Paranoia Fuel/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Internet privacy and security; aggregation of personal information, scattered around the Internet into the all-encompassing "digital shadow"; vulnerability of the essential infrastructure to cyberattacks are topics hotly debated in media and beyond. The ctOS doesn't seem all that friendly, now does it?
  • Due to advances in technology, the government is developing more pervasive surveillance technologies. Sleep tight!
    • Worse, they're passed with overwhelming nonpartisan support distressingly often.
  • Gaslighting can happen to anyone, anywhere.
  • Viruses. Pure undead malevolence encoded into genetic material and wrapped up in a creepy protein shell. Not even technically alive, they're just tiny zombies that you can't even shoot in their microscopic zombie heads, remaining active for years, even decades without a host, waiting patiently for the opportunity to infect you with nothing more than brief contact with or even being anywhere near a person or object that's been infected at any point. They then proceed to hijack your very cells with a proficiency that would put Headcrabs or the Yeerks to shame, forcing them to replicate more and more copies of themselves until the cell literally bursts, killing the cell and eventually you. The worst thing, however, is that their simplicity allows them to mutate at a fantastic rate, certain strains changing so rapidly that they render the latest vaccine irrelevant almost as soon as it is made. And, if you have a weak immune system, you can't do anything about it. Of course, if it's a virus similar to the Spanish Flu of 1918, then a strong immune system means it will kill you quicker.... And if you've ever had Chicken Pox, you'll never be completely cured. No, the virus is hiding in your nerve cells, just waiting for you to weaken... and begin the horrific stage two of infection.
    • Along the same lines: prions. Jesus on a crutch, WHY.
    • And computer viruses, worms, and spyware will make you paranoid even if you aren't at a serious risk. Many security experts do not like to over-discuss the possibility that someone could possibly make a multi-stage worm that attacks from multiple angles, using constantly shifting exploitation methods and counter-counter-methods that can be thought up to make things hard for people who don't want it. Oh wait, that's not a mere possibility! Someone actually did it. And even that isn't as bad as it could be.
    • Also, filoviruses.
    • Incidentally, some retroviruses simply stay in your genes until something happens that prompts them to start reproducing. Oh, yes, and you might never have even caught it, because it got passed down from an ancestor--there might even be a few that are present in every single human...
      • It should be added that while they're simply staying there? They're not 'silent'--the genes they introduced into you can and do get transcribed, and can even cause the stress to trigger the retrovirus to start reproducing...or just drive you insane. That paranoia you feel growing might even be due to one of these, we can't be sure.
  • AIDS. You can't know if you have it for up to 6 months after you contracted it, it shows no symptoms for years, and for all you know, your significant other may be cheating on you and bring it home!
    • Add the fact that, unlike other STDs, AIDS isn't always transmitted by sex. The true Paranoia Fuel happens when you realize that every cut, every scratched mosquito bite, is a chance to accidentally allow someone else's blood into your body. Now go buy some Band Aids.
    • Actually, there's some initial warning symptoms to an HIV infection, and in fact a good percentage of the population will likely not actually develop full-blown AIDS--if you want good-quality paranoia fuel, try rabies. The only reliable treatment must be done before you get infected, or right afterward. Oh, and you might not even have been aware of the bite, so you might not even known until you've developed symptoms and get a full-on Rage. A grand total of six people have survived that...
  • The number of fatal diseases that start out with "flu-like symptoms." Meningitis, rabies, AIDS, the list goes on.
  • It's easy to contaminate someone's food and drink with bacteria or a parasitic worm.
  • Certain Microbes, there's the now infamous Naegleria fowleri, it's fairly common in warm water, but inflection is extremely rare, however when pathogenic, it invades through the olfactory mucosa and cribriform plate of the nasal tissues, and primary amoebic meningoencephalitis. Infection is extremely rare, but the protist is very common, and can be introduced if you use your nettepot wrong, killing you within the week.
  • Cancer. These days, pretty much anything will cause your cells to mutate and grow horrible tumours.
  • The HeLa Cancer Cell Line is immortal. Thankfully, HeLa cells won't grow into strong tumors upon being injected into a human body, but one day there might come a cancer that's capable of doing that. There's already an infectious transmissible cancer that affects dogs.
    • You are probably thinking about the Devil facial tumour disease. It affects Tasmanian Devils.
    • Actually, there is a cancerous STD in dogs called canine transmissible venereal tumor. The actual cancer cell itself is the infectious agent spread through sexual contact. Genetic analysis suggests that the original tumor appeared sometime between 200 and 2,500 years ago, making it the longest-lived known mammalian cell line. Since the cells' genome has diverged from the original dog's genome and the cells have been infecting other dogs, it's been effectively living as a unicellular, asexually reproducing organism. It's not unreasonable to assume from this information that someday, any of us could possibly be the progenitor of a mutant, cancerous STD pathogen.
    • Don't forget the polyomaviruses. They're a family of viruses that, once active, can cause multiple tumors. The good news is that unless you're immunocompromised in some way, the viruses are dormant and harmless. Here's the paranoia-inducing part: all of the discovered human polyomaviruses (nine so far) are commonly and asymptomatically contracted in childhood or early adulthood. That means right now, you probably have multiple species of viruses quietly lying in wait until something happens to your immune system, at which point they can go on a tumor-causing rampage.
    • The origin of HeLa cells. The original sample came from a woman named Henrietta Lacks who came into a hospital in 1951 with virulent cervical cancer. The doctors took a sample without asking her; at the time, few doctors saw anything wrong with doing this, particularly because it was a free clinic for people who couldn't afford medical care anywhere else, and Henrietta was a poor black woman living in the southern US under Jim Crow. So a tiny bit of her tumor was taken and cultured without her consent or even knowledge. Even when the lab technicians realized that they'd finally found an immortal human cell line, they still didn't tell her, and she died of cancer several months later despite radiation treatments. Her family didn't find out that she'd revolutionized medical research until twenty years later.
      • Even worse, it was discovered in the early 2000s that some non-HeLa cultures used for cancer research had been contaminated by (and sometimes taken over entirely) by HeLa cells due to careless lab procedures. And it was uncertain how many formerly promising lines of research would turn out to be actually specific to HeLa because of that.
  • Medical malpractice. One second, you are in the hospital to get your wisdom tooth removed; a minute later, you are dead. Doctors can also forget all kinds of instruments into your body after an operation, and you don't even notice! And how about the people that catch some deathly virus while being in the hospital, or the cases of psychopaths working in the health services? Have fun in the hospital.
  • An aneurysm could kill you any time. There is no test. There is no way to save you. Don't think you're safe just because you're at a "healthy weight". Weight is far from the most significant risk factor, and you're actually less likely to survive than someone who weighs more. Enjoy the gym!
  • Pregnancy and childbirth. Anything could go wrong! You could miscarriage for no reason. Your child could be born as an abomination with missing limbs, a rare and possibly incurable illness, deformed organs, born very prematurely and the list goes on. And if you have two or more babies, they could be conjoined and even possibly die in the next few hours. And if you are psychologically and financially unstable to handle the stress of a new family... Congrats on your new baby!
  • There's quite a few degenerative diseases that are inborn, but don't show up until you've been lulled into a false sense of security -- you've been in good health, or maybe you've had some mysterious physiological quirk that doesn't seem to mean anything -- for long enough to hit your teenage years, or your twenties, or your thirties or middle age or whenever. You could have a ticking time bomb in your genes and never know it until your body and possibly your mind suddenly start to unravel.
  • Just see the Real Life sections on Body Horror and And I must Scream. By gods, Lou Gehrig's Disease and Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (two of the said degenerative diseases above) are Fates Worse Than Cancer.
  • And now from Cracked: The 6 Most Brutal Infections You Could Have Right Now.
  • Heck, the total fragility of the human body makes any kind of Medical Horror this trope. From ugly genetic mutations that can go off anytime, to medical malpractice.....
  • Spiders and other creepy crawlies in the bed. Worst part is, you've given the sheets a very thorough shaking, inspected everything for spiders, but you still can't be sure they aren't under your bed... which they probably are... and creeping up to your face, into your open mouth when you're asleep... there's no real reason why not.
    • Yummy protein!
  • Anyone who you let use your bathroom could actually be masturbating in there... Yeah.
  • The assassination of U.S President John F. Kennedy led to a Paranoia Fuel industry; not only did it result in countless different Government Conspiracy theories about who really bumped off Kennedy, but since most of these theories also pretty much ultimately suggest that everyone in a position of authority conspired to kill this guy, it pretty much destroyed any kind of faith that many people could have in any kind of government or authority; sure, they might say they weren't involved, but then they would say that, wouldn't they?
    • Watergate and the resignation of President Richard Nixon -- which revealed to the world that yeah, there were people in government who really were a bunch of venal criminals out to screw the electorate over for their own selfish gains -- really didn't help matters. On the upside, the ones who are like that aren't very good at covering their tracks.
    • Some have suggested the popularity of the various Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories is because the alternative is even MORE paranoia inducing. After all, if the most powerful and well-protected man on earth can be killed without warning by a single nut working all by himself, how safe do you think you are?
      • On that note, security experts say it takes just 48 hours to set up a professional kidnapping of a target who is not taking active defensive measures.
  • High-demand coercive groups, specifically of the Church of Happyology, Real Life Path of Inspiration, and Religion of Evil varieties. Imagine being a part of a group that believes death is good (and may occasionally extend this to practicing Kill'Em All), and/or that one can find Happiness in Slavery and in giving all of one's time and money to the group, or some of the other wonderful things some of the nastier of such organizations have brought into being. Now imagine that this group looks like the solution to all of your life's problems or that, having been raised in it with no exposure to the Outside or being entirely convinced the Outside is evil/bad/destroying you/etcetera, it is your reality itself....
  • 5 Bizarre Ways Weather Can Kill You Without Warning from Cracked.com -- after reading this article, you may never want to go outside again. And if you do stay indoors, these could probably kill you anyway.
  • Supervolcanoes. In general, but for extra, more specific Paranoia Fuel, Yellowstone 'effing Park. It's overdue to go off.
  • Even worse (medically and mentally) are phobias so deep you don't know why you have them. With most fears, psychology can convince you that, for example, bridges don't collapse very often. However, if you don't know why you are scared, you have to start from the very beginning, and everything that will possibly be the thing that you fear will scare you. It gets to a point where anything about what you fear can send you into a panic attack, even if it's about, to follow the first example, the most stable bridge in the world.
  • The Sacculina barnacle, as described by Stephen Jay Gould. It first sticks its needle into a crab, which then injects as little as one cell into the crab's nervous system. This cell then creates a network of tendrils, plus an externa that mimics the crab's own egg container. It then feminises the crab, drains its resources, and reduces it to little more than a cleaner, food supply, and transport system. The kicker? The crab doesn't even realise something's wrong; it honestly believes the externa is its own eggs, cleaning it and even creating currents to help scatter the next generation of Sacculina. Evolution being fundamentally unpredictable, how do we know there isn't a human version?
  • The Trope Entry itself serves as Paranoia Fuel. It's sure to have inspired phobias in people that didn't have them before.
  • 9/11
  • Pearl Harbor. Imagine waking up to a beautiful Hawaiian Sunday morning to a random Japanese air strike. Then imagine that the Japanese person standing next to you could be a spy.
    • Being a Japanese spy won't do much for you when you're standing in the middle of a bombing strike. It'd be scarier and more paranoia inducing for them. All their friends could turn on them...
  • The Cold War. Kids, ask your parents or grandparents what it was like, not knowing if or when you'd hear that siren alerting you that you were going to be nuked. That is, IF you ever heard that siren.
    • UVB-76 -- A shortwave station in Russia that broadcasts nothing but creepy beeps, and every once in a while, coded voice messages. (Like: "93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 -- 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4".) Nobody except probably Vladimir Putin knows what the hell it means. You can listen to it here.
    • UVB-76 is probably part of the Russian "Dead Hand" system. When that buzzer stops, the world ends. Sleep well.
    • They used to have nuclear attack drills in schools, where they'd sound the alarm and you had to hide under your desk in as small a ball as you could. Not only was the alarm completely terrifying, Fridge Logic kicked in when you were older, and realized hiding under your desk wouldn't do a damn thing. They often also had evacuation routes, which usually turned into a giant mess even during a drill. Using them in an actual emergency would have been a nightmare.
      • The curling into a ball is to help prevent flash-blindness. Small consolation, yes, but every little bit helps.
  • The most likely person to kill or rape or abuse you is someone you know. Enjoy the family reunion.
  • Sexual predators and murderers in general. Anyone in your neighborhood, on your block, or even living next door could be a crazed maniac. And having a personal interest on shows about forensics/prisons/criminal behaviors doesn't help much either...
    • Comedian Dane Cook once pointed out that using the internet to check how many sexual predators are in your town/neighbor will 'scare the shit out of you in ways you cannot imagine'. This is especially true for people like Dane who live in apartment complexes and have literally a dozen registered sex offenders in their building alone.
  • Pedophiles and rapists specifically, on that note. Anyone can be one, and the more "successful" don't lurk around playgrounds or the Internet: they get work in places that put them in places of trust with access to children, or they have their own or abuse relatives. Same for rapists - the "successful" ones aren't the ones getting arrested, anyone can be one, and you usually won't know until it's too late. To say nothing about how horrifyingly low the actual arrest and conviction rate for rape is.
    • Inversely, Paedo Hunt and the False Rape Accusation. Someone accuses you of one of the most horrible crimes in existence. Congratulations, you're still seen as a Complete Monster even though the allegations are untrue, and since actual creeps lie about not being such, all of your protests will be pointless.
  • Using hypnosis to seek out "lost" memories can just as easily lead to birth of false memories. If you think you were abused as a child and seek help from a hypnotherapist, it's just as possible that the memories that emerge during the "treatment" are entirely or partially figments of your imagination. And you can't tell them apart from real memories! In. Any. Way. Now think that you are a parent of a grown up child, who, for no discernible reason you can think of, is suddenly convinced that you abused them as a child. In the 1980's and 90's this was a disturbingly common scenario, and it still hasn't entirely disappeared. It's an incredibly horrible situation for all parties involved.
  • Undercover marketing. The idea that some random person-- anyone, really-- could be hired to do normal social interaction and try to sell you something... eeergh.
    • During William Gibson's Pattern Recognition, the protagonist meets a cute girl who is paid to chat up men at bars, then order a certain drink. Now the guy has an association between that drink and the cute girl. They may have also mentioned how the girl herself ended up paranoid.
  • The wrong blood type in a transfusion can kill you in hours. And you die in horrible pain, if you're unlucky enough to be conscious. Let's hope those nurses picked up the correct bag from the fridge.
    • In Brazil, a nurse accidentally killed a girl injecting Vaseline in her veins. It was supposed to be saline. Imagine going to hospital because of a virosis and never come back because of a medical/staff error.
      • How do you make that mistake? The viscosity of vaseline is nothing like that of saline, and anything that viscous clearly does not belong in the bloodstream.
        • The mistake was made in a public hospital, where the qualifications for the staff and the lack of care are usually mediocre.
  • Car crashes. Far, far more likely than plane crashes, or most other ways to die young, frankly. How many dead people out there thought they'd be back home in ten minutes? One moment's inattention in the fading light, a few feet of metal between you and the grille of a truck...
  • 80% of violent crimes are committed by somebody the victim knows.
  • Many natural disasters, like rogue waves and sinkholes, can occur with little to no advance warning if the right conditions are met.
  • Sociopaths - people with no conscience or empathy who are nonetheless able to fake these qualities, with no qualms about hurting or killing you if it serves their purpose. Approx. 1-3% of the population. Highlighted here
    • This leads to fridge horror, too--sociopaths are more likely to be successful in life since they're they have no moral qualms about doing what they need to get ahead in life. It's very possible the most powerful people in the world are sociopaths.
  • The concept that objects might have souls we don't know of. Maybe your toaster hates you, maybe you hurt the feelings of that jacket you never wear.
  • Bugs. They are everywhere. You can swallow them in your sleep, they surely were in your food before you even bought it, they walk over your things and over the food in supermarkets. Can you be sure where that fly that is over your mug now have been before? It could be everywhere, from feces to corpses. Have a nice meal.
    • Mosquitoes. Why does a mosquito's bug sound so noisy? It's not because it is loud, no sir. It's because it means there is a mosquito in your bedroom, waiting to feast on you and make your skin itch for days. KILL IT!!
  • No matter where you go, no matter when you go there, SOMEONE might make you lose The Game.
  • The "Brain In A Vat" exercise in philosophy.
    • Consider that there's no way to know that it's your brain in that vat. You could be a figment of someone else's imagination, and you could never tell -- as you'd have no frame of reference from which to discern how this was different from actually existing. Our entire universe could be the coma dream of a hyper-intelligent cockroach, and we'd never be able to tell; all of existence would just end one day when the cockroach died or woke up, with no warning.
    • Problem is, Cogito Ergo Sum: I think therefore I am. Simply questioning your own existence proves your existence. And even if we are the figments of someone's imaginations, Would that mean the universe then would die if they woke up or died? Not really. If a author died and all his books were burned, and nobody read them, would that mean that it never existed?
      • The problem with Cogito Ergo Sum is how can you be sure you truly think? It may well seem to you like you're thinking, but how do you know it's not just a cheap simulation of the process of thought that you can't distinguish from the real thing because you have no frame of reference for what thinking really is? Being capable of even a simulation of thought could be argued to mean you "exist" on some level... but would it not be on a lesser level than things capable of true thought?
  • You know those advertisements where the product is criticized by a random person and they find that person and go to them? You never might know when something like that could happen to you.
  • "Spontaneous human combustion." JUST spontaneous human combustion. And remembering they were simply minding their own business when they burned down to ash for no reason. And the same could happen to YOU!
  • That poor guy. He's got a cast on his arm, and of course he's having trouble loading that big heavy box into his car. And he's pretty cute, too! You offer to help. That guy is Ted Bundy, and he's got you now.
  • The Sun. It provides us heat and light, but in 5 billion years, that same Sun will actually swell up and destroy the Earth as well as a huge portion of our Solar System.
  • Remember: if someone else cooks for you, they control what goes into the food that you eat. Even if you ask them really nicely to make it a certain way, you can never be totally sure.
    • Ladies and gentlemen, the Food and Drug administrations "Defect Levels Handbook" aka the "Guidelines of Filth." Ever wanted to know just how many mosquito eggs can be contained in your peanut butter?
  • Try not to piss off any biology students. They could fake your DNA with a centrifuge and frame you for murder.
  • Try googling your credit card number sometime.
    • If you already have, remember that AOL leaked their search records.
  • How do you know that anyone else is living? For all you know, you're the only existing being, and everyone around you is a lifeless, moving NPC of sorts.
  • The selective service. Yeah, its probably never going to be put to use again, but just imagine if it DID. You're having a great day and everything seems to be going spectacular for you, your life couldn't be better. Then you open up the mail box and find a letter from the U.S. army...
  • You know that Internet Tough Guy you mocked the other day? The one who swore he'd track you down and make you sorry? You laughed at him, dared him to try, and forgot about it ten minutes later. Now, a week later, you realize there's a car you don't recognise following you everywhere you go...
  • The Bluebeard and the Black Widow in Real Life, along with their nonromantic "business" analogues. You find someone who seems to be your absolute true love. This person is not only your love but has amazing ideas and contacts...so you follow along, doing whatever they suggest, whether it's joining their religion, taking out an insurance policy on your life, signing your career over to them or the people they know, being their best friend or lover and providing for them, whatever they ask you to do. Because you're not a bad person after all, or maybe you were and they found some good in you... except they're milking you for every bit of financial profit they can acquire, and then once he/she/they are done with you? You are already dead.
  • The Dirty Cop, Rabid Cop, and especially Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop. They can frame you, they can physically attack or even kill you, they hold almost all power not only to fuck up your life in so many ways - but to rewrite all versions of events and cover for each other.
  • Face Doodling. When you're asleep, you're most likely unaware of your surroundings and if someone is skilled enough at it and/or you're an especially heavy sleeper, someone could draw on your face while you're sleeping and you wouldn't even know it until you got to a reflective surface 'cause you can't see your own face otherwise. It may seem harmless, but it gets horrifying when you realize that some face doodlers have drawn things that are especially nasty, like swastikas. Imagine having to explain that to your boss or your teachers or professors.
  • Mirrors. You know that other person in looking at you in the glass when you look in the mirror? That's your reflection right? Or are you its reflection?
  • Swatting. Someone calls in a false report to your local police reporting you are doing something deserving of a SWAT team response. You don't have to be doing anything. You may not even know it's happened until you find yourself facing the SWAT team and possibly dead from a sniper's bullet.
  • Another addition from the Internet: The Water Army. Before you think it's only a China related problem, realize this: any group, from a nation to a Mega Corp wanting to convey being Peace and Love Incorporated, to a religion such as the Church of Happyology or even a smaller but more aggressive group, or to anyone who can get enough people, paid or volunteer, together to create an opinion or simply to make your life a living hell until you shut up or go away. Worse, this form of Astroturf is growing into one of the most popular forms of spam and Trolling worldwide.
  • Thrill killers. You don't have to piss someone off for them to kill you. Thrill killers set out to murder people for the adrenalin rush and they don't care who the victim is.
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