Reading this gave me a horrifying vision of the general populations collective reality falling apart, it becomes moldy and putrid as the fake overtakes the real. Humanities collective knowledge painstakingly gathered is reduced to utter junk by its own creation as a new cave of ignorance is built around us by machines.
Also you fucking posted a cognitohazard and now its running around in my head. I had to sic my tulpas on it and its going to be a pain to clean up after its contained, you ass.
I apologize for the inconvenience. I'm working on a counter-cognitohazard to counteract the various memetic hazards the public may or may not have been exposed to while reading this article, but legally I cannot be held liable under the Cognitohazard Distribution Act of 1993 signed by President Bill Clinton.
Interesting that you mention that because I was just thinking about something similar.
In the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan book of the dead) the state of bardo is when you are dead, but you are yet to realise that. And what it described really resembled that hyperreality state, falling into a personal hell as the mind tries to recreate the world, except there's no input from it anymore.
When you torture the AI for a long enough time, and notice that it starts losing it (with pictures it's worse), that also feels just like that.
(Obviously the whole bardo state can be elaborated much more, but I think you will get the concept.)
I watched some of his videos and there is definitely a weird and unsettling memetic contagion about him. It's like Andy Kaufman with no method, only madness. Kaufman was legitimately funny; there's nothing funny about Roy Jay. But there's something mesmerizing about his movements and mannerisms and the music it's all set to that does pull your attention into the void where the substance of his act should be. I think your explanation is correct, but the stars really aligned (in a very peculiar way) for 1980s Britain to produce the perfect performer with the perfect back-story to be the subject of a 2025 internet legend. It's like the Author of this reality has a sense of humor and fashioned the man who became Roy Jay (partly) with this spooky story in mind.
I see the parallels. I've got a follow-up covering Roy Jay's biography coming up next week that goes more into his history and the nature of his stand-up comedy, which could be considered very... Kaufman-esque in a lot of ways. It seems he met with the most success when acting totally gonzo, relying on absurdist physical humor and sight gags rather than verbal comedy. I found myself struck by the fact that it was so successful at the time, but I think there's several reasons it was that I go into then.
As for the stars aligning, it is very odd, isn't it? Much like when /x/ discovered the Kek-Pepe the Frog connection, it does seem as if it's perfect. A little too perfect... I like to think that the universe does have a sense of humor with these things.
An article about Roko's Clown, The SCP Pattern Screamer Pennywise, complete with Jacob's Ladder, Twin Peaks, and Ring references? Sign. Me. Up. This is why I call the Ape the best best pop-cult custodian and real-time historian in the 'Net. Great work!
Aside from the wonderful job you've done exploring various explanations, I am reminded of a couple things when reading this:
1) The excellent "My Lunch Break" YouTube channel posits that our entire history is essentially written by A.I. in order to cover for a global, civilizational reset that took place in the 18t century (if memory serves). This would certainly be congruent with the A.I. made R.J. theory, as Roy may just be us "catching" a glimpse of the narrative construction in realtime. Of course, the fun part then is who would "spill the beans" (insert Willem DaFoe voice) to /x/ and why? Curioser and curioser...
2) 20th-century mystic and all-around pimp Neville Goddard spoke at length about his belief (and by his own admission certainly not one entirely unique to him), that "there is no fiction" and "imagination creates reality." Assuming he is correct (which I do, by the way), then what R.J. could be a is kind of brute-forced example of this, similar as well to how my beloved Grant Morrison reportedly mass-sigiled his seminal classic "The Invisibles" out of near-cancellation and into becoming one of the most successful and acclaimed books among the vaunted Vertigo line-up.
Frankly, the more I type here the more ideas come to mind (perhaps being placed there by this SCP-3004 in pajamas) but that will have to do for now. I'm off to down my daily dose of amnestics before I forget.
I've actually heard similar theories about a big "reset" in the 1800's, they've been floating around for a while (it has a lot to do with "conspiracy theories" surrounding the World's Fair). I'm not sure where I come down on it, though I am fascinated by it and I've read enough on it to have some serious doubts about how that century really played out. After all, every single major American city burned down - some multiple times - in between 1870 - 1890. I know there's logical explanations to it, but at the same time... there's a lot of strangeness surrounding these fires, too. You only need go to Underground Seattle, which is effectively the ruins of the city pre one of these fires, to get the sense there's more to the story.
I also definitely agree that imagination creates reality. I'm a big believer in manifestation and speaking things into existence. It's why I always say not to make running jokes - they will catch up with you over time. Your words shape your reality so be judicious about them.
Also, if you have more ideas, you should write more on these topics. They're always fascinating to me.
That sounds fascinating. In the end I will end up visiting that parts sometimes. Cascadia was always my favorite part of North America, even if it was always about the nature, but exploring 'long lost civilizations' there is just too enticing. Even here in Budapest I try to always look up some nooks and cranies when I'm just going about. Although most of the things only go back until the soviet siege. (Like finding old russian writing that the block was cleared of mines.)
I also don't think that assuming some conspiracy in the destruction of the old cities is all that out there. The Rake just had a note complaining about Milano and it's city plan and it instantly reminded me on the 5 days in Milano. It is well known that most of the modern big cities here in Europe were rebuilt the way they are right now, because just as the French Revolution showed, the cities were getting really hard to control. The Paris Commune showed that it is much easier to suppress any disturbances with the new city plans. But, the US was/is a democracy and it is much harder to pull it off (moving masses, demolishing the old buildings, etc.) unless...something bad were to happen somehow...
Funny you should mention that, I've been on a tour of the Seattle underground back when I lived Bellevue! It was indeed fascinating; I really enjoyed it, along with the (supposed) history of the area with characters like Doc Maynard and Lou Graham.
I must confess at the time a great deal of "the implication" (for the IASIP fans) of the tunnels I was traversing, and the "mud flood," streets-on-stilts narrative that I was listening to was lost on me at the time, right over my head--to coin a phrase--though now I think of it very differently in the context of such tales being uncannily common (and eerily similar) across the world and the possiblity of "resets" or narrative construction.
Thanks for the encouragement as well. I do plan on writing more on conspiracy, paranormal, psychological, and "metaphysical" topics once I wrap up a few more "mundane" pieces that I've had half-baked in the oven for a while now ha!
Funny you mention Kek since I checked in on the /ROYJAY/ general threads on /x/ and the first thing I thought was, "I haven't seen them having this much fun since Kek".
I should probably write about this in the future, but I had a really interesting experience with the guy from Blue's Clues, if you're talking about Steve Burns. I saw him do a Q&A panel at Emerald City Comic-Con, where he was a guest of honor (it was a paid event but I didn't know that until after since me and my friends snuck in through the back) and the crowd treated him with such unsettling reverence that you would have thought they were meeting Jesus. He seemed like a very down to Earth guy but the crowd was made up of adults that clearly saw him as a surrogate parental figure that filled a void in their lives (many of them told him as much). It speaks to the level of influence those figures have on the development of children that can extend their entire lives. I don't think it's a coincidence that he also spoke of how deeply involved child psychologists from the Department of Health, Department of Education, and even the military were involved with the creation of Blue's Clues to calculate the most "effective" way of communicating and, in turn, developing a parasocial relationship, with children. I don't even think Steve himself really understood the true perniciousness of it since he's just a punk rock guy who landed a gig as a kid's show host.
This is an AWESOME story! I just love the idea of sneaking into Comic-Con and watching Steve Burns give a speech haha
But that's what makes this the best kind of story: you have this interesting, relatable surface level of pop-cult celebrity and petty crime ha, but then as you peel back the layers we find deeper levels of shadowy agencies and furtive psycho-spiritual manipulation at play, along with these fascinating personal stories of what these events and operations mean to the "average" viewer and even to the seemingly shiny happy people fronting these programs. I could totally see Steve just being a punk rock dude happy for the big break finding clues with a cartoon dog "because he's really smart!" Hell, I'd take that gig (and paycheck) TODAY in a heartbeat! Oh, some Jolly West-wannabe from D.O.D. wants me to add a line to the script? Great! :D
I'd definitely love to read more about this adventure of yours down the line should you find the time.
I didn't even think of Borges when I was writing this but "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is actually a great connection. Great suggestion. I should probably find someway to edit in a mention of it, since I love Borges and always recommend him when I have the opportunity.
Timestamps can be faked, but one would need admin access to the underlying databases (Wikipedia, YouTube, etc). Perhaps our rogue AI is a top-notch hacker as well as an artiste.
Manly Wade Wellman, one of my favorite short story authors (and the one with the best name), was a contributor to Weird Tales in the '40s and '50s. He is most famous for his character John the Balladeer, but in the 40s his main weird squeeze was an occult detective named John Thunstone, among whose villains was a race of prehistoric subhumans called Shonokins that controlled North America before the arrival of the Indians. He had invented the Shonokins, or so he'd thought. But Manly himself recounted having received letters from people in various parts of the country who quizzed him about how he'd heard about the obscure and local Shonokin legend, even by that very name.
Interesting connection. I can think of several similar examples of creators having experiences like that. Even myself. There's a series I've been working on (you can actually see some on my fiction blog) that tie into a mythology. I pulled the name "Urantia" for a cosmic-tier being of incomprehensible power out of my ass on a whim because it just kind of came to me. Needless to say, I was a bit perturbed when a friend started talking about The Urantia Book.
I didn't know you had a fiction blog as well. I just subscribed.
This phenomenon is probably pretty common. Writers are always reading or listening to digest bits of this or that for their stories, not always remembering exactly what they read vs what they invented, especially when you're coming up with names for fictional things. It happens to me so often that I now always search for this name I think I invented to make sure.
Well, thank you. I keep my fiction writing separate for non-fiction because not everyone who wants to read my non-fiction would appreciate me clogging up their feed with fiction they don't want to read. Speaking of... I really need to get back on that.
But yes, I've often thought that I came across the name Urantia in my readings before and just kind of lost it like a sticky-note in a file drawer until it was randomly regurgitated when I was sifting through "cool names for ultra-powerful borderline incomprehensible cosmic beings". And that's probably what happened.
But I also like to think that, somewhere at the edge of the universe, there's a certain something that may or may not have put it there. On one hand, it stokes my ego, but on the other, I don't know why I'd want it to considering that anything of such a magnitude is not something anyone with sense would ever want to catch the attention of, let alone single out.
So we'll just call it a coincidence. After all... I wouldn't worry about it ;)
Some of this "Roy Jay Effect," because it sound much cooler than "Reverse Mandela Effect," is likely a combination of the algorithms used in various search engines, and the way they return search information.
It creates a kind of (Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone) effect. Considering that Google, and pretty much every search engine out there makes money by clicks, selling advertisements, and personal information. Anything that gets more interaction will slowly make it’s way closer to the top of searches. Roy Jay didn’t produce income, so it was panned and other things were offered instead.
It’s likely that very few people were looking for this Roy Jay person, because few people would even remember *to* look for him (or remember him at all). Similarly those who do remember him, would have little reason to reference him in normal conversation – because nobody would “get” the reference. Bringing up something like Roy Jay in 2025 would be like speaking in “inside joke riddles” – to an audience who will likely think you’re crazy.
The references to Roy Jay in the past make total sense, because those people who remember him were younger when they put those videos on YouTube. Things of rarity and obscurity don’t always age well in the minds of those who experienced them. Think 1980s music videos. They were the same kind of fever dream nonsense stuff, and most people don’t remember them all that well. Some might, but there’s not many people going out and searching to find those videos – except to show younger people how weird they were.
There are rare videos that I remember from my childhood. We didn’t have Cable TV until I was high school in the mid 1990s. So, we watched on-air TV, or hung out with friends.
You might remember the phrase, “That’s kick’in like Van Damme on a Saturday!” Well, that phrase came from us people without cable, because the Saturday Movie Matinee was usually filled with some kind of action film – often with Van Damme and he was kicking!
But it was the strange things that they aired in-between – to fill in the time gaps between movies and commercials – those were some of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen.
One such video was around 10-minutes long with a man performing various wood-working tasks. He was very keen on safety, wearing safety glasses, making sure to wear gloves and whatever required PPE might be necessary. He measured, cut, and worked diligently. They only showed individual parts of what he working on.
From what you were allowed to see, he was building some large wooden tabletop looking piece, with a large coil spring, and some metal framing. Later he’s tying a rope around one metal piece, and using a hand crank/reel, to pull the metal frame part back, then securing it with a very touchy latch mechanism. I was thinking, “Oh… he’s making a catapult!”
Then finally they zoom out. He was building a giant mouse trap! He proceeds to remove all of his PPE, cleaning his glasses, and putting each piece in it’s proper place. Then he takes out a brush and a vacuum and cleans up all the wood dust.
Finally he walks over to the giant mouse trap, and lays his head on the release mechanism! Then the video goes dark, and you hear the trap close with a loud “SNAP!” Then the credits go up.
I’ve looked for that over the years, and I have not been able to find it. I have no way of knowing who was in it, who produced it, or where it came from. I only remember it because it was so weird.
However, if someone reading this remembers the video, they might have more information than me, and I can refine my search. See where this is leading?
I think the same thing is what happened with Roy Jay. It was a short-lived, obscure, and not particularly noteworthy production – other than the fact that it was weird. Once enough people started searching, and began figuring things out, subsequent searches would contain enough relevant meta data for search engines to start returning what people were looking for.
I have a feeling that this is definitely part of the reason that finding sources about Roy Jay was so difficult, I made a brief mention of it in the article and wanted to elaborate further but I didn't really have the space. The Almighty Algorithm is tailored to your metadata profile, so it only makes sense that he wouldn't come up in a Google search, debased as the service is, when there's nothing in your metadata profile that would find him. Not to mention the constant searching for his name would definitely raise the profile of his name as a search time and begin to raise it out of the depths of internet search engine clutter.
I also will cosign on that "The Roy Jay Effect" should be the name for some sort of phenomenon, whether it be how the algorithm will fail to find certain things based on metadata profiles or a reverse Mandela effect. It does have a nice ring to it.
This gave me an idea for a really funny creepypasta/2010's aesthetic analog horror where a protagonist gets Friday by Rebecca Black stuck in their head and they're convinced the song is a memetic hazard. Horror, funnies, and literally every single trope ensues.
Technically, I do actually think that song counts as a very real memetic hazard. Memetic, cognito, infohazard, all that kind of stuff are very real (i.e. an infohazard would be the launch codes to a nuclear weapon), and the potential for horror stories is woefully unexplored (outside of the SCP Foundation project, which... I'm not even sure what the fuck they're doing anymore).
Bending my mind again, Mr. Ape. I was persuading another person as elderly as myself to read your stuff. The analogy that clinched is was: “the stuff is like an episode of Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers but, you know, for weird Internet shit.” Sold!
Well, thank you for the high praise, and thank you for spreading the good word. Readers like you are how this publication stays afloat. Perhaps you could say that, when you spread the word... you'll all be doing it tomorrow.
But seriously, that comparison is very lofty. I appreciate it.
I remember him. Cracked me up as a kid. Always wondered what happened to him. Thought he was American though. Seemed like something could only have come from across the pond. Pretty sure he turned up on some US late night shows here and there.
Yeah, he performed his bit in an American accent. Why? Presumably for the same reason as the rest of his set - just because. But can you be sure those memories are really yours? Or were they, you know... put there.
Just kidding. Like I said, more than one person during the initial investigation said something along the lines of "I remember him I just can't think of who he is", so you aren't the only one. Needless to say, the resurgence of Roy Jay unlocked a lot of memories in a lot of people.
I too have a hard time believing that nobody knew about him before. This guy was on the TV in the UK. I'm sure that there would be a few people around there who remembered him.
All that said, the uncannyness is undeniable. Watching him felt like I was missing something. It's bad in a very similar way as Tommy Wiseau's The Room is bad. Not long ago I showed that to my friends and it's worse than I remembered. (There can be a certain appreciation towards the feeling of having a stroke.)
Nevertheless, it's a great find and props to the originator. It's hard to pull something like this off.
While the propositions are fun (and I want to believe!) most of it can certainly be explained by the simple fact that human memory is really unreliable. Except the memetic hazards. That's real. Maybe it's just my conspiracy brain, but whenever that gets activated in me, I feel like some Manchurian candidate...the signal came so I must think about that. You do question sometimes if we are just codes running somewhere...
The comparison between Jay and Wiseau is apt. I agree that I always felt like I was missing something about "The Room" and never found it as funny as most people. But I think Jay's bit is somewhat less esoteric than that. Unlike Wiseau, who thought he was making a genuinely good piece of art, Jay's entire schtick seems to just be... well, being weird. There's nothing to get - the uncannyness and absurdity is the joke. Another comment mentioned Andy Kaufman and I see the parallels.
As for your mention of us just "running codes", that's what's interesting about Memetic Hazards, SPCGs, so on and so forth; it leans into the idea that thoughts are almost like computer programs, or in this cases, viruses. One of the most disturbing concepts of a memetic hazard or cognitohazard is a short story called "The Parrot", which presents an image - the eponymous parrot, which is not an image of the bird of the same name - upon which even seeing the full thing causes immediate death because something about it short-circuits the brain and causes cessation of living functions. It's effectively a brain hack transmitted visually. Makes you wonder if such things are possible - an image that transmits a piece of data to your mind that, when decoded by your brain, makes it shut down. I sincerely hope not.
Jay, Wiseau, and Kaufman fit nicely on a spectrum when you think about it. I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of subverting expectations. Kaufman was brilliant at it and could really sell it to the audience. Wiseau thought he was doing the same and, in its own way, that too can be appreciated.
But this Roy Jay guy honestly creeps me out (I don’t mean that in a bad way toward him, I just felt I needed to say it). He touches a nerve I didn’t even know I had, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.
As for memetic hazards, I don’t want to get too blackpilled, but it feels like we might be just beginning to figure it out. It's clear they've always been with us... people didn’t talk about music so seriously for nothing.
I'd even go as far as to say that the entire point of music might have always been to exploit this phenomenon to implant emotions or ideas into unsuspecting victims. We know that the powers-that-be have always sought a capability like this, but maybe they were too technocratic to truly grasp it.
In fact, I might have an example (though it wouldn’t work on you as it is in hungarian) that basically proves it:
Sickratman – “Evvel a dalban” (“With This Song”)
The artist is already a strange figure (somewhat of a shaman type), and I can barely express how much this song doesn’t make sense. It’s a parody, a love song, the grammar is off, and there’s absolutely no coherent meaning from line to line.
And still, it ruined all love songs for me, because in every love song, there’s something of that one, and it always ends up echoing in my mind.
What truly convinced me of the idea was when someone once said, “This isn’t a song... it’s a curse.”
Near the end, there’s a line that goes: “You’ll hear this song wherever you go.”
And I do.
I end up hearing it, wherever I go.
If this concept is workable, then that might have been a step toward the answer.
OK, so there's this. Roy Jay's pajamas are marked with what is clearly and unmistakably the British Army's "Broad Arrow" used to mark government property. Make of that what you will.
I had to look this up but apparently that was a common print on British jail jumpsuits at the time, which for reasons I will ever understand is exactly what Roy Jay's uniform was supposed to be (in the main biography of him available it refers to his costume as a "convict's uniform"). Like I said, I thought this was a huge tell of some psy-op when I first read this comment but it seems to just be a quirky bit of Anglo lore about their prison system.
When I first heard about this, I knew I had to write about this. It was almost too perfect. My only regret is that this stuff doesn't happen more often because if it did I would be set for life when it comes to topics.
Unfortunately, all sources about his history state he passed away in Spain in 2007 in relative obscurity (he spent the rest of his life working at clubs/resorts in the Costa Blanca region) and such poverty that local friends held a fundraiser just to cover funeral costs. I have a follow-up covering his life's story coming up next week that goes into his full biography.
I think you can say we already have. About two years ago, when I first joined the site, there was something of a collaborative project about a supernatural entity called "The Suff" which started as a joke and morphed into a creepypasta-esque monster that a lot of writers made stories about. A lot of those folks don't publish anymore and I'm not sure if you can easily find the stories featuring the character, but I think it would count as a Substack-generated creepypasta, at least in an abstract way.
Reading this gave me a horrifying vision of the general populations collective reality falling apart, it becomes moldy and putrid as the fake overtakes the real. Humanities collective knowledge painstakingly gathered is reduced to utter junk by its own creation as a new cave of ignorance is built around us by machines.
Also you fucking posted a cognitohazard and now its running around in my head. I had to sic my tulpas on it and its going to be a pain to clean up after its contained, you ass.
I apologize for the inconvenience. I'm working on a counter-cognitohazard to counteract the various memetic hazards the public may or may not have been exposed to while reading this article, but legally I cannot be held liable under the Cognitohazard Distribution Act of 1993 signed by President Bill Clinton.
Interesting that you mention that because I was just thinking about something similar.
In the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan book of the dead) the state of bardo is when you are dead, but you are yet to realise that. And what it described really resembled that hyperreality state, falling into a personal hell as the mind tries to recreate the world, except there's no input from it anymore.
When you torture the AI for a long enough time, and notice that it starts losing it (with pictures it's worse), that also feels just like that.
(Obviously the whole bardo state can be elaborated much more, but I think you will get the concept.)
Well said. Best film approximations I've seen are Jacob's Ladder and Skinamarink, in this case if they got a rewrite mash-up by Harlan Ellison.
Skinamarink messed with me for the entire evening after watching it, what a horrifying movie.
Now imagine it across an entire town or city all at once instead of one or two people.
Same here. And great—and terrifying—extrapolation.
I watched some of his videos and there is definitely a weird and unsettling memetic contagion about him. It's like Andy Kaufman with no method, only madness. Kaufman was legitimately funny; there's nothing funny about Roy Jay. But there's something mesmerizing about his movements and mannerisms and the music it's all set to that does pull your attention into the void where the substance of his act should be. I think your explanation is correct, but the stars really aligned (in a very peculiar way) for 1980s Britain to produce the perfect performer with the perfect back-story to be the subject of a 2025 internet legend. It's like the Author of this reality has a sense of humor and fashioned the man who became Roy Jay (partly) with this spooky story in mind.
I see the parallels. I've got a follow-up covering Roy Jay's biography coming up next week that goes more into his history and the nature of his stand-up comedy, which could be considered very... Kaufman-esque in a lot of ways. It seems he met with the most success when acting totally gonzo, relying on absurdist physical humor and sight gags rather than verbal comedy. I found myself struck by the fact that it was so successful at the time, but I think there's several reasons it was that I go into then.
As for the stars aligning, it is very odd, isn't it? Much like when /x/ discovered the Kek-Pepe the Frog connection, it does seem as if it's perfect. A little too perfect... I like to think that the universe does have a sense of humor with these things.
An article about Roko's Clown, The SCP Pattern Screamer Pennywise, complete with Jacob's Ladder, Twin Peaks, and Ring references? Sign. Me. Up. This is why I call the Ape the best best pop-cult custodian and real-time historian in the 'Net. Great work!
Aside from the wonderful job you've done exploring various explanations, I am reminded of a couple things when reading this:
1) The excellent "My Lunch Break" YouTube channel posits that our entire history is essentially written by A.I. in order to cover for a global, civilizational reset that took place in the 18t century (if memory serves). This would certainly be congruent with the A.I. made R.J. theory, as Roy may just be us "catching" a glimpse of the narrative construction in realtime. Of course, the fun part then is who would "spill the beans" (insert Willem DaFoe voice) to /x/ and why? Curioser and curioser...
2) 20th-century mystic and all-around pimp Neville Goddard spoke at length about his belief (and by his own admission certainly not one entirely unique to him), that "there is no fiction" and "imagination creates reality." Assuming he is correct (which I do, by the way), then what R.J. could be a is kind of brute-forced example of this, similar as well to how my beloved Grant Morrison reportedly mass-sigiled his seminal classic "The Invisibles" out of near-cancellation and into becoming one of the most successful and acclaimed books among the vaunted Vertigo line-up.
Frankly, the more I type here the more ideas come to mind (perhaps being placed there by this SCP-3004 in pajamas) but that will have to do for now. I'm off to down my daily dose of amnestics before I forget.
I've actually heard similar theories about a big "reset" in the 1800's, they've been floating around for a while (it has a lot to do with "conspiracy theories" surrounding the World's Fair). I'm not sure where I come down on it, though I am fascinated by it and I've read enough on it to have some serious doubts about how that century really played out. After all, every single major American city burned down - some multiple times - in between 1870 - 1890. I know there's logical explanations to it, but at the same time... there's a lot of strangeness surrounding these fires, too. You only need go to Underground Seattle, which is effectively the ruins of the city pre one of these fires, to get the sense there's more to the story.
I also definitely agree that imagination creates reality. I'm a big believer in manifestation and speaking things into existence. It's why I always say not to make running jokes - they will catch up with you over time. Your words shape your reality so be judicious about them.
Also, if you have more ideas, you should write more on these topics. They're always fascinating to me.
That sounds fascinating. In the end I will end up visiting that parts sometimes. Cascadia was always my favorite part of North America, even if it was always about the nature, but exploring 'long lost civilizations' there is just too enticing. Even here in Budapest I try to always look up some nooks and cranies when I'm just going about. Although most of the things only go back until the soviet siege. (Like finding old russian writing that the block was cleared of mines.)
I also don't think that assuming some conspiracy in the destruction of the old cities is all that out there. The Rake just had a note complaining about Milano and it's city plan and it instantly reminded me on the 5 days in Milano. It is well known that most of the modern big cities here in Europe were rebuilt the way they are right now, because just as the French Revolution showed, the cities were getting really hard to control. The Paris Commune showed that it is much easier to suppress any disturbances with the new city plans. But, the US was/is a democracy and it is much harder to pull it off (moving masses, demolishing the old buildings, etc.) unless...something bad were to happen somehow...
Funny you should mention that, I've been on a tour of the Seattle underground back when I lived Bellevue! It was indeed fascinating; I really enjoyed it, along with the (supposed) history of the area with characters like Doc Maynard and Lou Graham.
I must confess at the time a great deal of "the implication" (for the IASIP fans) of the tunnels I was traversing, and the "mud flood," streets-on-stilts narrative that I was listening to was lost on me at the time, right over my head--to coin a phrase--though now I think of it very differently in the context of such tales being uncannily common (and eerily similar) across the world and the possiblity of "resets" or narrative construction.
Thanks for the encouragement as well. I do plan on writing more on conspiracy, paranormal, psychological, and "metaphysical" topics once I wrap up a few more "mundane" pieces that I've had half-baked in the oven for a while now ha!
Witnessing the creation of KEK and the subsequent 2016 election permanently instilled this belief in me
Funny you mention Kek since I checked in on the /ROYJAY/ general threads on /x/ and the first thing I thought was, "I haven't seen them having this much fun since Kek".
Also, I should add RJ still isn't as scary as those Teletubbies or the guy in Blue's Clues.
I should probably write about this in the future, but I had a really interesting experience with the guy from Blue's Clues, if you're talking about Steve Burns. I saw him do a Q&A panel at Emerald City Comic-Con, where he was a guest of honor (it was a paid event but I didn't know that until after since me and my friends snuck in through the back) and the crowd treated him with such unsettling reverence that you would have thought they were meeting Jesus. He seemed like a very down to Earth guy but the crowd was made up of adults that clearly saw him as a surrogate parental figure that filled a void in their lives (many of them told him as much). It speaks to the level of influence those figures have on the development of children that can extend their entire lives. I don't think it's a coincidence that he also spoke of how deeply involved child psychologists from the Department of Health, Department of Education, and even the military were involved with the creation of Blue's Clues to calculate the most "effective" way of communicating and, in turn, developing a parasocial relationship, with children. I don't even think Steve himself really understood the true perniciousness of it since he's just a punk rock guy who landed a gig as a kid's show host.
This is an AWESOME story! I just love the idea of sneaking into Comic-Con and watching Steve Burns give a speech haha
But that's what makes this the best kind of story: you have this interesting, relatable surface level of pop-cult celebrity and petty crime ha, but then as you peel back the layers we find deeper levels of shadowy agencies and furtive psycho-spiritual manipulation at play, along with these fascinating personal stories of what these events and operations mean to the "average" viewer and even to the seemingly shiny happy people fronting these programs. I could totally see Steve just being a punk rock dude happy for the big break finding clues with a cartoon dog "because he's really smart!" Hell, I'd take that gig (and paycheck) TODAY in a heartbeat! Oh, some Jolly West-wannabe from D.O.D. wants me to add a line to the script? Great! :D
I'd definitely love to read more about this adventure of yours down the line should you find the time.
Suggested further reading:
- "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1964) by Philip K. Dick
- "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" (1940) by Jorge Luis Borges
https://youtu.be/RyaMt9r5C3U
See also:
- THE X-FILES episode "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat"(2018)
I didn't even think of Borges when I was writing this but "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is actually a great connection. Great suggestion. I should probably find someway to edit in a mention of it, since I love Borges and always recommend him when I have the opportunity.
Timestamps can be faked, but one would need admin access to the underlying databases (Wikipedia, YouTube, etc). Perhaps our rogue AI is a top-notch hacker as well as an artiste.
_Wintermute has joined the chat_
Manly Wade Wellman, one of my favorite short story authors (and the one with the best name), was a contributor to Weird Tales in the '40s and '50s. He is most famous for his character John the Balladeer, but in the 40s his main weird squeeze was an occult detective named John Thunstone, among whose villains was a race of prehistoric subhumans called Shonokins that controlled North America before the arrival of the Indians. He had invented the Shonokins, or so he'd thought. But Manly himself recounted having received letters from people in various parts of the country who quizzed him about how he'd heard about the obscure and local Shonokin legend, even by that very name.
Or maybe he those stories up, too.
Sometimes life be like that.
Interesting connection. I can think of several similar examples of creators having experiences like that. Even myself. There's a series I've been working on (you can actually see some on my fiction blog) that tie into a mythology. I pulled the name "Urantia" for a cosmic-tier being of incomprehensible power out of my ass on a whim because it just kind of came to me. Needless to say, I was a bit perturbed when a friend started talking about The Urantia Book.
I didn't know you had a fiction blog as well. I just subscribed.
This phenomenon is probably pretty common. Writers are always reading or listening to digest bits of this or that for their stories, not always remembering exactly what they read vs what they invented, especially when you're coming up with names for fictional things. It happens to me so often that I now always search for this name I think I invented to make sure.
Well, thank you. I keep my fiction writing separate for non-fiction because not everyone who wants to read my non-fiction would appreciate me clogging up their feed with fiction they don't want to read. Speaking of... I really need to get back on that.
But yes, I've often thought that I came across the name Urantia in my readings before and just kind of lost it like a sticky-note in a file drawer until it was randomly regurgitated when I was sifting through "cool names for ultra-powerful borderline incomprehensible cosmic beings". And that's probably what happened.
But I also like to think that, somewhere at the edge of the universe, there's a certain something that may or may not have put it there. On one hand, it stokes my ego, but on the other, I don't know why I'd want it to considering that anything of such a magnitude is not something anyone with sense would ever want to catch the attention of, let alone single out.
So we'll just call it a coincidence. After all... I wouldn't worry about it ;)
The videos don’t have that peculiar ‘80’s English reek. I realize this is only a very subjective way of analyzing, but sometimes the nose knows.
Some of this "Roy Jay Effect," because it sound much cooler than "Reverse Mandela Effect," is likely a combination of the algorithms used in various search engines, and the way they return search information.
It creates a kind of (Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone) effect. Considering that Google, and pretty much every search engine out there makes money by clicks, selling advertisements, and personal information. Anything that gets more interaction will slowly make it’s way closer to the top of searches. Roy Jay didn’t produce income, so it was panned and other things were offered instead.
It’s likely that very few people were looking for this Roy Jay person, because few people would even remember *to* look for him (or remember him at all). Similarly those who do remember him, would have little reason to reference him in normal conversation – because nobody would “get” the reference. Bringing up something like Roy Jay in 2025 would be like speaking in “inside joke riddles” – to an audience who will likely think you’re crazy.
The references to Roy Jay in the past make total sense, because those people who remember him were younger when they put those videos on YouTube. Things of rarity and obscurity don’t always age well in the minds of those who experienced them. Think 1980s music videos. They were the same kind of fever dream nonsense stuff, and most people don’t remember them all that well. Some might, but there’s not many people going out and searching to find those videos – except to show younger people how weird they were.
There are rare videos that I remember from my childhood. We didn’t have Cable TV until I was high school in the mid 1990s. So, we watched on-air TV, or hung out with friends.
You might remember the phrase, “That’s kick’in like Van Damme on a Saturday!” Well, that phrase came from us people without cable, because the Saturday Movie Matinee was usually filled with some kind of action film – often with Van Damme and he was kicking!
But it was the strange things that they aired in-between – to fill in the time gaps between movies and commercials – those were some of the strangest videos I’ve ever seen.
One such video was around 10-minutes long with a man performing various wood-working tasks. He was very keen on safety, wearing safety glasses, making sure to wear gloves and whatever required PPE might be necessary. He measured, cut, and worked diligently. They only showed individual parts of what he working on.
From what you were allowed to see, he was building some large wooden tabletop looking piece, with a large coil spring, and some metal framing. Later he’s tying a rope around one metal piece, and using a hand crank/reel, to pull the metal frame part back, then securing it with a very touchy latch mechanism. I was thinking, “Oh… he’s making a catapult!”
Then finally they zoom out. He was building a giant mouse trap! He proceeds to remove all of his PPE, cleaning his glasses, and putting each piece in it’s proper place. Then he takes out a brush and a vacuum and cleans up all the wood dust.
Finally he walks over to the giant mouse trap, and lays his head on the release mechanism! Then the video goes dark, and you hear the trap close with a loud “SNAP!” Then the credits go up.
I’ve looked for that over the years, and I have not been able to find it. I have no way of knowing who was in it, who produced it, or where it came from. I only remember it because it was so weird.
However, if someone reading this remembers the video, they might have more information than me, and I can refine my search. See where this is leading?
I think the same thing is what happened with Roy Jay. It was a short-lived, obscure, and not particularly noteworthy production – other than the fact that it was weird. Once enough people started searching, and began figuring things out, subsequent searches would contain enough relevant meta data for search engines to start returning what people were looking for.
I have a feeling that this is definitely part of the reason that finding sources about Roy Jay was so difficult, I made a brief mention of it in the article and wanted to elaborate further but I didn't really have the space. The Almighty Algorithm is tailored to your metadata profile, so it only makes sense that he wouldn't come up in a Google search, debased as the service is, when there's nothing in your metadata profile that would find him. Not to mention the constant searching for his name would definitely raise the profile of his name as a search time and begin to raise it out of the depths of internet search engine clutter.
I also will cosign on that "The Roy Jay Effect" should be the name for some sort of phenomenon, whether it be how the algorithm will fail to find certain things based on metadata profiles or a reverse Mandela effect. It does have a nice ring to it.
This gave me an idea for a really funny creepypasta/2010's aesthetic analog horror where a protagonist gets Friday by Rebecca Black stuck in their head and they're convinced the song is a memetic hazard. Horror, funnies, and literally every single trope ensues.
Technically, I do actually think that song counts as a very real memetic hazard. Memetic, cognito, infohazard, all that kind of stuff are very real (i.e. an infohazard would be the launch codes to a nuclear weapon), and the potential for horror stories is woefully unexplored (outside of the SCP Foundation project, which... I'm not even sure what the fuck they're doing anymore).
But that song IS a memetic hazard!
Bending my mind again, Mr. Ape. I was persuading another person as elderly as myself to read your stuff. The analogy that clinched is was: “the stuff is like an episode of Arthur C Clarke’s World of Strange Powers but, you know, for weird Internet shit.” Sold!
Well, thank you for the high praise, and thank you for spreading the good word. Readers like you are how this publication stays afloat. Perhaps you could say that, when you spread the word... you'll all be doing it tomorrow.
But seriously, that comparison is very lofty. I appreciate it.
I remember him. Cracked me up as a kid. Always wondered what happened to him. Thought he was American though. Seemed like something could only have come from across the pond. Pretty sure he turned up on some US late night shows here and there.
Yeah, he performed his bit in an American accent. Why? Presumably for the same reason as the rest of his set - just because. But can you be sure those memories are really yours? Or were they, you know... put there.
Just kidding. Like I said, more than one person during the initial investigation said something along the lines of "I remember him I just can't think of who he is", so you aren't the only one. Needless to say, the resurgence of Roy Jay unlocked a lot of memories in a lot of people.
I too have a hard time believing that nobody knew about him before. This guy was on the TV in the UK. I'm sure that there would be a few people around there who remembered him.
All that said, the uncannyness is undeniable. Watching him felt like I was missing something. It's bad in a very similar way as Tommy Wiseau's The Room is bad. Not long ago I showed that to my friends and it's worse than I remembered. (There can be a certain appreciation towards the feeling of having a stroke.)
Nevertheless, it's a great find and props to the originator. It's hard to pull something like this off.
While the propositions are fun (and I want to believe!) most of it can certainly be explained by the simple fact that human memory is really unreliable. Except the memetic hazards. That's real. Maybe it's just my conspiracy brain, but whenever that gets activated in me, I feel like some Manchurian candidate...the signal came so I must think about that. You do question sometimes if we are just codes running somewhere...
The comparison between Jay and Wiseau is apt. I agree that I always felt like I was missing something about "The Room" and never found it as funny as most people. But I think Jay's bit is somewhat less esoteric than that. Unlike Wiseau, who thought he was making a genuinely good piece of art, Jay's entire schtick seems to just be... well, being weird. There's nothing to get - the uncannyness and absurdity is the joke. Another comment mentioned Andy Kaufman and I see the parallels.
As for your mention of us just "running codes", that's what's interesting about Memetic Hazards, SPCGs, so on and so forth; it leans into the idea that thoughts are almost like computer programs, or in this cases, viruses. One of the most disturbing concepts of a memetic hazard or cognitohazard is a short story called "The Parrot", which presents an image - the eponymous parrot, which is not an image of the bird of the same name - upon which even seeing the full thing causes immediate death because something about it short-circuits the brain and causes cessation of living functions. It's effectively a brain hack transmitted visually. Makes you wonder if such things are possible - an image that transmits a piece of data to your mind that, when decoded by your brain, makes it shut down. I sincerely hope not.
Jay, Wiseau, and Kaufman fit nicely on a spectrum when you think about it. I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of subverting expectations. Kaufman was brilliant at it and could really sell it to the audience. Wiseau thought he was doing the same and, in its own way, that too can be appreciated.
But this Roy Jay guy honestly creeps me out (I don’t mean that in a bad way toward him, I just felt I needed to say it). He touches a nerve I didn’t even know I had, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.
As for memetic hazards, I don’t want to get too blackpilled, but it feels like we might be just beginning to figure it out. It's clear they've always been with us... people didn’t talk about music so seriously for nothing.
I'd even go as far as to say that the entire point of music might have always been to exploit this phenomenon to implant emotions or ideas into unsuspecting victims. We know that the powers-that-be have always sought a capability like this, but maybe they were too technocratic to truly grasp it.
In fact, I might have an example (though it wouldn’t work on you as it is in hungarian) that basically proves it:
Sickratman – “Evvel a dalban” (“With This Song”)
The artist is already a strange figure (somewhat of a shaman type), and I can barely express how much this song doesn’t make sense. It’s a parody, a love song, the grammar is off, and there’s absolutely no coherent meaning from line to line.
And still, it ruined all love songs for me, because in every love song, there’s something of that one, and it always ends up echoing in my mind.
What truly convinced me of the idea was when someone once said, “This isn’t a song... it’s a curse.”
Near the end, there’s a line that goes: “You’ll hear this song wherever you go.”
And I do.
I end up hearing it, wherever I go.
If this concept is workable, then that might have been a step toward the answer.
OK, so there's this. Roy Jay's pajamas are marked with what is clearly and unmistakably the British Army's "Broad Arrow" used to mark government property. Make of that what you will.
I had to look this up but apparently that was a common print on British jail jumpsuits at the time, which for reasons I will ever understand is exactly what Roy Jay's uniform was supposed to be (in the main biography of him available it refers to his costume as a "convict's uniform"). Like I said, I thought this was a huge tell of some psy-op when I first read this comment but it seems to just be a quirky bit of Anglo lore about their prison system.
Somehow I knew you would have a take on this
When I first heard about this, I knew I had to write about this. It was almost too perfect. My only regret is that this stuff doesn't happen more often because if it did I would be set for life when it comes to topics.
Be careful what you wish for
Never mind, I take it back. I TAKE IT BACK.
It's too late, monkeys pay finger already curled.
Is it not possible to just identify the living Roy Jay? His supposed prominence wasn’t that long ago. He’s probably still alive.
Unfortunately, all sources about his history state he passed away in Spain in 2007 in relative obscurity (he spent the rest of his life working at clubs/resorts in the Costa Blanca region) and such poverty that local friends held a fundraiser just to cover funeral costs. I have a follow-up covering his life's story coming up next week that goes into his full biography.
So when will we see the first creepypasta native to substack?
I think you can say we already have. About two years ago, when I first joined the site, there was something of a collaborative project about a supernatural entity called "The Suff" which started as a joke and morphed into a creepypasta-esque monster that a lot of writers made stories about. A lot of those folks don't publish anymore and I'm not sure if you can easily find the stories featuring the character, but I think it would count as a Substack-generated creepypasta, at least in an abstract way.