Hello everyone! I just wondered if you knew any media (especially anime) that used memetic effects within their diegesis that are comparable to what happens in the "SCP" verse?

A SCP fan described memetic effects like that:

"They're like the flu: An easily spreading illness.
-- However, unlike the flu which makes you physically sick, memetics make you mentally sick"

That person also said memetic effects can affect people's brains to make them believe the craziest or most unrealistic things are true and it can spread like a virus. It can also make them behave physically or mentally in an abnormal way.

That SCP fan also said "Sometimes memetics aren't something that effects people or animals. Sometimes it directly affects information. A book can become 'sick' and its contents will change. This can be one of the most dangerous forms of a memetic effect, as it can potentially cross across the entire world. Imagine if all writing consisted of "You do not recognize the bodies in the water". Even the internet. This would virtually kill our ability to communicate over any significant distance."

Also from what I understood, anything can spread memetic effects (photos, pics, videos, books, radio waves or even smells and gases for example) but not just that. And reading, hearing or touching something infected by this memetic effect can make you think it's true.





1) Concrete SCP examples of that are:

SCP-426 scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-426 a toaster that makes people think they're it (basically people will think they're toasters too and will refer to themselves as toasters and will "behave" like one)

SCP-571 ("Self-Propagating Infectious Pattern") scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-571. Observing this pattern causes the unlucky victim to have a compulsion to draw the aforementioned pattern, using any methods available, up to and including their own blood. Once the victim copies it, they urge other people to look at their work, triggering the cycle again.

SCP-621 (“Hypnobulbs”), “a series of highly invasive flowering plants” scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-621 completely hypoallergenic plants with a strong aroma, vibrant colors and a faint bioluminescence. Those hypnotized are compelled to assure the plants’ longevity: pollinators take priority over the bulbs, herbivores avoid eating or trampling them, and humans often get the idea of relocating them etc ...

SCP-1759 scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1759 an American bomber from World War II with artwork of a blonde woman labeled “Lovely Lucy” on the side. Anyone touching the artwork automatically learns how to pilot Lucy and begins conversing fondly with the plane.






2) I have some concrete anime examples that might somewhat be comparable to SCP memetic effects:

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt Ep.05 in this episode someone named Oscar H.Genius used a combination of both a gas and medias (TV, books etc ...) to make everyone in town think nose picking is trendy. The results: everyone in town was quickly converted to this weird fad and started to pick their nose.

Brave Police J decker Ep.06 Two clowns managed to make all inhabitants of a town obsessed by stupid trends involving wearing weird things (bald wigs, groucho glasses (fakes glasses with mustache) or tight suits for example)! And somehow, it altered their perception of reality: everyone believed themself + other people who followed the fad were cool and good looking

Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera (2011) A yokai cursed the whole world to make absolutely everyone unable to stand up (each time they try they fall) as if it killed the very ability of their brains to allow them to stand up and walk which forced every living beings (humans, animals but also supernatural creatures) to crawl instead of walking

Yokai Watch Ep.184 In this episode, a yokai used it's power to make all humans on the planet affected by a literal oily food fever (everyone suddenly became very fond of adding oily stuff in all sorts of food like mayonnaise on curry). Medias couldn't help but constantly talk about it and "infected" persons were constantly singing the the little catchy phrase medias helped to spread "Make it oily!"






3) Here there are examples I invented to illustrate something:

Let's pretend we're in your typical medieval fantasy anime and a wizard a spell on a town and it's magical waves affect inhabitants' brains to make them believe jesters are cool and so everyone dresses and acts like jesters.

Now let's pretend we are in an anime in a modern world. Memetic Mc Effect, a new and mysterious writer, becomes very popular with his book "why the sky is the most hilarious thing ever". His book is objectively bad: it just consists of sentences like "the sky is incredibly funny, because there's nothing funnier than looking at the sky I mean c'mon look at it: it's so wide and blue!" and people will somewhat believe this book holds the ultimate truth and won't stop laughing each time they'll read, hear or will talk/write using the word "sky". They'll also feel the urge to talk about this "wonderful" book to everyone they know.

Now let's imagine we're in a space opera anime. The infamous CEO of a shady company made a cheap object and mass produced it: a baseball bat made of foam. Looking at it will make you irresistibly inclined to buy it and use it to hit your own head 100 times per day due to the microchip it has that sends electronic waves directly in your brain (brains are tricked to believe it's absolutely vital for your health to buy and use that product). Ofc he takes advantage of that to increase it's price, making tons of money and rendering people addicted to these foam bats. Naturally there are several types of microship to ensure all kinds of brains (regardless of the alien race of their owner) can be affected! Number one sell in the galaxy!






Thanks a lot for reading and for your help! I hope I provided good examples to illustrate what I'm trying to look for.

The Weeping Angels from "Doctor Who" are sometimes an example of this.

Anything that bears the image of an Angel will eventually become a perfect living copy of that Angel. In rare cases, this even applies to mental images, meaning that a vivid memory of an Angel can potentially come to life and take over a person's mind.

Thanks a lot for the help! I have the feeling stuff like that is pretty difficult to find

There was this old teen hero comic called Gen 13. In one story, team leader Caitlin becomes the only person in the world not obsessed with this insipid pop song. The song is turning people into a hive mind by progressively devouring every other cultural idea in its victims' head except itself.
Caitlin busts into the condo belonging to the pop diva convinced that she's a mind controlling super villian. Only she finds the pop princess slumped on the couch and drooling on herself, with another "her" standing behind the first. The second starlet says that she is a memetic entity. The song got so popular, occupying such a large part of people's minds, that she became a self-aware entity. The hardest hit was, of course, her "mother".
After a fight, the entity agrees that in exchange for being left alone, it would withdraw itself to the minimum devotees it needs to maintain its existence. It also agreed to leave behind a heavy dose of disgust and shame behind in the minds it withdraws from. Therefore, Caitlin gets som sweet I-told-you-so action as her team is appalled with themselves for liking such an awful song.

Thanks a lot for your help. I read the comic issues related to that and for me that kind of stuff's really hot ^^
I just love the idea of people being obsessed by weird/stupid/lame stuff