SCP-3214
rating: +27+x
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Video recording of SCP-3214

Item #: SCP-3214

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: A specialized Foundation webcrawler1 will monitor digital advertising exchanges for new copies of SCP-3214. Blocking or deleting SCP-3214 from its current exchange may temporarily prevent new SCP-3214 from being served.

If any clickthroughs are detected, a containment team must be dispatched to contain all individuals affected by the anomaly and assess the severity of the outbreak. Local news reports, psychiatric hospital records and social media sites must be monitored for accounts or images of a person disassembling and/or fabricating electronic devices as part of an attempt to send a message to outer space. Any device with a screen or speaker2 must be disconnected from power in the vicinity of individuals experiencing a retargeting event. No cellphone or other susceptible device is allowed within 30 meters of an instance of SCP-3214-1 except during approved tests.

Description: SCP-3214 is a 30-second digital video advertisement which displays anomalous retargeting and personalization. When it is viewed or listened to by a person, any other susceptible device within approximately 30 meters will be served an SCP-3214 impression.3 This can result in the rapid and potentially exponential spread of SCP-3214. Any individual targeted by the anomaly may be subject to various cognitohazardous effects, with more severe effects if the individual clicks on the ad and views or listens to it.

If an individual to whom an SCP-3214 impression has been served4 does not click through to view or listen to it, the person is not infected, although they will continue to be retargeted by the anomaly for up to five days. Individuals who experience a complete retargeting event and successfully avoid infection may experience minor cognitohazardous effects,5 but are not targeted by the anomaly again. Such effects typically fade within 3 to 6 weeks.

Retargeting timeline: Retargeting events follow a predictable pattern, recorded below.

Time elapsed Effect Example(s)
0-24 hours Impressions begin to be delivered outside of normal ad frames on devices used by the subject. Subject entered the web address of a major search engine. When attempting to click on the search bar, a popup of SCP-3214 slid down from the top of the screen and intercepted their cursor.
1-2 days Impressions occur at maximum frequency.6 Titles adopt a confrontational tone, including detailed information about the subject's life. "What Have You Got To Lose, D-20993?"
"Mom Was Right: You're Good For Nothing (But We Can Help)"
2-3 days Impressions begin to be delivered to any device screen or speaker in the subject's vicinity. This can include devices which are not susceptible to SCP-3214 delivery under other circumstances, and need not be connected to the internet. A subject being escorted from the testing chamber passed by a closed-circuit television showing live feed from a security camera. SCP-3214 began to play in a corner of the screen.
3-4 days Impressions may be separated by two to three hours, and target the subject in moments of emotional vulnerability. A subject had recently learned of their cellmate's death in an unrelated test on SCP-████. When security personnel arrived to escort the subject to the testing chamber, SCP-3214 began to play from the security officers' walkie-talkies.
4-5 days Impressions revert to appearing only in normal ad frames. Titles become openly threatening. "CLICK OR EVENTUALLY DIE
"you will be JUDGED" (the word "JUDGED" gradually expands to fill the text line, as the letters of the word "you" crack and break apart).

 

broken_computer.jpg

Device damaged by an instance of SCP-3214-1

Symptoms: Approximately 80% of individuals who view or listen to the anomaly become SCP-3214-1. Information about the other 20% is restricted to personnel of level 2 and above, researchers directly involved in SCP-3214 experimentation, and agents deployed in response to SCP-3214 outbreaks (see Document SCP-3214-2A below).

Once infected, SCP-3214-1 develop an obsessive fixation on space travel and interstellar communication. If given access to communications hardware, SCP-3214-1 will frequently disassemble them in an attempt to build a communications device capable of contacting the celebrity characters they saw or heard in SCP-3214.7 Subjects will describe their motivation as a desire to "call them back for one more chance" or "make them understand." These attempts may be highly energetic; some subjects have been observed working to the point of malnutrition or sleep deprivation in order to continually modify their devices. Reactions to the obsession vary considerably from one subject to another. One recovered SCP-3214-1, now in Foundation custody, continued to go to work each day, and would spend their evenings constructing a device in their condominium's basement storage area. Another, currently in long-term psychiatric confinement in a ███████ County facility, broke into a Radio Shack by smashing a window with a rock, and had destroyed a considerable amount of the store's stock by the time local law enforcement agents apprehended them.

Infected individuals' knowledge does not appear to be anomalously enhanced in any way, and the devices they assemble are almost universally non-functional. SCP-3214-1 are not dissuaded by this, and will rebuff any attempts on the part of researchers to critique their construction. Those who already possessed knowledge of engineering or information systems may create devices consistent with non-anomalous functions such as generating radio or wireless signals. Research into these is ongoing, but to date has not produced new insight into the anomaly.

Video description: Recordings of SCP-3214 show a blank screen with a circular "loading" image, and a sound similar to a dial-up modem connecting to the internet. Thus a more detailed description of SCP-3214 has been summarized from interviews with individuals infected by the anomaly.

Although SCP-3214 has lasted exactly 30 seconds in each tested instance, the videos described by test subjects were of significantly longer duration. Researchers estimate that the longest described video8 would have taken up to an hour in real time. It is theorized that the anomaly functions in part by implanting information directly into a subject's mind, which the mind then reconstitutes as memory.

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