SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
A controversial online game is sweeping through classrooms across the U.S. It's called Five Nights at Epstein's, as in Jeffrey Epstein. Players pretend to be sexual assault victims trapped on the convicted sex offender's infamous island, and in order to win, they have to dodge Epstein for five nights to avoid being abused by him. The rapid popularity of the game has left many parents and school administrators deeply concerned. Here to tell us more is Alexandra Levine, a reporter for Bloomberg News. Alexandra, thanks for joining us.
ALEXANDRA LEVINE: Thanks for having me, Scott.
DETROW: Where did this game come from? And what's the best way to understand just how popular it is right now?
LEVINE: Well, it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where the game originated, but it emerged in the last few months as the Justice Department began releasing more of the Epstein files. It is a spinoff of a more innocuous game called Five Nights at Freddy's, and that actually inspired another iteration of the game called Five Nights at Diddy's, which became popular around the time of the Sean Combs trial in the last couple of years. Now we're seeing this Epstein-themed iteration of the game. There are a number of versions of the game online today, but social media has really been key to fueling that fire.
DETROW: Tell me more about the social media aspect of this. It's not just kids playing the game. It's videos of the game circulating.
LEVINE: Exactly. So you see on social media now videos of young boys and girls playing this in their classrooms, at their desks, sometimes on their school-issued devices. There are actually videos that are trying to share tutorials or instructions for kids who are perhaps playing on their school Chromebooks or their school networks and trying to bypass places where it may have actually been blocked. So across the top social media platforms - Instagram, TikTok, YouTube - they are very easy to search for, and in some cases, videos of these kids playing the game are racking up millions of views.
DETROW: You've talked to a lot of parents about this. What are their concerns? And what are administrators trying to do about this?
LEVINE: Well, parents we spoke to really were emphasizing that this is just one example of how what happens through a screen can be just as harmful as real life experiences, mainly because it is desensitizing these kids, making them numb to some horrific and violent and illegal behavior, and also because it's dehumanizing to the victims.
DETROW: Yeah. I was thinking about that, too, because on one hand, you know, like, I read the sentence out loud explaining this game, and it's just, like, a really gross, horrible feeling. On the other hand, teenagers do all sorts of provocative and stupid things, and you go year-to-year, it's different. Like, we were talking about - some of us who work on the show, you know, as teenagers and middle schoolers, there's a popular game in the early 2000s where you played soccer as Osama Bin Laden, right? Like, there's always some sort of controversial dumb thing that teenagers are drawn to. But you're saying and educators are saying the desensitizing, that's what's really concerning.
LEVINE: Yeah, the desensitizing is what they brought up over and over again. And I also think, you know, when you're playing the game itself, I've gotten the question, is it graphic? And you see that the game is actually not all that graphic at all. It's more creepy than anything. You'll be playing and you'll hear what sounds like a small child whimpering or chuckling in the background. But in a way, the fact that it's not graphic makes it seem more harmless on the surface. It's back to making people sort of - including kids - numb to some really troubling behavior.
DETROW: Yeah. What are schools trying to do? I mean, there's already this renewed push to get cellphones out of school, which feels hard to actually follow through on on the individual level a lot of the times. What else are schools thinking and trying to do here?
LEVINE: Well, at the moment, schools are taking steps, but it seems like it's sort of a Whac-a-Mole approach. It's showing up at a growing number of schools in a growing number of states. I think that it is raising the question with educators of - not just educators, but across the board for who is really responsible here? Who has a role to play in this? And I think that there is certainly the role for the parents to play, the schools to play as well, but the tech platforms as sort of the third piece of this.
DETROW: Alexandra Levine, a reporter for Bloomberg News, thanks so much for talking to us about your reporting.
LEVINE: Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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