"Some people just fail to make an impact."
Item#: 8720
Level3
Containment Class:
esoteric
Secondary Class:
uncontained
Disruption Class:
dark
Risk Class:
notice
Assigned Site
Site-30
Site Director
Dr. Marcus Shell
Research Head
Dr. Sylvia Shell
Assigned MTF
N/A
Assigned Site
Site-30
Site Director
Dr. Marcus Shell
Research Head
Dr. Sylvia Shell
Assigned MTF
N/A
Special Containment Procedures:
Due to its massive scale, as well as its relatively minor effect, SCP-8720 has been deemed an acceptable deviation from normalcy and remains uncontained.
Site-30's Department of Memetics is to keep a record of every carrier of SCP-8720 known to the Foundation.
Description:
SCP-8720 is a minor antimemetic phenomenon estimated to affect roughly 16 million humans, or 0.2% of the world's population.
Carriers of SCP-8720 are, by themselves, entirely non-anomalous. SCP-8720 becomes apparent in their perception and consideration by others: On average, any given individual will have significant difficulties recalling any of the following of a carrier of SCP-8720, compared to a non-anomalous human:
- Their first and last name
- The finer details of their appearance
- Their personal and professional achievements
- Their preferences, sentiments and convictions, if previously shared with the individual in question
Notably, SCP-8720 does not affect a carrier's ability to be perceived in the first place. Individuals will be able to remember interacting with someone, but will not be able to provide details beyond a general description. If exposed to a carrier of SCP-8720 routinely, they may become capable of re-identifying them, but will be unable to form any strong associations with their person. Information conveyed to an individual by a carrier of SCP-8720 concerning any subject other than those listed above is unaffected by SCP-8720 — the individual in question will remember the information itself, but not who told it to them.
Individuals under the influence of a Class W or Y mnestic substance are able to retain information concerning a carrier of SCP-8720 consistent with their ability to retain information about any non-anomalous human. However, if that influence is to cease, they will forget said information within a period averaging from twenty minutes to an hour. The information can be recalled through use of a Class X mnestic, though only if it was originally acquired under the influence of a Class W or Y — otherwise, the Class X will have no effect.
Current evidence suggests that SCP-8720 may spontaneously begin affecting a carrier at any point in life. While the exact time is difficult to reconstruct, there exist purported manifestations of SCP-8720 both early in the childhood of, as well as rather late into the life of the affected individual. The cause of this is, as of yet, unknown.
There is no known way of ridding a carrier of SCP-8720.
Close Addendum 8720-1-A
Excerpts from Shell, S. 2012. SCP-8720 - A statistical analysis and conclusions thereof. Memetics Quartely. 34(2A):131-146.
"They say the average person meets around 80,000 people in a lifetime. It's reasonable to assume you wouldn't remember most of them — your brain couldn't keep up with all the input. Do you remember, for instance, the person you sat across from on your commute to work this morning? How about the person working the checkout the last time you went to buy groceries?
The ability of any person to leave an impression on you is what will henceforth be referred to as their memetic imprint. Note that not only a person possesses a memetic imprint — any vector for information does, be it a text, an image, a sound, an object, even an idea. Furthermore, note that one's receptivity to a memetic imprint is not universal, either. Different people are prone to noticing different things, owing to social and psychological factors affecting each individual human psyche.
SCP-8720 then, at first blush, really isn't an "anomaly" at all. It is the human mind working as intended, picking out that which it deems important and discarding the rest. This is easier to concede, perhaps, of objects — many things fail to leave a lasting impression on us, be it a text that is poorly worded, a picture that is blurry, an object that fails to be remarkable, to catch our attention. Why should the same not be true of people?
Except that's not true, is it? Man is a social animal, says Aristotle, so one would like to think we would be more prone to paying attention to our fellow human than everything else that makes up the world around us. That, sure, while the human mind is constantly in the process of slowly forgetting everything it has ever known, humanity's unique capability to be invested in one another may be the lone factor powerful enough to counteract this. We may not recall every face in a crowd, but we remember those we respect, those we love, even those we loathe. And crucially, that can be anyone: Any stranger can be transformed into someone who matters a great deal to us. Our minds are our own. All is right with the world.
Only that isn't true of carriers of SCP-8720. They are perpetually stuck as strangers, and there is no hope of ever turning them into anything else. Not for a lack of perceiving them, but because we cannot hold on to them — try as they might, try as we might, they just fail to make an impact. It is a kind of cognitive lotus effect. To use the terminology established previously: They simply seem to lack a memetic imprint."
Discovery:
SCP-8720-1 in Site-30's Amnestics Lab.
SCP-8720 came to the Foundation's attention through carrier SCP-8720-1, real name Félix P████, originally employed by the Foundation as a general amnesthesiologist at Site-14. SCP-8720 caused multiple administrative difficulties, with patients and colleagues finding themselves unable to recall both SCP-8720-1's name and other details about them. This was initially mistaken as a side effect of the various amnestic treatments administered by SCP-8720-1, until further investigation revealed it to be a wholly separate anomaly.
SCP-8720-1 has since been relocated to Site-30 and serves as the primary subject for further study of SCP-8720, while also continuing their work as an amnesthesiologist for the personnel at the site.
Following the discovery, a mass survey of Foundation staff was conducted across nine highly populated sites to estimate the prevalence of SCP-8720. This lead to the identification of carriers SCP-8720-2 through -208.
Close Addendum 8720-1-B
Excerpts from Shell, S. 2012. SCP-8720 - A statistical analysis and conclusions thereof. Memetics Quartely. 34(2A):131-146.
"After identifying carriers SCP-8720-1 through -208, our second survey focused on further characterizing those afflicted by SCP-8720 in comparison to a control group. To that end, we posed various questions, concerning their lifestyle, personal philosophy, physical and emotional wellbeing, and suchlike, with the intent to discover potential correlations between any of these factors and the presence of SCP-8720. Perhaps naively, we assumed that this would allow us to identify some sort of factor likely to have induced the development of SCP-8720.
We did, in fact, find a number of correlations: On average, for example, carriers of SCP-8720 reported a much higher rate of depression, as well as general feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. They are much less likely to occupy a higher-ranking position at their respective site, and less likely to report romantic partnerships or close friendships. They are more likely to be estranged from their families. They are more likely to engage in risk-seeking behavior, but, perhaps paradoxically, also more prone to shyness and anxiety. They are more likely to exhibit both sleep problems and disordered eating.
Now, the problem with this is obvious: All of these correlations seem much more likely to be, themselves, results of SCP-8720, rather than existing independently of it. The profile described above matches many of the adverse psychological effects that the prolonged social isolation induced by by SCP-8720 would cause. Since the point in time at which SCP-8720 has manifested in a particular carrier is near impossible to identify in retrospect, we cannot say whether these proclivities were present previously, or whether it was purely SCP-8720 itself that induced them.
The search for a potential cause of SCP-8720 remains ongoing."
Excerpts from Document SCP-8720-A-2: List of Persons of Interest either theorized or confirmed to be SCP-8720 carriers
Designated: PoI-7004
Name/Aliases: Unknown
Status: Theorized
Description: PoI-7004 is either one or several high-ranking agent(s) in the employ of the Global Occult Coalition (GOC). The existence of PoI(s)-7004 is hypothesized based upon various recorded run-ins with GOC operatives where the Foundation agents involved failed to provide a detailed description of the operatives in question, citing an inability to remember them well. It is unknown whether the GOC is unaware of the presumed affliction of these operatives with SCP-8720, or whether they were able to discover SCP-8720 independently of the Foundation and are now strategically deploying carriers for certain types of field work, though the latter seems more likely.
Designated: PoI-4366
Name/Aliases: Sofia M██████
Status: Confirmed
Description: PoI-4366 is an individual previously associated with the Serpent's Hand. From 1994 to 2008, while posing as a veiled civilian, she ran a safehouse in ██████, Czech Republic, where she accommodated various PoIs and other anomalous individuals. PoI-4366 was theorized to be a carrier of SCP-8720 based on various interrogations of detained PoIs who claimed to have lodged with her, but were unable to provide more information on her, citing an inability to remember her well. In 2008, following the discovery of SCP-8720, a Foundation double agent on a low dose of Class W amnestics was able to infiltrate PoI-4366's circle, leading to her identification and detainment. During her interrogation, she claimed to have no knowledge of SCP-8720 and her being a carrier of it. PoI-4366 has since been released and remains under Foundation surveillance.
Designated: PoI-1882
Name/Aliases: Guillem M███████
Status: Theorized
Description: PoI-1882 was a man from ████████, Spain, affiliated with a Fifthist subset of the so-called 'seduction community', which was beginning to rise to prominence in Northern Spain at around this time. On 10/17/2009, he set off an anomalous bioweapon on the Plaça De L'Ajuntament, ████████, killing 13 people. Due to the state of the bodies, none of them could be positively identified as PoI-1882. Nonetheless, due to his disappearance following the incident, PoI-1882 is presumed to have perished in it. During their investigation, Foundation agents were able to discover a manifesto of sorts in PoI-1882's apartment, where he lamented what are presumed to be the effects of SCP-8720, particularly his lack of romantic prospects. It ends with his resolution to create and detonate the aforementioned weapon as an act of retaliation against, in his words, "a world that would not let [him] in".
Close Addendum 8720-1-C
Excerpts from Shell, S. 2012. SCP-8720 - A statistical analysis and conclusions thereof. Memetics Quartely. 34(2A):131-146.
"The strategic uses of something like SCP-8720 are obvious. It doesn't begin and end at employing carriers of SCP-8720 in positions where anonymity provides an advantage, either. For now, we are only aware of persons being subject to SCP-8720's effect, but then again, people are also the only ones capable of complaining to us about how no one seems to notice them — who is to say SCP-8720 is not, at this very moment, affecting all kinds of other entities and objects.
If we could either A) discover the cause of SCP-8720 and utilize it to deliberately induce it in carriers, or B) somehow isolate SCP-8720 and attach it to a new subject, it could provide immense utility for the maintainment of secrecy. The Foundation has quite a sizeable history of data leaks, with consequences ranging anywhere from tedious to catastrophic. If we could utilize SCP-8720 to inoculate a piece of information against its own spread, so to speak, we could drastically reduce the risk of such a thing occurring — and at a comparatively minimal risk, to boot!
In summary: SCP-8720 possesses tremendous potential to become an immensely useful tool the SCP Foundation. The importance of continuing research into it, hence, can not be overstated."