Sometimes, an artist’s creation can end up taking on a life that they never expected. And sadly, when this happens, that artist often ends up feeling like their work was stolen from them.
It’s not just because their art is no longer associated with them, but because it’s being used to represent something that they never believed in.
RELATED STORIES
For instance, Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie just wanted to create a relaxed frog character, but somehow ended up making a mascot for the alt-right.
Although the creator of the face of the “Momo challenge” hasn’t experienced as complete a divorce between his work’s original intent, he still seems to think the Momo hysteria has gotten out of hand.
43-year-old Keisuke Aiso is an artist working on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan.
According to The Sun , he’s been making models there for 20 years and it’s not uncommon for the finished results to end up on TV.
With loose prosthetic limbs and bizarre creatures littering his studio, it has been described as a “nightmare factory.”
And in the case of his most famous creation, that’s exactly what he was going for.
Many of us now know this creature as “Momo,” but before all the urban legends of social media challenges, Momo was “Mother Bird.”
As The Daily Mail reported , Aiso based her off a Japanese ghost story in which a woman dies in childbirth only to end up haunting the surrounding area as a bird monster.
Indeed, both Aiso and the gallery that featured Mother Bird intended the work to be scary.
In 2016, the alternative art space The Vanilla Gallery featured Mother Bird in 2016 as part of an exhibition about Japanese ghost stories.
As The Sun reported, the gallery usually doesn’t let visitors take photographs, but Mother Bird was an exception because she was placed near the entrance.
After those photos hit the internet, Mother Bird somehow transformed into “Momo” and now brings infamy with her wherever she goes.
Much of the buzz about Momo comes from rumors about a social media challenge that encourages suicide and self-harm.
The sparse, unconfirmed evidence around this challenge has led Snopes and The Washington Post to rule it a likely hoax.
Even YouTube itself released a statement regarding the Momo rumors.
However this hasn’t stopped people from leveraging the hoax to their own delight.
Since the rumors of the challenge have spread, certain bullies and pranksters have allegedly used “Momo” as a means to terrorize children.
In some cases , this involves splicing footage of Momo into YouTube videos disguised as Peppa Pig clips or other children’s fare and threatening kids’ families, insulting them, and telling them to do embarrassing things like cutting their hair.
All that now remains of Mother Bird is an eye that he plans to recycle for another model.
As Aiso told The Sun , he has mixed feelings about the response his creation has received.
Although Aiso had intended his sculpture to scare people, he never wanted it to terrorize children, especially not in this way.
For this reason, he told The Sun that children no longer have to worry because Momo is dead. Technically, this means that he threw it out because it rotted away, but he’s saying this also means the curse is gone.
“I created this artwork three years ago and at the time when it was exhibited at the gallery it did not receive much attention, so at the time I was very disappointed.”
“So when Momo first appeared, it was good in a way that it had received some attention. I was pleased,” he continued. “But the way that it has been used now is very unfortunate.”
What also doesn’t help is that both Aiso and the Vanilla Gallery have received death threats thanks to the panic surrounding the Momo Challenge.
He said he has received messages in both English and Japanese from people who apparently think he should die for creating “Momo,” but that this is also happening to another Japanese artist who was mistakenly credited for creating Mother Bird.
As he said , “I feel bad that she has been mistaken for me.”
h/t: The Sun
