Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: SCP Article
Elevator Pitch: A joke which, when told to any person who has not heard it before, will trigger a memetic effect causing them to interrupt the speaker by blurting out the punchline, despite their lack of prior knowledge of what the punchline should be. This is followed in all cases by hysterical laughter and symptoms of traumatic shock on the part of the exposed person. When questioned about it after the fact, subjects exposed to SCP-XXXX consistently describe the joke and their experience with it in identical or near-identical terms.
SCP-XXXX also displays a secondary antimemetic effect. Exposed persons do not display memory of the traumatic element of their experience, or that of any person they may have exposed, unless specifically prompted on the subject. When prompted, recall displays no anomalous effects or irregularities in any known case.
These effects - delivery of a punchline of which the exposed person had no knowledge, abnormally similar descriptions, and light repression of specific elements of the memory - occur only when SCP-XXXX is spoken. Written recreations do not display this effect. These effects will also not occur if the joke is told exceptionally poorly - for example, if the teller pauses their speech for a long time in the middle of the setup. Finally, the effects will only happen when the teller intends for a person or group of people to hear the joke. This group may be abstract. For example, if a person were to tell the joke to a group of people at a party, anyone they intended to hear it would experience these effects. If a talk show host were to tell the joke on air, anyone in the broadcast's audience would be affected. However, if a person were to tell the joke and be overheard by a person they did not know to be present, that person would not be affected.
Persons who know the joke experience a weak compulsion to spread it - when made aware that the compulsion exists, the majority of people will be able to resist it with minimal effort, but if they have no awareness of it, they will generally tell the joke at any time they believe that telling an inoffensive, enjoyable joke would be socially appropriate. This effect occurs regardless of the medium by which a person has received the relevant information.
Because SCP-XXXX does not spontaneously manifest, full containment is theoretically possible. However, pursuing this would be largely impractical due to the unknown, but likely significant number of carriers. Containment efforts are primarily focused on keeping the joke out of recorded and broadcast media, as well as watching for and responding to outbreak situations.
Central Narrative: Covert examination of an anart exhibit - or something similar - leads to a Foundation agent becoming the first known person exposed to SCP-XXXX. Lacking awareness of their own exposure, this agent spreads SCP-XXXX to several other Foundation personnel, ultimately leading to a minor containment breach when the joke is told at just the wrong time.
Hook/Attention-Grabber: I would consider the medium- and telling-dependent effect to be the most attention-grabbing aspect. I see it as a memetic effect which relies on the joke being "told right" to trigger, despite not actually being dependent on the quality of the joke.
Additional Notes: I'm concerned this might be too close to 3078, which I discovered only after starting work on this. I think it might have sufficient differentiating features to not be totally disqualified from being worthwhile by the similarities, but it's iffy at best in my own head.
Seeking Greenlights: Yes
Page Type: SCP Article
Elevator Pitch:
* SCP-XXXX is a joke with anomalous memetic properties
* When SCP-XXXX is told to someone who does not already know it:
* Before the speaker can complete the joke, the listener will blurt out the punchline, despite not previously knowing it.
* Immediately afterward, the exposed person will begin to laugh hysterically, causing severe discomfort. This ends after roughly 2 minutes. Fatal asphyxia has not been observed.
* Afterwards, the exposed person will enter a catatonic state for roughly 5 minutes, maintaining their previous position but not responding to stimuli or taking actions.
* Subjects exhibit no memory of the unusual aspects of their experience or that of other subjects. They remember the joke and universally consider it excellent. Many share it frequently as a result of this high opinion. When questioned, subjects will recall the experience fully, and most will consider the joke itself to be mediocre.
* The effects of SCP-XXXX are subject to changes based on its medium of delivery.
* The first group of effects occur only if the joke is heard by a person who was intended to hear it, personally or as part of a group. This doesn't need to be in person: a member of a broadcast's audience will experience these effects. A person who overhears the joke being told to someone else will not.
* When exposed via text, subjects will still have an abnormally high opinion of the joke itself.
* SCP-XXXX does not manifest spontaneously. Full containment is theoretically possible, but impractical.
* Containment efforts are focused on tracking and removal of the joke on major broadcast networks and high-traffic websites through Foundation contacts in the organizations maintaining them.
Central Narrative: A poster with the joke is put up in a Foundation break room by an unknown person. Several personnel spread the joke among themselves, with the anomaly going undetected due to its self-concealing properties. Eventually, this leads to several people being exposed during a transfer of several objects and a moderately dangerous skip breaking containment while the transfer team is catatonic. After the joke is successfully tracked down and cleared out from Foundation personnel, another poster appears at a different site.
Hook/Attention-Grabber: SCP-XXXX has no effect on anyone who already knows the joke. Notably, this can be used to "inoculate" people by exposing them in advance to prevent inconvenient catatonia, leading to disputes within the Foundation with regards to whether intentional spread of SCP-XXXX is justifiable.
Basic Concept:
SCP-XXXX is a joke with a memetic effect causing any person being told the joke to interrupt by saying the punchline early, followed by hysterical laughter by all parties involved.
Further Effects:
A person affected by SCP-XXXX will almost always display symptoms of mild traumatic shock. Roughly 95% of observed subjects vomit within five minutes of exposure. All observed subjects appear to return to a fully normal state within twenty minutes of exposure and neither display nor report any lingering ill effects. However, memories of SCP-XXXX are extremely resistant to amnestic treatment, with most subjects retaining full recall of the joke after a targeted course. Indiscriminate removal of the period in which a subject was exposed has been shown to consistently hinder recollection, but no amnestic process has yet demonstrated the ability to fully eliminate memories of SCP-XXXX
Subjects exposed to SCP-XXXX can be identified even after amnestic treatment by an MRI scan, which will show a spiral-like pattern on the amygdala and hippocampus. The brains of affected subjects are otherwise physically indistinguishable from those of any other human, and no lingering behavioral effects have been observed.
Transmission Through Text:
The primary anomalous effect of SCP-XXXX does not occur if the joke is related to a new subject via text. However, a secondary anomalous effect is suspected based on existing observations of these cases. When given the joke in text form, then asked a series of basic interview questions regarding it, 75% of subjects have given identical answers: “I can see why someone thought this was funny, but it’s really unremarkable.” A further 20% have given answers deviating from this template by no more than two words.
Interview:
Agent (NAME):
Interviewer: Thank you for meeting with me today, Agent NAME.
Agent: Absolutely, doctor. I’m always glad to help out the sciences. Especially when I’m ordered to.
Agent laughs
Agent: Aw, sorry. That wasn’t really fair of me. It’s not your fault I’m under a chain of command, huh?
Interviewer: No, it’s not. Even so, I could have been more sensitive. My apologies.
Roughly five seconds of silence
Interviewer: In any case, you were the first Foundation operative to be exposed to SCP-XXXX, is that correct?
Agent: Haha, yeah. I guess when you put it that way I’m a damn pioneer.
Interviewer: And you haven’t been debriefed before now because you were… convalescing from injuries sustained in the field?
Agent laughs
Agent: I slipped up and spent six months in a coma after some GAW shithead told me a joke while I was under fire. You don’t have to tiptoe around it.
Interviewer: Ah, yes. Of course. My apologies. Can you elaborate on the circumstances surrounding your exposure?
Agent: Yeah, yeah, you got it. Some of the cyber guys had tracked down some bullshit or other that was going around on some forums, and it was our job to find the guy they’d traced it back to and put a stop to it. We were expecting something routine. Boring, even.
Interviewer: But that isn’t what happened?
Agent: I like to think I wouldn’t usually get put into a coma taking down an art weirdo. I know, I know. Your apologies. Anyway, it started out how we expected it. We had reasonable intel. It was a dingy little hole of an apartment, just the one person living there. We were going in for a midnight raid, you know, night vision and all that. We put out concealment measures on the building, busted in the door, and started sweeping rooms. There were four of us, so we paired up and figured we’d have every room hit in a couple minutes. There were signs that somebody had left in a hurry. Clothes were scattered around, drawers left open, you know. That was concerning, obviously - did this kid know we were there? It seemed pretty unlikely. But shit, art types are usually pretty messy anyway. We told ourselves it just always looked like that. Even chuckled about it. We kept going though. Eventually, I found a room with some kid strapped to a wall. That was… weird.
Interviewer: Could you elaborate on what was strange about that discovery?
Agent: Just that the art types don’t usually do kidnappings. Well, not the kind where they keep someone long enough to bring them to an apartment. They’ll bundle somebody up and drag them to whatever expo they’re putting on, sure, but not this.That was when a bullet hit my buddy. I hit the deck, flipped on active camo, all the usual shit. I didn’t know what was going on, except that this easy scoop-up had just turned into a combat situation.
Interviewer: What can you tell me about your experience in the moments after your exposure to SCP-XXXX?
Agent: It was… Incredible. I’ve never felt anything as strongly as I felt the sheer, unbridled comedy right then. I lost my head pretty quick, but I remember cutting him off with the punchline, and then I remember laughing, and laughing, and laughing. The last thing I remember before I blacked out the first time is thinking, Jesus, this is how I die.
(A brief silence)
Interviewer: Can you elaborate on that? You thought you were going to die of laughter?
Agent: Oh yeah, I was damn near sure of it. We’ve all said it as a goof, right? But this wasn’t like that. Like… There was this time I ran a mission where we had to do a SCUBA dive, and my gear was faulty. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced serious hypoxia, but I can tell you it’s not fun. And it sticks with you. So imagine my surprise to realize I was laughing so hard that I realized it was that same feeling. That’s the last thing I remember. They told me a bullet clipped the back of my head. I got lucky, really. I’d doubled over from laughing and stood back up a couple times. If I’d been upright it would have taken my whole brain out. Six months is a long time to sleep, but it’s a lot shorter than, you know. Forever.
Neither person speaks for roughly ten seconds. A faint sound of pencil on paper is audible.
Interviewer: Looking back, do you think it was a particularly funny joke?
Agent: Fuck no.
Agent laughs. Interview ends.
Restructure this to a more covert/infiltration event. Alter pacing to make better use of interview format or rewrite in different format?
Per 
