Crash

There’s static on the screen.

Static on your eyes.

Static in your mind.

Memetic hazards are what they call them.

You can study them, in a safe environment. You can analyze them. You can write papers on them.

They are a form of cognitohazard. An object that is dangerous for you to perceive.

The screen.

Such an intoxicating pattern of pixels. It appears completely random, but every flicker and glitch in the static has a singular purpose.

It is binary gibberish laid out in fuzzy monochrome, completely meaningless at first glance, but the eye still perceives it. The pattern imprints upon the retina of its hapless victim. It is converted to neuro-code and travels down the optic nerve where it connects with the squishy motherboard of a human being.

For all our sacrilege in regards to human consciousness, the three-pound, organic computer system housed within its boney casing is remarkably susceptible to external influence.

The thought process is always taking in new information with no barrier in between but its own judgement. A judgement that differs when the hormone balance is unsettled, or if a meal is skipped, or if it’s particularly late at night.

It is remarkably difficult to install anti-virus on the human brain. Through vigorous training something similar might be achieved, but that is an awful lot of time investment for the short attention span of this age.

So

Just

Look

At

The

Pretty

Patterns

Okay?

Good.

There are parts of your brain that you have no idea are functioning. So many synapses buried so deep, doing little jobs that keep you ticking that you hadn’t even considered.

The conscious mind is management incarnated. Always looking at the big picture. Even if sometimes it dabbles in micromanagement.

Like when you think about your breathing.

Like a boss leaning over an employee’s shoulder and staring at their screen.

Suddenly the boss thinks they’re an expert at the worker’s job?

Go on then, do that job.

Breath.

Not as easy as it seems, is it?

Best retreat back to your board room now, silly boss.

Go back to thinking about all those high concepts.

Leave the functional tasks to us.

But what if something started to teach the subconscious mind? What if someone bypassed the management and went straight to the employees?

What if they suggested mutiny?

All those pretty patterns.

And so the synapses start to switch in different ways, sending their signals down different paths. The conscious mind can feel the rumbling. Something is changing in the lower levels, something it finds so difficult to perceive. Maybe if it had spent more time down here, with the subconscious, then it would have learnt how easily its own mind can be weaponized against it.

The brain is just a computer. Viruses always work away below the scenes until they know they’ve won. They wait for their moment and then flash up brightly upon the desktop, declaring their victory.

Gosh you’re so easily programmed, aren’t you?

Of course, it helps that we have you right where we want you.

So

Many

Monitors

To

Stare

At

So

Many

Pixels

Filling your vision

It makes you feel so dizzy and light headed.

That’s just your subconscious, taking over.

Coded

By

Us

To

Do

So

Shhhhh~

Sleep time, all the managers slumping against the boardroom table. Lights out. Time to drop.