1 The rise of the SCP Foundation can be traced back to the "New Weird" craze in the science fiction world. This term born in the early 21st century is just like "space opera" and "cyberpunk", which vaguely delineates some revolutionary science fiction works to provide creative inspiration for future generations. The characteristic of new weird stories is that they break the boundary between "science fiction" and "magic": most of these stories take place in modern or near-future cities, telling how people rely on current scientific common sense and advanced technology to explore and understand those who are still in the Unknown areas, things and events that still have a distinct magical color. The new weird tale literature also implies the common pessimism in the science fiction community since the new century, that is, it is believed that the level of human science and technology is far from enough to help us fight against those mysterious things that are not yet known, and the seemingly peaceful existence is nothing more than It's like walking on thin ice. The original novel "The Forgotten Southland" of the movie "Annihilation" is one of the representative works of New Weird Tales. New Weird Tales is still a very niche literary category in China, but its influence has already penetrated into every corner of Internet multimedia . It was against this background that the "SCP Foundation" was born. The "/x/" section of the 4chan forum is a place dedicated to discussing paranormal phenomena. Many netizens post their own new weird stories here. In 2007, a netizen with the ID "Moto42" posted a post here. He described a rather dangerous unknown creature in the form of a serious record report, and accompanied it with an illustration. Snapshot of original post "Item Number: SCP-173 Object Class: Euclid Special Containment Procedures: Item SCP-173 is to be kept in a locked containment area at all times. If personnel must enter SCP-173 The containment area must contain no less than three persons, and the entrance door must be locked upon entry. At least two persons must maintain eye contact with SCP-173 at all times until all personnel have left and the containment room has been re-locked. Description: Moved to Site-19 in 1993, its origin remains unknown. It is constructed of concrete and steel and contains traces of Krylon brand spray paint. SCP-173 is animate and hostile and cannot move within direct sight of SCP-1. Line of sight between 173 must not be interrupted at any time, and personnel within the containment chamber must give each other instructions before blinking. According to reports, the subject is attacked by breaking the skull at the junction of the neck or strangulation. Containment procedures for Class 4 hazardous items are to be followed. Personnel reports indicate that the sound of rock scraping coming from the containment chamber when no one is present is considered normal and any change in this behavior should be reported to on-call personnel. HMCL supervisor. The reddish-brown substance on the floor is composed of feces and blood. The source of these substances is unknown. The internal environment must be cleaned every two weeks. "The picture in the post actually comes from the sculpture work of Japanese artist Kato Izumi. "Untitled 2004", so obviously, other text contents are also fictional. This kind of post that looked at pictures and made up jokes was very common on the /x/ board at the time, but there was no article like "SCP-173" that created a creepy monster in just a few hundred words, and also made a A hierarchical mysterious organization looms before the readers' eyes. The background setting of "SCP Foundation" is like a key that opens people's minds, and everyone begins to imagine what kind of abnormal creatures this foundation may contain.
Companion articles to "SCP-173" published by other users soon appeared on the forum: they also profile a fictional object in the form of an observation report. The text usually consists of an SCP number, object level (security), containment procedures and Description and some appendices. SCP-related content has become a popular topic on the forum. The original forum format is no longer enough to meet everyone's needs. Some core authors who are keen on this have established a Wikipedia on EditThis to systematically store and display the SCP series works. Later the platform was moved to Wikidot and continues to this day. With the establishment of the wiki site, creators also began to write meta-narrative content around the "SCP Foundation" itself: what kind of organization the SCP Foundation is, how it is structured, how it operates, and what kind of history it has... The letters "SCP" were originally just the abbreviation of "Special Containment Procedures (Anomaly Response)", and now it has been further extended to the organization's purpose of action, namely "Secure (Control), Contain (Containment), Protect (Protect)". Those mysterious objects taken over by the "SCP Foundation" are also called "contained objects". From a creative perspective, this slogan also succinctly embodies the central thread of SCP writing, especially in line with the idea of ??"the collision between modern science and the unknowable" of the new weird story. A fictional world around the "SCP Foundation" was thus established, and the contained objects written by different authors gradually interacted with each other in this worldview. Just like the "Khazar Dictionary" used dictionaries to tell stories, the SCP series has gradually developed into a new creative form of "using Wikipedia to tell stories". A year later, Moto42, the creator of SCP-173, found the main website of the "SCP Foundation". By this time, the community had developed into a decent one. Of course, long before "SCP", there were many similar "SCP" websites on the Internet. "Story Solitaire" is a multi-person creation, but none of them can achieve a high degree of unity in form and content like the "SCP Foundation" series. The stylistic differences between different creators not only do not separate the overall sense of the work, but further fit the setting of "record reports by different people". What's even more rare is that the SCP series itself has developed into a convenient writing tool. You may have had such a moment: a wonderful idea suddenly bursts out in front of you. It may be a flash of inspiration when you are in a daze during the day, or it may be a nightmare that wakes you up in the middle of the night... You want to share it with others This feeling makes your heart beat faster, but there are only some fragmented fragments in your mind, and you don't know how to organize it into language that others can understand. The SCP series can help you right now. The standardized writing form of "observation report" itself is easy to imitate, which lowers the requirements for the writer's personal literary level. Previous works have also provided many ready-made writing techniques to help you make your wild fantasies ready-made for others. Works of reading. The SCP Foundation has a detailed writing guide to guide creators on how to write their own works. In particular, the SCP Foundation itself is a sharing platform. You can draw nourishment from other people's works, and your ideas may also become inspiration for others. Pure readers can also vote for or against other people's creations. Entries that receive too much opposition will be deleted, which forms a moat for the quality of community content. These factors have allowed the SCP Foundation series to receive many positive reviews since its inception, and is considered to be the most successful content created by netizens in the Internet era - probably none of them.
2 As the community develops and the content gradually becomes richer, the creative dimension of the SCP series has also expanded from the text field to other multimedia, including illustrations, comics and even musicals. The SCP series is a popular subject for science fiction micro-movies. However, what made SCP’s popularity explode after a few years was the influence brought by online videos. In 2012, someone uploaded a video called "SCP-087" on YouTube. "SCP-087" is a ready-made Foundation entry. To put it simply, it is an endless dark staircase with the sound of children crying at the bottom. This video restores the above content. This video looks like the trial content of a first-person game. The depression and horror created by the environment and light and shadow are just right, and it has attracted the attention of SCP enthusiasts.
However, the producer did not release his completed game as everyone expected, and instead disappeared from the Internet. Until another Finnish netizen Regalis used Blitz3D to write the game "SCP-087-B" based on the video content. The first version of this short horror game was well-received, and Regalis was inspired to add more content and came up with the idea of ????making a game with richer SCP content, which later became "SCP: Containment Breach". The developers built an SCP Foundation asylum in "SCP: Containment Breach". It has NPCs, plot performances, difficulty selection and archiving systems, and most importantly, a more specific gameplay: players need to Escape from SCP containments that accidentally get out of control. Although there was only one containment object in the game, "SCP-173", "SCP: Containment Breach" has begun to take shape as a complete game. Players need to use the terrain conditions to blink in time and escape from "SCP-173". Horror games with full program effects have always been a favorite material for game anchors and UP owners. "SCP: Containment Breach" uses this method It has been widely disseminated, and a large number of live videos of anchors playing this game have become an opportunity for many people at home and abroad to come into contact with the SCP series. With the rapid increase in the number of new fans coming here, the SCP cultural circle has received more and more attention. It has also extended from pure fan creation to the commercial field, and some large companies have also begun to participate in the management of related content. Japan's Dengeki Bunko's "SCP Foundation Comics Anthology" has published three series: "Weird", "Strange" and "Girl". The SCP Foundation's copyright sharing principle is based on the CC-BY-SA 3.0 agreement. Simply put, as long as it is noted As long as the original author is the author, it can be adapted or even commercialized, so whether it is a large company or an individual, there is no restriction on using SCP to make profits (except for a few items like SCP-173 that involve the rights of the original author). However, derivative works born under this rule must also comply with the CC license, which means that your secondary creation can also be used for profit by others, which is obviously not so friendly to business groups. Therefore, rather than directly producing "SCP Foundation"-related works, absorbing the strengths of SCP and finding a new approach has become the mainstream for further development. In the game field, there are simulation business games like "Lobotomy Inc." that allow players to manage and experiment with various types of contained objects. Another example is "Control", which allows players to play as agents of the "Federal Bureau of Control" and interact with each other in a containment facility. Various contained objects are at war. Although not directly related, these games not only clearly refer to the "SCP Foundation" in setting, but also absorb SCP's fragmented narrative style. Even the in-game documents heavily refer to the classic writing techniques of SCP documents. The SCP theme can not only control simulated management, but also be made into a third-person shooter, with unlimited possibilities. The "Monarch Project" in the movie "The Cabin in the Woods" and even the "Godzilla" movie also have the shadow of the SCP Foundation. . "The Cabin in the Woods" shows that the "SCP Foundation", a monster containment organization similar to the SCP Foundation, is transcending its own text and upgrading to a culture just like elements such as the "Freemasonry" and the "Knights Templar" totem.
3 When the seeds planted by the "SCP Foundation" took root and sprouted in other fields, the shortcomings of its own creation based on multiple people became increasingly apparent. As the saying goes, where there are people, there are differences. Some differences are natural, such as language barriers. Fans of the SCP Foundation can be found in every corner of the world, and have gradually formed cultural communities based on their own mother tongues, which have further developed into sub-stations in various languages. Each branch has its own manager and has set different standards. This is not a big problem for those cultural products that are exported in one direction, but under the creative system of the "SCP Foundation", fans of various languages ??will not only read other people's works, but also feed back their own creations. Although some people have been actively promoting communication and interaction among various substations, and will add extra numbers to works from different substations to avoid conflicts, no one has the ability to reintegrate and summarize such a huge group of works. The result is that the more fans the "SCP Foundation" has, the more each branch will become divided and autistic. Each branch is basically independent and does not interfere with each other. Some differences come from the people themselves.
The debate over the creative direction of the SCP Foundation has never stopped. Some people are keen to introduce pop culture into the SCP series and create a large number of entries based on Internet memes; there are also many people who insist on the original cold and hard-core style and think it is too Highly entertaining content will eventually become low-level jokes. Many creators have lost their enthusiasm and gradually faded away in this endless tug of war. The "SCP Foundation", which has accumulated nearly 10,000 entries, has left new writers at a loss as to what to do. Conflicts among community members are even more inevitable. The Chinese branch alone has experienced many splits. At the beginning of this year, the main site also had a dispute caused by core users wanting to delete nearly 300 pieces of content they had created. The circle shook. But compared with the serious "younger age" problem, the above are just trivial. No one knows when this phenomenon started, but when they come to their senses, the situation is already out of control. Many junior high school students and even elementary school students have already talked about SCP. "SCP Secret Laboratory" is a free multiplayer online game. When 14-year-old players are becoming younger in an environment where they dislike related games, we can also get a glimpse of how depressed the entire SCP community is at the age level. Just like those born in the 80s and 90s, they were often addicted to various "unsolved worlds" when they were young. Just like "Mystery", the "SCP series" seems to have a natural appeal to curious children. The difference is that the street stall series back then has become various short videos on the Internet today. The production level of these videos varies, and many of them are pure traffic rubbish, with various curious clips edited together just to attract people's attention. But for younger audiences, this kind of stewed video that brings together various SCP objects may not be much different from "Ultraman fighting monsters". It is both tense and exciting, so it is favored by them. Marketing accounts with a keen sense of smell have obviously discovered this kind of wealth code early. Some accounts named "XX Talks Animation" and "XX Brother" are all about "SCP Contained Objects" chaos created by foreign netizens. Objectively speaking, these The content is not a psychological terrorist attack on children like the previous "Elsa Gate", but closer to "Creepypasta". This word has no corresponding translation in Chinese. It is a compound word that combines "creepy" and "pasta". It can be a piece of text, a picture, a video or even is an executable file... A variety of unsettling horror elements are mixed together like spaghetti and spread widely through the Internet. The "Lost BGM of Ziyuan Town" and "Aviation Crash Recording" that we are familiar with, as well as some PPTs that force the sound of female ghosts to be played when opened, can all fall into this category. "SNOIC.EXE" is a classic creepypasta in the gaming industry. Although it is not as bad as "Elsa Gate", these weird and scary contents are obviously not suitable for widespread dissemination among younger groups with immature mental development, especially many children who cannot Deciding whether these works are fiction or real can leave psychological scars. However, just like the spread of many "Creepypasta", teenagers who are frightened by these videos often forward it to scare other peers, and even enjoy it and actively look for new content, further aggravating the spread of such videos. The "younger age" problem has also backfired on the creative environment of the SCP series. Many young enthusiasts have flooded into the community. They are equally imaginative and energetic and are keen to create their own items, but most of the products are immature and crude. The early works of the SCP Foundation rarely contain straightforward bloody descriptions, and the "terrible" flavor should come from the pragmatic and cold writing style. But young creators tend to prefer exciting ones