Who could have predicted that one of the Internet's most elaborate fandom communities would begin with a single post on June 22nd, 2007? Uploaded on 4chan's Paranormal X board, the statute read like a government case file, and opened with a provocative warning: "Special containment procedures, "Item SCP-173 is to be kept in a locked container at all times." The entry describes an animate and malevolent figure, made of concrete and rebar, with indications it had been spray-painted at one time. It is housed in a large room with unbarred windows. When alone, sounds of stone scraping can be heard. It will fill its container with a mixture of reddish brown material, believed to be a combination of feces and blood, but the scariest part, blink and it will kill you. Although the post would be deleted a few days later, the strange entry sparked the imagination of the X community, suggesting the existence of a secret government organization dedicated to collecting and containing preternatural entities. Yeah, that's the perfect start for worldbuilding.

(Describer) A huge orange eye opens.

[spirited music]

I'm Dr. Emily Zarka, and this is "Monstrum." This strange entry in 2007 was the genesis of what we now know as the SCP Foundation, a spooky, fictional universe centered around a Wiki that hosts thousands of posts, from contributors across the globe who contribute to its lore. SCP Foundation is crowdsourced folklore at some of its finest. And it takes collaborative fiction to a whole new dimension. While it's tempting to dismiss the SCP as some crazy conspiracy website, the administrators clearly and frequently acknowledge that the Foundation is essentially an art and creative writing experiment. In their words, "The Foundation, "its anomalies, and everything else that's been written about is fictional." But that doesn't make it any less fun. Quite the opposite. According to the lore, the SCP Foundation is a nebulous international group of individuals, who identify, capture, and contain supernatural and preternatural anomalies, with the full support of every major national government. Kind of like the "Men in Black" and "Area 51" meets "The X-Files." Their official slogan-- "We secure, we contain, we protect." Objects like the malevolent IKEA store, Shy Guy, The Old Man, or the endless staircase, are iconic to the Foundation's lore. If you've been on any horror corner of the internet, you've probably felt the lingering presence of the SCP in games, short films, fiction, and fan art. Part of that is because instead of being beholden to copyright and ownership, which can restrict a story's ability to adapt, each SCP universe entry is part of a collective tradition that is ever-evolving. And the lore spreads quickly. While many people, rightfully, tend to hold older legends and folklore in reverence for their historical significance and insights into evolving communities, the SCP Foundation offers something more, a unique perspective into how stories and monsters evolve in real time. The community is open to any member who would like to post. Most entries are told through case files, fiction, written in a pseudoscientific report style, that details the special containment procedures of the anomaly, followed by a detailed description of the event, object, or entity, and how it was contained. Each of these entries is given a three- or four-digit SCP number and brief title. Some images may be included, as well as addendums that contribute to the understanding of the artifact, and how it is affecting or responding to its surroundings. In more recent years, creative authors have even produced interactive pages that evoke all sorts of real-world technologies. Unlike many other fictional supernatural organizations, the SCP Foundation is incredibly bureaucratic, which contributes to a successful worldbuilding. Bureaucracy is something many of us are all well too familiar with. And utilizing this common cultural understanding allows for a more-ready entry point into the Foundation's world. Supporting this connection is SCP's rhetorical style, which mimics classified government texts, especially redacted documents. Common themes can be found throughout the Foundation's many entries. Fear or reticence of technology, viral communication, scientific or governmental failure to control danger, definitions of sentience, doppelganger and hybrid-being anxiety, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's Josie, the half cat, hidden exoplanets with alien life forms, a coffee vending machine that can produce any liquid on demand, a strangely helpful, star-shaped nightlight, a pool of what appears to be blood from which extremely hostile entities occasionally exit, and the remains of a murdered woman that cause horrific deaths and disappearances. These objects, along with thousands of others, are labeled as one of 11 object classes. Separated into common primary classes and non-standard object classes, the categories range from safe, meaning threatening, but easily and safely contained with minimal Foundational effort, to anomalies that require massive effort to be dealt with. Usually associated with a world-ending threat. Objects in this class cannot be contained, are indestructible, and/or are expected to escape. An object's class is determined by the informal Locked Box Test. According to Foundation lore, most autonomous, alive, and/or sapien objects, are, at least, Euclid-class, meaning, you can lock it in a box, but you're not sure what will happen. The authors of these texts are tapping into attention that exists across many populations, fear that our governments may not be telling us the whole story, and raise questions about if such information withholding is productive or destructive. And that's exactly what the original, 2007 4chan post provided, a story that taps into people's fears and mistrust of the government, as well as their ability to contain their secrets safely. We might not have known the source of the original SCP-173 if it weren't for the online sleuth dasMaymay, who brought the original entry back to the Internet's awareness after some archive searching in 2018. Fans of Dr. Who may note the similarities between the weeping angels and SCP-173. While this connection has not been confirmed, for Dr. Who fans, this narrative serves as an extension of something that already exists in popular culture, but brings it into a larger organization, and hints at its real-world existence by using familiar bureaucratic language and style. Administrators of the Wiki now note that SCP-173 is uniquely inspiring, because it relies on the fear that emerges from wonder and possibility, rather than a jump scare. The original five large threads that emerged on 4chans X Forum in January, 2008, dedicated to expanding the SCP universe, became known as the SCP Series. The popularity of the work was deemed important enough, or cool enough, that, on January 19th, someone made a Wiki for all of the SCP-themed posts that began popping up, so that the content wouldn't be lost to the ether. Originally housed on the EditThis Wiki farm, anyone at any time could edit the stories. Discussion boards existed for every page. User, FritzWillie, saw that stories were being deleted by the EditThis hosting network, and moved the entirety of the community's content to a WikiDot, which went live on July 25th, 2008. This move introduced a page rating and comment system, and moderators were introduced. Everything was still open source. Any user could edit any post they wanted. Until someone created spam threads and started deleting stuff en masse. Longtime users decided to remove anonymous edits, and an administration team emerged. Eventually, to keep the spirit of the original SCP Series, and ensure that the quality of content was maintained, banning was enacted, and more strict editing policies put in place. The community's dedication to preserving the early work of the genre is not just something I appreciate; it's absolutely crucial to establishing any kind of standard or canon for the genre. I also think it shows a really lovely dedication to the Foundation's community. The internet can often feel like a lawless country, but when it comes to the SCP Foundation, rules help preserve its integrity. Because most of the content posted to the site is allowed to be adapted, recreated, or reused, The Foundation's universe has served as inspiration for many other creative works. There was a theater contribution to the lore, Welcome to the Ethics Committee, performed in Dublin, a concert in Glasgow, various video games, a serialized novel in Japan, and a graphic novel. While these elements testify to the widespread popularity of the SCP Foundation universe, its primary presence online seems most important to its worldbuilding. The internet is inherently liminal, which can make sharing stories that seem real, but aren't, more efficient. The SCP's case-file approach, and vaguely scientific rhetoric, blurs the boundaries between the real and the not-real, in a space many people approach as both permanent and nebulous. Virtual reality is a ready space for imagined realities. But that's not to say there aren't educational lessons in the archives of the SCP, or that they don't contribute to social policing and understandings of deviant behavior. Like all explorations into monsters and fear, it's about pushing the boundaries of what scares or unsettles us, and why. These elements are even debated in the Foundation's discussion boards. Take something like SCP-1919, for instance, a Euclid-class object that requires a containment perimeter with a two-kilometer radius, since it presents as a decaying, early 20th-century hotel and converted mansion. If a human enters the building, it produces multiple humanoid replicas of that person, as well as anything they are carrying. For this reason, personnel cannot carry body armor or weapons. These Replicants are not perfect bones. They have physical abnormalities, like sealed nostrils, or improper proportions that mark them as Replicants. There are enough of these that after Expedition Two, when aggressive Replicants referred to as SCP-19191 emerged. There are apparently enough of these that they function as a coordinated ant colony, made and controlled by a singular female being. Any entry is currently halted until all manifestations can be expected to have starved to death. Okay, there's a lot to unpack there, but the hive zombie mentality, aggressive mob violence, and mysterious Replicant leader called to mind many real-world fears of overpopulation, destructive groupthink, and even urban decay, giving the buildings decrepit appearance. But those are just my interpretations. I think that's where a lot of the real genius comes from in the SCP Foundation. Just enough information is given, and given impassively enough, that your mind goes crazy, trying to fill in the blanks. There seem to be no completed stories or case files, which means infinite exploration of what scares us is possible. In my opinion, in some ways, there's even greater potential for legend growth, and significance through online global communities, like the SCP Foundation. They allow stories to cultivate quickly and in nuanced ways that translate their relatability across disparate communities. Telling these stories is performative, a form of communication that allows for others to offer their own alterations to the text in real-time.

(Describer) People type.

The appreciation for recreating and retelling the stories, without fear of copyright infringement, is an interpretive freedom that's actually really powerful. It hearkens back to more traditional lore evolution, just without geographic or language boundaries. While, "We secure, we contain, we protect" is their official slogan, dare I add, "We teach"? While not an educational tool by design, the collaborative format can advance participants' multimedia communication skills. The creative guidelines, open authorship, an informal peer review process covers many of the fundamental components of traditional writing practices. Invention, collaboration, drafting, revision, and reflection, those all happen in the SCP wiki. It embodies storytelling methods with digital media literacy. Is it a substitute for a formal writing course? ASU professor, Emily Zarka, PhD, says no. But it can serve as a supplemental educational tool, especially for writers who may be hesitant to jump into creative writing spaces, or for authors looking for a community. Heck, maybe it has a place in my syllabus. SCP Foundation is building and supporting a vibrant and creative community that reformulates the crucial human custom of storytelling and lore building. And it has the added bonus of being creepy AF.

(Describer) Outtakes:

An anonymity of reports. Anonymity. An anonymity of reports. I did it again, anonymity of reports.

[bystander chuckles]

There's too many Ws in a row.

(Describer) Accessibility provided by the US Department of Education.