First SCP
Alright, here is the revised SCP.
http://scpsandboxwiki.wikidot.com/meme-promoting-frog
I'm afraid the incident report might be a bit rushed, and the final addendum definitely needs work.
First SCP
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» First SCP
Summary:
My first attempt at an SCP, Revision 2
I stopped reading after the description. You don't actually know what a meme is.
inb4 someone links Understanding Memetics with a source that is only slightly more authorative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Respectfully, I'd like to suggest that that impression is a result of a failure on my part to communicate what I intended, rather than a failure on my part to understand what a meme is.
A person effected by the frog itself will start quoting snippets of conversation that normally would have gone unremembered, doing impressions of people that aren't really all that distinctive, mimicing actions that aren't unusual enough to be commented on, telling knock-knock jokes incessantly, and will eventually devolve into a labyrinth of one sided in jokes and 'you had to have been there' moments.
There is also the element of taking the idea that communicable social constructs might be discretely measurable and running with it.
The problem is that I can't think of a way of properly expressing that while retaining the sort of clinical detachment and/or scientific tone of the site.
"Memes" are a hell of a lot more … everything than what you've just described. There is more to repeated cultural behaviors than snippets of funny stuff. We're talking the very act of language here, everything you have ever learned. It's memes all the way down.
The problem with the entire idea of memetics is that it is based upon reducing communicable social constructs into discretely measurable units as you describe. And that is nonsense.
The idea of a meme can be applied to the churning garbage that makes the Cheezburger fellows rich because that stuff is easy to categorize, but there is a reason the concept isn't taken seriously in the "real world."
But granted, the effect described in your draft would be properly described as memetic, although the trigger is pretty ridiculous and [object] that makes you [crazy] is not a winning formula. Even if you express it better it's still a bad idea and would merit a downvote just for the mention of lolcats alone. Let's just watch that one Star Trek episode where they keep saying Darmak and Jalad at Tinagara and call it a day.
Oi, lolcats exists, and there is nothing you can do about it. (unless of course, there is something you can do about it, in which case good luck and godspeed)
I hadn't really thought about it in terms of '[x] what makes you crazy if you look at it'. I was thinking more '[x] what might suggest that Neil Stephenson was right about something', which is infinitely more horrifying to me.
'[x] what might suggest that Neil Stephenson was right about something'
yikes!
Seriously, about the lolcats, it would take some sort of extreme Herculean effort that I cannot even conceive to get away with referencing lolcats in an SCP. They could be seriously referenced in any sort of Foundation Tale/memetic discussion without bringing the entire affair to a dead stop but if lolcats were a necessary detail in a non-joke SCP object itself I would be very surprised if the piece lasted a day. Maybe that's just me, but it feels like a detail that would just completely kill any attached horror or suspense.
If you go a level deeper you'll probably find something workable in an SCP that screws with your ability to communicate or perceive the world around you if you can steer clear of memey internet references. That sort of stuff has been working well lately, from the infamous I Am Toaster to the recent memo pad that hijacks your language.
Okay, I think the core concept can still work if I drop the 'internet meme' definition of meme and go for the 'it's memes all the way down' definition.
In this version, instead of increasing a person's susceptibility to Snowcrash-esq 'deep structure' memes, it causes a person to revert to childlike knowledge acquisition patterns while subtly altering the REM sleep process to de-emphasize the weakening of unused connections and upshift the strengthening of recent connections. In effect, the victim will begin to rapidly form mental connections between disparate elements without undergoing the needed culling for proper knowledge acquisition to work.
The most immediately evident symptoms to an outside observer are sudden changes in a person's speech patterns, with some of the early warning signs suggesting aphasia. Development after that stage would be heavily dependent on whether a person had contact with other affected people or not. A solitary victim would soon regress into their own personal semantic* connections, not all of which will accurately reflect reality. The victim would show symptoms similar to schizophrenia.
However, if the victim has regular contact with others so afflicted, then the changes would take on a more social aspect. New connections would be shared, and the victims would begin to organize into small groups** based on their ability to understand each other.
The hard part is bridging the brown note meme that changes they way you think to the quantum-louse style remote reproduction. I suppose the process might require some sort of spooky action at a distance on the part of the frog itself? Eeshah, this is where it starts to loose cohesion, but the idea that this is a creature that has found a way to use human communication as a mechanism for its own propagation is what makes this more than just an '[x] what makes you crazy'.
The effect of still images goes from 'cascade of deep structure memes' to 'waking REM state'. Basically, the person's eyes start fluttering and they might make some utterances in the manner of sleep-talking and related experiences.
One final thought is that since I'm already using poison dart frogs as a base, I might go for a chemical route for the primary changes. However, this doesn't do anything to reconcile the reproductive stage, reduces the threat (you have to touch the animal to be effected rather than just see it) and makes the effect of images of the animal completely out of place.
*I'm not actually sure if that's the best word for what I'm trying to say. I'm using in the sense of a syntactic net. Connections would not be limited to language.
**Actually, in this version there isn't even really a need for a spooky 'deep structure' agent to make the afflicted form these groups. It's just people gravitating to each other based on the fact that they're the only ones that can understand each other.
If you're going with frogs that secrete some sort of unnatural chemical that triggers this reaction in people, that's okay.
But when you say
The hard part is bridging the brown note meme that changes they way you think to the quantum-louse style remote reproduction. I suppose the process might require some sort of spooky action at a distance on the part of the frog itself? Eeshah, this is where it starts to loose cohesion, but the idea that this is a creature that has found a way to use human communication as a mechanism for its own propagation is what makes this more than just an '[x] what makes you crazy'.
it only triggers this shudder of revulsion in my mind that compels me to close my browser and go do something else for awhile.
I get where you are going with this one now. I think it is going to be very, very hard to pull off because you've got to get your reader to accept a lot of complicated concepts to get the point across.
In terms of structuring the piece I think the best approach would be to start with a basic containment scheme for frogs that has been recently updated due to some horrifying new discovery about their nature (that you don't get to until later, of course). Just cover the basic "frogs secrete a chemical that triggers a mental breakdown" theme, go into more detail about the memetic nature of the breakdown in an addendum, and then spring the uber-weird part about the frogs using the cognitive wreckage they cause as some sort of breeding ground as the final twist. That would go well in some sort of Level-4 Only second page report that you link at the end of the SCP after hinting at a heavily [EXPUNGED] event where the frogs started spawning during the testing and triggered a containment breach.
That's pretty helpful. Thanks.
I think I'm going to write up a couple of versions to see which works best/is easiest to describe.
I also had another idea. I originally chose poison dart frogs because I thought that the bright coloration and markings might be a reasonable explanation of the source of the effect. However, going the chemical route, I might write up a version that uses wasps instead of frogs, in order to bring the existing associations between wasps and parasitic behavior to bear…
in order to bring the existing associations between wasps and parasitic behavior to bear…
Parasitoid. If the organism is parasitic as a larvae, but a free-living adult, it is not a parasite. It is a parasitoid. Furthermore, parasitoids often cause the death of their primary host as a part of their natural growth cycle. Should the primary host of a parasite die, that parasite is fucked.
Hmm… I can see where you're going with this, but I think that the victims would almost have to be unable to communicate with each other, or this starts to verge too much on SCP-444
Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.
Without having read the draft at all, I will say that based only on your post there this sounds like a stunningly terrible idea.
Same here. I just saw the word "lolcat" mentioned in the discussion and immediately filed it away under the "not even gonna care about it" category.
I skimmed through the statistical meaninglessness (we're not doing actual scientific reports, we're just mimicking their trappings) and saw a real neat concept at the end. The frogs born from your head as by some weird combination of Athena springing from Zeus's brow, and SCP-637.
That's salvageable. But get rid of the godawful memetic nonsense, and the statistical gibberish. Remember the point of SCP documents:
you have just been assigned to the care and containment of this SCP. Here is what you need to know so as to not die horribly and/or destroy civilization. Make it quick.
That's a pretty good summary of the advice that Sorts gave me. I'm currently reworking the execution to better reflect the core concept.
I'll keep your advice about sticking to the point in mind.
Also, I hadn't considered the parallels to classical mythology… I think I might rename if from Meme-promoting Frog to Athena Frog.
Thanks for your advice.
/forum/t-346892/first-scp#post-
page revision: 2, last edited: 15 Jan 2023 15:06
