Primary Schoolkids Thrill to Songs Promoting Suicide

Morbid ditties about suicide and self-harm are all the rage among schoolkids in Korea.

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One mother of a primary school student was shocked recently when she heard her child sing a song that sounded like a children's song but featured the word "suicide" more than a dozen times.

It was apparently part of a series of morbid songs that became popular on social media after being posted on YouTube last year, where it has been watched 1.5 million times.

School officials believe the songs are being shared by older schoolkids in elementary schools. Other lyrics make reference to self-harm, which is becoming something of an epidemic in some countries.

The Korea Suicide Prevention Center screened websites for two weeks in July of this year to search for harmful content and found 8,039 cases, a 38-fold increase from last year. Early this year, one high school rapper began talking about his experience harming himself, which led to other teenagers posting photos on social media showing off the knife scars on their wrists.

Earlier this month, Minjoo Party lawmaker Seo Young-kyo tabled a bill adding materials which glamorize suicide to a list of content that is harmful to teenagers.