MOMO as I found it....
I know you think I’m crazy. Some times something sticks in your brain and you have to ‘research’ it. You have to. Other wise there is no stopping your brain. So I had some time today - not really but school was cancelled so my best laid plan of getting some pottery finished was pushed aside to be mom and that is cool because I love my child. Which is how this is all related....
MOMO has been bothering the heck out of me. And Espen. Becasue honestly he is not a typical child and he has questions. A lot of questions. It has been stuck in my brain. So I had to do some digging.... realistic digging.
That creepy picture is actually a piece of art. Now you can not judge it becasue ART is subjective and not everyone values things the same way. Created by a Japanese artist, sculpture was in a gallery as part of an exhibit. The artist is actually a special effects artist. Go figure... a sculpture created by an artist who is actually quite talented has made it’s way to main stream culture. Some of her work can be found here (don’t message me I’m not a part of the problem, she is an artist and this is some actual work... it is generally creepy).
Apparently last summer WhatsApp had some sort of prank to post a picture of something creepy, or full of gore... this sculpture made it there. And history so to speak was made of the creepy figure.
But what about that word MOMO??? If you do just a google search you get a totally different artist. A guy who’s psydonym is MOMO. He is a street artist (think graffiti) ~ his website is pretty cool and he actually became quite popular and wide spread.
The word also as my child has pointed out all day in his ramblings about DUCKY MOMO is pop culture at it’s finest. Ducky Momo is from PHINEAS and FERB. Espen can tell me all about Ducky Momo, sing the song and chat about the shows the darn duck is in. I imagine he will be at school the rest of the week
SO all of this really got my brain thinking.... fundamentally there is nothing sinister about any of it. And artistically this artist is mainstream at the moment. Just like Banksy was a few months ago... if you need to know who that is you do the work... but really Banksy is one of my favorite artist/pranksters of ALL TIME.
The part that becomes so terrifying is how the image and information is currently being utilized. And who by. But that is not my point at this moment... move on.
My brain needed to think about this all day. And I needed to provide my curious child with information that he can handle. And I needed to not panic any more. So I showed Espen the picture of the sculpture. I explained it is art to someone who created it. We looked at other ‘creepy’ art and talked about special effects artists and what they do... he can relate to creepy art through movie magic. So he has now seen the creepy MOMO picture. I showed him. He is 100% sure he has never seen it on any video he watched.
We talked about pranks. Good ones like light hearted jokes that don’t harm anyone and mean ones that cause hurt feelings or actual physical harm. He understands pranks, he plays them on me all the time. We talked about how these pranks are getting young people his age and older into trouble. Pranks should not get people in trouble he thinks and I agree.
We talked about stories. Ghost stories. Creepy stories. Tall tales. Yep, my child LOVES them. Goosebumps is one of his favorite book series, he has seen the tv shows and wanted to see the movie last summer but I was not in the mood. Isn’t Goosebumps creepy? Aren’t those old school ones ghastly? Don’t they leave you wishing you had not watched? We talked about audiences and how they have to be old enough to understand real and make believe. So we don’t want to tell scary tales to littles because they won’t understand it.
So now I think my brain is less curious. Espen’s may be too.
And so we continue to have the internet on lock down, we don’t play online videos, youtube is no longer allowed. We talked and educated oursleves. It is what we can do. I am not negating the seriousness of the information or the acts these crazed minds are encouraging our young to engage in. For my son and myself I needed facts, information and less panic. It is with information that we find strength.
I ended my online digging with Snopes. Just find out... get the information...
MOMO has been bothering the heck out of me. And Espen. Becasue honestly he is not a typical child and he has questions. A lot of questions. It has been stuck in my brain. So I had to do some digging.... realistic digging.
That creepy picture is actually a piece of art. Now you can not judge it becasue ART is subjective and not everyone values things the same way. Created by a Japanese artist, sculpture was in a gallery as part of an exhibit. The artist is actually a special effects artist. Go figure... a sculpture created by an artist who is actually quite talented has made it’s way to main stream culture. Some of her work can be found here (don’t message me I’m not a part of the problem, she is an artist and this is some actual work... it is generally creepy).
Apparently last summer WhatsApp had some sort of prank to post a picture of something creepy, or full of gore... this sculpture made it there. And history so to speak was made of the creepy figure.
But what about that word MOMO??? If you do just a google search you get a totally different artist. A guy who’s psydonym is MOMO. He is a street artist (think graffiti) ~ his website is pretty cool and he actually became quite popular and wide spread.
The word also as my child has pointed out all day in his ramblings about DUCKY MOMO is pop culture at it’s finest. Ducky Momo is from PHINEAS and FERB. Espen can tell me all about Ducky Momo, sing the song and chat about the shows the darn duck is in. I imagine he will be at school the rest of the week
SO all of this really got my brain thinking.... fundamentally there is nothing sinister about any of it. And artistically this artist is mainstream at the moment. Just like Banksy was a few months ago... if you need to know who that is you do the work... but really Banksy is one of my favorite artist/pranksters of ALL TIME.
The part that becomes so terrifying is how the image and information is currently being utilized. And who by. But that is not my point at this moment... move on.
My brain needed to think about this all day. And I needed to provide my curious child with information that he can handle. And I needed to not panic any more. So I showed Espen the picture of the sculpture. I explained it is art to someone who created it. We looked at other ‘creepy’ art and talked about special effects artists and what they do... he can relate to creepy art through movie magic. So he has now seen the creepy MOMO picture. I showed him. He is 100% sure he has never seen it on any video he watched.
We talked about pranks. Good ones like light hearted jokes that don’t harm anyone and mean ones that cause hurt feelings or actual physical harm. He understands pranks, he plays them on me all the time. We talked about how these pranks are getting young people his age and older into trouble. Pranks should not get people in trouble he thinks and I agree.
We talked about stories. Ghost stories. Creepy stories. Tall tales. Yep, my child LOVES them. Goosebumps is one of his favorite book series, he has seen the tv shows and wanted to see the movie last summer but I was not in the mood. Isn’t Goosebumps creepy? Aren’t those old school ones ghastly? Don’t they leave you wishing you had not watched? We talked about audiences and how they have to be old enough to understand real and make believe. So we don’t want to tell scary tales to littles because they won’t understand it.
So now I think my brain is less curious. Espen’s may be too.
And so we continue to have the internet on lock down, we don’t play online videos, youtube is no longer allowed. We talked and educated oursleves. It is what we can do. I am not negating the seriousness of the information or the acts these crazed minds are encouraging our young to engage in. For my son and myself I needed facts, information and less panic. It is with information that we find strength.
I ended my online digging with Snopes. Just find out... get the information...
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