Beware of Huggy Wuggy

These videos are reportedly found on TikTok, Roblox and Youtube and children are enticed to watch this cute bear. He turns into a scary bear and encourages viewers to 'take their last breath'. Huggy Wuggy is from the video game Poppy Playtime. The tools we use through Linewize indicate that the students who are logged into our system are not (yet) trying to search for this material. 

This game does not have an age rating so the content is unfiltered and can freely circulate under the radar as the names of the videos do not raise red flags. As a school, we have been alerted by the organisation "Safe on Social" and since the videos are very distressing to some viewers, we wanted to bring it to your attention in our cybersafety article this week. 

If your child is affected, please talk about the fact that Huggy Wuggy isn't real and cannot harm them. They are safe. If they haven't brought it up, please don't mention it as that can encourage them to go searching. As always, a balance is required. Please remain a trusted adult that your child will confide in when they find confronting material rather than banning their devices. This can cause a child to stop confiding in you if they believe their device will disappear. 

Trending videos and games are very tempting for young people so discussions around the desire to succumb to peer pressure can be important so that they can make decisions about their digital viewing, preferably decisions that avoid uncomfortable material.