same day, Al-Ain Emirati Newspaper published somehow a detailed report about the incident “Al-Ain” got an active Egyptian reporters team. According to the newspaper which contacted an anonymous informed security source, two girls were indeed transferred to a hospital to be treated for a blackout as they were playing the “blackout Charlie challenge”.

Actually, the blackout challenge is different from the Charlie challenge and more dangerous as it still kills kids from around the globe children think it is cool to film themselves on Tiktok while keeping their breath till they are blacked out and then awakened by their friends !!”

Al-Ain added that on 9 December one of the students’ parents spoke on Al-Nahar TV channel's show claiming that his daughter was in that bathroom when she saw a girl flying in the air !!

Another parent claimed that he was among the parents that entered the school to see a girl drawing a swastika on her hand and then took a pin and injured herself !!

It seems to me that parents joined their girls’ mass hysteria.

It is a mass hysteria as the book says.

“Charlie, Charlie” challenge is just as fake as the Ouija board but considering the fact that many segments of Egyptian society believe in superstition and in Djinn, that possessed-walking girl trying to kill a man twice her size can find some believers, unfortunately.

Now I did not investigate in a professional way as I should as a journalist but personally, I think we are in front of classical mass hysteria caused either a group of girls who played a mix of two stupid Tiktok challenges or those girls who did very bad in the monthly exams and decided to get away from it. Yes, 8th December was the day of their monthly exam.

Now that incident of those young girls reminded me of an incident that happened in March 1995 right after the horrifying terrorist attack on Tokyo’s metro stations.

The Tokyo metro stations siren gas attacks by the radical cult movement Aum Shinrikyo captured the attention of the world. It was highlighted in the Egyptian media to show the public that even Japan had terrorist attacks.

During then, Egypt had its own terrorism problem with terrorism attacks every now and then so the mainstream media thought it was important to remind the public that shit happens everywhere even in Japan.

In the same month of the Tokyo attack, we found out that a group of students in an all-girls secondary school in Giza governorate claimed that they were subjected to some gas that made them faint and some eye-witness outside the school claimed that an Asian-looking man was outside carrying bag !!

You are damn right !! They claim that Aum Shinrikyo attacked their class in that Giza school after the Tokyo metro stations and you bet that some people believed that crap.

I mean why a Japanese death cult would target a class in an all-girls high school girls!!

Another classical example of mass hysteria. 

This is what I ranted about in Arabic.

Here is the RSS of the Podcast which I hope you follow if you speak Arabic.

Here is the podcast's URL on Spotify and Apple Podcast. It is also available on Stitcher, Google Podcasts and  Anghami.

I want to thank all those amazing listeners who are kind enough to listen to my rants in Arabic and the amazing readers who are kind enough to read those very long posts in English.

Thanks for your time.