New Scientist - USA (2022-04-09)

34 | New Scientist | 9 April 2022

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The sci-fi column

“THE quality wasn’t very good,

but it was good enough for a

debate,” says Spence, the narrator

of Malcolm Devlin’s short but

powerful horror novella And Then

I Woke Up. He is describing the

viral video that kicked off the

zombie apocalypse. “Some people

said the men were kissing, some

insisted one was biting the neck of

the other,” Spence recalls. “He was

eating him, they said. Eating him!”

Without giving too much away,

Spence is recounting these events

from the rehabilitation facility

where infected people are slowly

reintegrated into society. But if

you think I just spoiled the plot,

think again. This zombie

apocalypse is nothing like what

you have been taught to expect

by previous books and movies.

Devlin has written a horror story

where the “zombies” are memes.

Memes are, of course, ideas that

lend themselves to jumping from

one brain to another. Like that

trick where someone tells you not

to think about an elephant, once

the image has made its way into

your mind, you can’t stop the

chain of events that unfolds.

Richard Dawkins coined the term

meme for the phenomenon in

1976, back when it was a relatively

unproblematic aspect of how

units of culture are transmitted

through society. But in our

hyper-networked world, memetic

spread has become uncontrolled

and uncontrollable, and there is

something a little unsettling about

it. From the QAnon conspiracy

theory to the cheezburger cat,

there is no telling what will show

up in your feed or who produced

it. Whether you consent or not,

it will nestle between the folds of

your brain and start to lay its eggs.

This sinister process is well

established in neuroscience:

where our expectations lead,

our perceptions of reality follow.

Memes can set those expectations,

distorting and warping them

with someone else’s narrative.

When memes go bad A growing micro-genre of sci-fi literature

is exposing the power of infectious ideas and the horrors they

can inflict on our perception of reality, says Sally Adee

“ Memes can set

our expectations,

distorting and warping

them with someone

else’s narrative”

Sometimes, these are harmless,

like the dress that seems to be

both blue and white or the audio

version, yanny/laurel. Other

times, they are more sinister, like

the kissing men who may or may

not be cannibals, or a conspiracy

theory that a pizza restaurant

had paedophiles in its basement.

Memes can even distort what

is right in front of your face.

While the events of Devlin’s

book are horrifically plausible, in

There is No Antimemetics Division

by Sam Hughes (also known by

the pseudonym qntm), perceptual

expectations are managed by

some of the creepiest supernatural

beings imaginable. As they lurk

unseen by almost everyone, they

wreak havoc on an unsuspecting

public, who make sense of things

by inventing narratives to explain

the horrors around them. An entity

that creeps around collecting

fingers, for example, is explained

away as an unusually high rate of

kitchen and carpentry accidents.

Devlin and Hughes aren’t the

first to explore the power that

infectious memes wield over

our reality. In The City & the City,

China Miéville showed readers

two overlapping metropolises in

which citizens are trained from

birth to “unsee” any evidence of

the other city and its residents.

Authors are increasingly waking

to the hypnotic power of memes,

a topic that is becoming more

relevant by the year. These three

books are a great introduction

to this growing micro-genre of

science fiction. I recommend all

three of them to the skies. You

might end up with a mild case

of existential horror, but at least,

unlike the stories’ protagonists,

you will know what to expect. ❚

MI

RC

EA

MO

IRA

/SH

UT

TE

RS

TO

CK

In our hyper-networked

world, memetic spread

has become uncontrolled

Books

And Then I Woke Up

Malcolm Devlin

Tordotcom (from 12 April)

There is No

Antimemetics

Division

Sam Hughes (qntm)

Self-published

The City & the City

China Miéville

Picador

Sally also

recommends...

Book

Sea of Tranquility

Emily St John Mandel

Picador (from 28 April)

From the fine mind that

produced Station Eleven

and The Glass Hotel comes

another treat: a century-

spanning, genre-crossing,

time-travel book about the

nature of reality, set in a

near-future of pandemics

and parallel worlds.

Sally Adee is a technology

and science writer based

in London. Follow her on

Twitter @sally_adee