Who could have predicted that one of the Internet's
most elaborate fandom communities
would begin with a single post
on June 22nd, 2007?
Uploaded on 4chan's Paranormal X board,
the statute read like a government case file,
and opened with a provocative warning:
"Special containment procedures,
"Item SCP-173 is to be kept in a locked container
at all times."
The entry describes an animate and malevolent figure,
made of concrete and rebar,
with indications it had been spray-painted at one time.
It is housed in a large room with unbarred windows.
When alone, sounds of stone scraping
can be heard.
It will fill its container
with a mixture of reddish brown material,
believed to be a combination of feces and blood,
but the scariest part,
blink and it will kill you.
Although the post would be deleted a few days later,
the strange entry sparked the imagination
of the X community,
suggesting the existence
of a secret government organization
dedicated to collecting
and containing preternatural entities.
Yeah, that's the perfect start for worldbuilding.
[spirited music]
I'm Dr. Emily Zarka,
and this is "Monstrum."
This strange entry in 2007
was the genesis of what we now know
as the SCP Foundation,
a spooky, fictional universe
centered around a Wiki that hosts thousands of posts,
from contributors across the globe
who contribute to its lore.
SCP Foundation is crowdsourced folklore
at some of its finest.
And it takes collaborative fiction
to a whole new dimension.
While it's tempting to dismiss the SCP
as some crazy conspiracy website,
the administrators clearly and frequently acknowledge
that the Foundation is essentially an art
and creative writing experiment.
In their words, "The Foundation,
"its anomalies, and everything else
that's been written about is fictional."
But that doesn't make it any less fun.
Quite the opposite.
According to the lore,
the SCP Foundation
is a nebulous international group of individuals,
who identify, capture, and contain supernatural
and preternatural anomalies,
with the full support of every major national government.
Kind of like the "Men in Black" and "Area 51"
meets "The X-Files."
Their official slogan--
"We secure, we contain, we protect."
Objects like the malevolent IKEA store,
Shy Guy, The Old Man,
or the endless staircase,
are iconic to the Foundation's lore.
If you've been on any horror corner of the internet,
you've probably felt the lingering presence
of the SCP in games,
short films, fiction, and fan art.
Part of that is because instead of being beholden
to copyright and ownership,
which can restrict a story's ability to adapt,
each SCP universe entry is part of a collective tradition
that is ever-evolving.
And the lore spreads quickly.
While many people,
rightfully, tend to hold older legends and folklore
in reverence for their historical significance
and insights into evolving communities,
the SCP Foundation offers something more,
a unique perspective into how stories and monsters
evolve in real time.
The community is open to any member
who would like to post.
Most entries are told through case files,
fiction, written in a pseudoscientific report style,
that details the special containment procedures
of the anomaly,
followed by a detailed description of the event,
object, or entity,
and how it was contained.
Each of these entries
is given a three- or four-digit SCP number
and brief title.
Some images may be included,
as well as addendums
that contribute to the understanding
of the artifact,
and how it is affecting or responding
to its surroundings.
In more recent years,
creative authors have even produced interactive pages
that evoke all sorts of real-world technologies.
Unlike many other fictional supernatural organizations,
the SCP Foundation is incredibly bureaucratic,
which contributes to a successful worldbuilding.
Bureaucracy is something many of us
are all well too familiar with.
And utilizing this common cultural understanding
allows for a more-ready entry point
into the Foundation's world.
Supporting this connection is SCP's rhetorical style,
which mimics classified government texts,
especially redacted documents.
Common themes can be found
throughout the Foundation's many entries.
Fear or reticence of technology,
viral communication,
scientific or governmental failure to control danger,
definitions of sentience,
doppelganger and hybrid-being anxiety,
but that's just the tip of the iceberg.
There's Josie, the half cat,
hidden exoplanets with alien life forms,
a coffee vending machine
that can produce any liquid on demand,
a strangely helpful, star-shaped nightlight,
a pool of what appears to be blood
from which extremely hostile entities
occasionally exit,
and the remains of a murdered woman
that cause horrific deaths and disappearances.
These objects,
along with thousands of others,
are labeled as one of 11 object classes.
Separated into common primary classes
and non-standard object classes,
the categories range from safe,
meaning threatening,
but easily and safely contained
with minimal Foundational effort,
to anomalies that require massive effort
to be dealt with.
Usually associated with a world-ending threat.
Objects in this class cannot be contained,
are indestructible,
and/or are expected to escape.
An object's class is determined
by the informal Locked Box Test.
According to Foundation lore,
most autonomous, alive, and/or sapien objects,
are, at least, Euclid-class,
meaning, you can lock it in a box,
but you're not sure what will happen.
The authors of these texts are tapping into attention
that exists across many populations,
fear that our governments
may not be telling us the whole story,
and raise questions about if such information withholding
is productive or destructive.
And that's exactly what the original,
2007 4chan post provided,
a story that taps into people's fears
and mistrust of the government,
as well as their ability to contain their secrets safely.
We might not have known the source
of the original SCP-173
if it weren't for the online sleuth
dasMaymay, who brought the original entry
back to the Internet's awareness
after some archive searching in 2018.
Fans of Dr. Who
may note the similarities between the weeping angels
and SCP-173.
While this connection has not been confirmed,
for Dr. Who fans,
this narrative serves as an extension
of something that already exists in popular culture,
but brings it into a larger organization,
and hints at its real-world existence
by using familiar bureaucratic language and style.
Administrators of the Wiki now note
that SCP-173 is uniquely inspiring,
because it relies on the fear that emerges
from wonder and possibility,
rather than a jump scare.
The original five large threads that emerged
on 4chans X Forum in January, 2008,
dedicated to expanding the SCP universe,
became known as the SCP Series.
The popularity of the work was deemed important enough,
or cool enough,
that, on January 19th, someone made a Wiki
for all of the SCP-themed posts
that began popping up,
so that the content wouldn't be lost to the ether.
Originally housed on the EditThis Wiki farm,
anyone at any time could edit the stories.
Discussion boards existed for every page.
User, FritzWillie, saw that stories were being deleted
by the EditThis hosting network,
and moved the entirety of the community's content
to a WikiDot,
which went live on July 25th, 2008.
This move introduced a page rating and comment system,
and moderators were introduced.
Everything was still open source.
Any user could edit any post they wanted.
Until someone created spam threads
and started deleting stuff en masse.
Longtime users decided to remove anonymous edits,
and an administration team emerged.
Eventually, to keep the spirit of the original SCP Series,
and ensure that the quality of content was maintained,
banning was enacted,
and more strict editing policies put in place.
The community's dedication
to preserving the early work of the genre
is not just something I appreciate;
it's absolutely crucial
to establishing any kind of standard
or canon for the genre.
I also think it shows a really lovely dedication
to the Foundation's community.
The internet can often feel like a lawless country,
but when it comes to the SCP Foundation,
rules help preserve its integrity.
Because most of the content posted to the site
is allowed to be adapted,
recreated, or reused,
The Foundation's universe has served as inspiration
for many other creative works.
There was a theater contribution to the lore,
Welcome to the Ethics Committee,
performed in Dublin,
a concert in Glasgow,
various video games,
a serialized novel in Japan,
and a graphic novel.
While these elements testify to the widespread popularity
of the SCP Foundation universe,
its primary presence online seems most important
to its worldbuilding.
The internet is inherently liminal,
which can make sharing stories
that seem real, but aren't,
more efficient.
The SCP's case-file approach,
and vaguely scientific rhetoric,
blurs the boundaries between the real
and the not-real,
in a space many people approach
as both permanent and nebulous.
Virtual reality is a ready space
for imagined realities.
But that's not to say there aren't educational lessons
in the archives of the SCP,
or that they don't contribute to social policing
and understandings of deviant behavior.
Like all explorations into monsters and fear,
it's about pushing the boundaries
of what scares or unsettles us,
and why.
These elements are even debated
in the Foundation's discussion boards.
Take something like SCP-1919,
for instance,
a Euclid-class object that requires a containment perimeter
with a two-kilometer radius,
since it presents as a decaying,
early 20th-century hotel and converted mansion.
If a human enters the building,
it produces multiple humanoid replicas of that person,
as well as anything they are carrying.
For this reason,
personnel cannot carry body armor or weapons.
These Replicants are not perfect bones.
They have physical abnormalities,
like sealed nostrils,
or improper proportions
that mark them as Replicants.
There are enough of these that after Expedition Two,
when aggressive Replicants
referred to as SCP-19191 emerged.
There are apparently enough of these
that they function as a coordinated ant colony,
made and controlled by a singular female being.
Any entry is currently halted
until all manifestations can be expected
to have starved to death.
Okay, there's a lot to unpack there,
but the hive zombie mentality,
aggressive mob violence,
and mysterious Replicant leader
called to mind many real-world fears
of overpopulation,
destructive groupthink,
and even urban decay,
giving the buildings decrepit appearance.
But those are just my interpretations.
I think that's where a lot of the real genius
comes from in the SCP Foundation.
Just enough information is given,
and given impassively enough,
that your mind goes crazy,
trying to fill in the blanks.
There seem to be no completed stories or case files,
which means infinite exploration
of what scares us is possible.
In my opinion,
in some ways, there's even greater potential
for legend growth,
and significance through online global communities,
like the SCP Foundation.
They allow stories to cultivate quickly
and in nuanced ways
that translate their relatability
across disparate communities.
Telling these stories is performative,
a form of communication that allows for others
to offer their own alterations
to the text in real-time.
The appreciation for recreating
and retelling the stories,
without fear of copyright infringement,
is an interpretive freedom that's actually really powerful.
It hearkens back to more traditional lore evolution,
just without geographic or language boundaries.
While, "We secure, we contain, we protect"
is their official slogan,
dare I add, "We teach"?
While not an educational tool by design,
the collaborative format
can advance participants' multimedia communication skills.
The creative guidelines,
open authorship,
an informal peer review process
covers many of the fundamental components
of traditional writing practices.
Invention, collaboration, drafting,
revision, and reflection,
those all happen in the SCP wiki.
It embodies storytelling methods
with digital media literacy.
Is it a substitute for a formal writing course?
ASU professor, Emily Zarka, PhD,
says no.
But it can serve as a supplemental educational tool,
especially for writers who may be hesitant
to jump into creative writing spaces,
or for authors looking for a community.
Heck, maybe it has a place in my syllabus.
SCP Foundation is building
and supporting a vibrant and creative community
that reformulates the crucial human custom
of storytelling and lore building.
And it has the added bonus of being creepy AF.
An anonymity of reports.
Anonymity.
An anonymity of reports.
I did it again,
anonymity of reports.
[bystander chuckles]
There's too many Ws in a row.