You Will Be Upgraded
Volunteering for the Borg
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
— Daniel 12:4 (KJV)
Whether you know it or not, you are being altered right now. One might argue that all information is an opportunity to alter human thought and opinion, but social media and the Internet have rewritten the entire game. Not only do social media posts offer individuals and groups a chance to propagate their viewpoint, but it does so in an insidious way by reshaping the way our brains function.
According to a 2017 article at Psychology Today, the constant need for “likes” is addictive:
The Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) of the brain monitors social needs by releasing dopamine when we achieve social success and inspiring neurochemical deficits when we do not. Tragically, social media is not the VTA’s friend.[1]
Did you catch that? The result of social media engagement can lead to the release of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that regulates reward and pleasure.
We mentioned Gene Roddenberry, creator of the Star Trek franchise in a previous chapter. In the spinoff series Star Trek: The Next Generation, an episode called “The Game” features a simple VR brain game that requires the user to move spheroid shapes into goal receptacles, like VR basketball.
When the shape goes into the correct receptacle, the player is rewarded with activation of the brain’s pleasure center. However, once a player is addicted to this sensation, he or she loses the ability to reason well. Consequently, the Enterprise becomes a moving city of useless addicts.
Of course, this fictional scenario ended well. Wesley Crusher realized the game’s true nature and saved the day, and soon, everything and everyone were back to normal.
The same cannot be said for those who have become addicted to the instant feedback loop of social media. Checking our mobile devices with increasing regularity is a sign of danger ahead. But the pleasurable sensation that results from getting those likes is just the tip of the neural iceberg. As we grow more addicted, social media posts—many written by bots—are slowly herding us into altered thoughts and opinions—and we’re becoming more than just a city of useless individuals, we are becoming a city of programmed worker bees, ready to do whatever the bot—read that as KRONOS—tells us to do.
This is an excerpt from our 2024 book The Gates of Hell. If you want to own a copy, it’s available in paperback, as a Kindle e-book, and as an audiobook at Amazon and Audible.
For instance, two recent online “games,” and that word “game” is in quotes, for there is nothing fun about these challenges, are Blue Whale and Momo. Both incite vulnerable individuals, mostly teens, to perform tasks. Each task completed leads to another, and then another, with each step along the way involving ever worsening types of self-harm—in some cases tracing the outline of a blue whale on your forearm.
Other tasks include “stand on a bridge,” “meet with a ‘whale’ (indicating other so-called player),” “stand on a railroad track,” “sit on a roof with legs dangling over the edge,” “carve a phrase on your leg,” “carve a name on your leg,” and “listen to music that ‘the curator’ sends you.”
Finally, the teen victim is urged to kill himself by leaping off a building. Philipp Budeiken, the Russian man accused of creating the Blue Whale game, told a Russian media outlet, “There are people, and then there is biodegradable waste. I was cleansing our society of such people.”[2]
Russian prison authorities at the notorious Kresty jail in St. Petersburg Budeiken received dozens of love letters from teenage girls while awaiting trial. He pleaded guilty in May of 2017 and was sentenced to three years in prison—although independent journalists have since found that while some teens apparently killed themselves after being drawn into online forums where suicide was being discussed (and blue whale memes shared), the game itself may not have ever existed.[3] A sinister game that lures unsuspecting children into self-harm may be an overly simplistic explanation for a complex problem.
And it leads to the even more disturbing possibility that there is no easily identifiable game, app, or website that can be shut down to keep our children safe. It may be the entire system is ingeniously and diabolically designed to get brains that aren’t fully developed hooked on dopamine, and then subtly herd them into virtual gatherings where the notion of ending the inevitable emotional suffering that accompanies one’s teen years through suicide is romanticized, much as the Blue Öyster Cult song “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” did for teens in the mid-1970s.
There are other disturbing memes that have exerted a deadly online influence. Momo, an Internet meme that emerged in the summer of 2018 and arrived in the U.S. in early 2019,[4] is a birdlike creature who looks rather like a demon. Users are urged to add Momo to their social media accounts, and then abusive threats begin. The taskmaster Momo orders her victims to comply with the challenges or else be magically cursed. Disturbing images are often sent by Momo to add horror to the idea of the impending curse. As with Blue Whale, the victims are incited to self-harm and finally to commit suicide by hanging. Momo has even appeared in copies of the popular online game, Minecraft.
One requirement in the Momo challenge is to pass the phone number of Momo on to a friend; essentially, co-opting the teen or pre-teen into ensnaring yet another victim. It is much like the film The Ring, which uses the trope of a video recording to infect the victim’s mind. The only way to avoid death is to make a recording and pass it on to someone else.
If you’ve not been personally affected by these sick, twisted “games” they may seem isolated, even fictional—as some experts claim. To a degree, it doesn’t even matter if media reports debunking dangerous social media challenges like Momo and Blue Whale are correct because the attention generated by these memes may turn hoaxes into deadly reality.[5]
Our minds have become a battleground, and the Internet is making it easier for demonic infestation and oppression to occur. Social media is addictive, and the so-called “free” sites are hardly that. They exact a very high price—the minds of our children and grandchildren.
[1] Bill Gordon, “Social Media Is Harmful to Your Brain and Relationships.” Psychology Today, Oct. 20, 2017. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/obesely-speaking/201710/social-media-is-harmful-your-brain-and-relationships, retrieved 3/4/24.
[2] Ant Adeane, “Blue Whale: What is the truth behind an online ‘suicide challenge’?” BBC News, Jan. 12, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-46505722, retrieved 3/4/24.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ben Collins and Shoshana Wodinsky, “How ‘Momo’, a global social media hoax about a paranormal threat to kids, morphed into a U.S. viral phenomenon.” NBC News, Feb. 28, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-momo-global-social-media-hoax-about-paranormal-threat-kids-n977961, retrieved 3/4/24.
[5] Ibid.