This year's New Year's Day holiday seems to be more lively than usual, travel and tourism have become the norm, and major cities that have smelled the taste of early spring have also held a series of comic exhibition activities, and netizens who know or don't know each other have gone out of the house, wanting to take advantage of the short holiday to relax.
But after the end of the lively exchange meeting, the two-dimensional enthusiasts who participated in the exhibition did not experience the satisfaction of self-realization, but the sense of fear and fear, and a plausible rumor spread everywhere these days, causing a lot of panic:
Comic Con poisoning sounds like a very bad large-scale criminal case, but just when the majority of passers-by are still indignant for the two-dimensional group and hope to find out the murderer and bring him to justice as soon as possible, some experienced and well-informed old two-dimensional people just stand by and share with everyone the facts they have seen with their own eyes: In the past 10 years, the so-called "Comic Con poisoning" news has been reported almost every year.
Is it a long-standing series of unsolved cases, or is it a group delusion that is looming at work? An urban legend that belongs to the second dimension seems to be constantly being staged in comic conventions all over the country.
1
Although it is difficult to pinpoint the specific origin of this poisoning incident, the Phantom Sakura Comic Con held in Jinan should be one of the first activities to be "exposed" to malicious poisoning.
No material, the meaning of free in Japanese, in the Chinese context, generally refers to free small objects, small goods, here can be understood as free snacks distributed at the comic exhibition
After the end of the Phantom Sakura Comic-Con, the routine return to the picture did not come as scheduled, instead of the real record of the exhibitor Coser being injured and accidentally eaten, the unlucky egg who was recruited was released with bloody photos, and the group of relatives and friends who did not know the truth also forwarded it, warning everyone to beware of the unfrequented snacks taken back from the Comic Con.
According to the chat records leaked on the Internet, these harmful substances packaged as snacks usually contain sharp objects such as blades and curved needles, and once they enter the mouth, they can cause bleeding and scratches at least and hospital beds at worst.
At the same time, the types of snacks are also strange, toffee lollipops, soft candy hard candies, and the offender seems to have a strange obsessive-compulsive disorder, so he must stuff something strange into each type of snack.
In the process of information circulation, everyone found that this matter did not seem to be so simple, more and more victims posted their personal experiences of eating blades, and the dangerous items hidden in snacks gradually escalated, no longer limited to physical metal weapons, and some people even claimed that they had eaten sleeping pills, AIDS blood and other bizarre items.
At this point, the poisoning of the comic exhibition began to spread from the original Jinan to all provinces and cities across the country, and even, there is news that some exhibitors have unfortunately passed away, and a series of conclusive chat records seem to tell you that these rumors are not alarmist.
Regardless of the motive for the crime, from a technical point of view, it is not impossible to stuff a blade into a snack, and similar cases often occur on Halloween, which has a huge circulation of snacks, such as in Florida two years ago, when an 8-year-old girl was cut in the mouth by a blade hidden in a chocolate package.
It's you again, Florida
Considering that we are talking about the second dimension, it is natural to cite some examples from the second dimension.
Two-dimensional friends who have watched "When the Cicadas Cry" should still remember that in the 4th episode of the anime, the protagonist Keiichi ate the rice balls delivered by his friends, but felt a tingling pain when chewing, and Keichi spit out the rice balls in his mouth only to find that there was a sharp sewing needle hidden in it, and the friendship that concealed the murderous intention inevitably made people feel a chill down their spines.
It's not uncommon to imitate crimes, and imitation crimes in reality inspired by "When the Cicadas Cried" sounded quite like that.
But the problem is that when the organizers of the comic con called the police and the local police went out to find the truth of the incident, the victims of the poisoning incident disappeared en masse overnight.
2
On January 2, not long after the outbreak of the Comic-Con poisoning incident, a reporter from China News Weekly found the staff of the Phantom Sakura Comic Con who was in the center of public opinion, and the reply given by the other party was: "The police have been called at the first time, and the local police have also filed a case that morning, but some so-called victims were contacted and found that the photos were unreal, and the victims could not be found." ”
It's obviously a bit unreasonable to not find the victim, you must know that just a few days ago, there were two-dimensional groups of exhibitors lying in hospitals across the country, flipping through the relevant information left by the social platform at the time, you can find piles of real pictures of poisoning and injuries, each victim is using his own personal experience to warn the harmfulness of the comic show.
After the police officially dispatched, the situation ushered in a turning point, and the Weibo account that was still calling on everyone to beware of the poisoning incident chose to delete the post and run away.
Now there are only 4 results left in a search for "comic book blades" on Xiaohongshu
Soon after, some rumor-refuting news from the parties involved in the incident came out one after another, all of which were apology templates, highly similar psychological reasons, and it seemed that what had happened in the last few days was just a farce from the beginning, and the Internet amplified the most uncomfortable part of this farce.
Of course, there are also some netizens who insist that there are really victims around them, but the mixed rumors and the police and media's investigation work are not sufficient, resulting in the real need of help not being found in time.
However, judging from the remarks of some of the people in charge of the comic convention, they have contacted every victim who indicated that they were recruited on the Internet as much as possible, but the result was no result, either they took the initiative to admit to spreading rumors, or they refused to submit information to cooperate with the police.
In the solution of "When the Cicadas Cry", the author answers the truth about the hidden needles of the rice ball from a new perspective, and it turns out that the protagonist Keiichi suffers from Hinamizawa syndrome, which can make people insane, and the strong sense of fear amplifies the hallucination of paranoia, and mistakes the pain caused by chili peppers for the stinging sensation of pins, which leads to misunderstanding and eventually leads to tragedy.
Obviously, there are no such mystical symptoms in the real world, and although a small number of victims may be real, there is a lot of evidence that Comic-Con poisoning is actually more like a trio of tigers.
So, the next question is, naturally, who and for what purpose directed and acted in this two-dimensional drama at the beginning of the year?
3
More than ten years ago, there were many bizarre urban legends circulating on the Chinese Internet, one of which was to advise everyone to pay attention to sharp objects on the seats of Internet cafes, maybe you will be pricked by needles contaminated with HIV, and there were even relevant news reports back then, which seems to coincide with the comic exhibition poisoning incident encountered by the two-dimensional group today.
With the development and progress of the times, there are many fewer such urban legend-style rumors, but in the two-dimensional field, the poisoning of comic conventions is indeed an enduring topic.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the news of the poisoning of Comic Con has been repeated over and over again over the past 10 years, and it seems to have become a traditional comic book preservation project in a sense.
News for 2020
Many netizens intuitively believe that the rumor-mongering behavior of the comic exhibition poisoning is an opportunity for some two-dimensional groups to sell fan products for profit in order to win traffic and attract attention, which may be one of the reasons, but we might as well think about it from another angle.
If you have carefully read the speeches and submissions of these "victims", you will probably notice the high-frequency word "cash", and they like to add modifiers such as "bad" and "smelly" in front of the cash, implying that the cash-filled group is the culprit of these dangerous goods.
Originally meaning "a person who lives a fulfilling life in the real world", it is often used as a term to distinguish it from the stereotype of "two-dimensional group" - but in principle, the two are not intrinsically entangled, and appear more as an identity label that lacks practical meaning.
Or, to put it more simply: the way some two-dimensional groups distinguish themselves is by calling each other "present".
Some people will even call coser "cash charge"
So back to the main purpose of this article, since some of the victims are so unkind to see the current charge, then they chose to spread rumors out of a dark mentality and out of disgust with the so-called "present charge"?
Such an arbitrary conclusion is obviously biased, if you check the relevant records of poisoning in previous comic conventions, you will notice that whenever such an incident occurs, the object of the speaker's criticism is different every time, from the opponent to the fans of the three-dimensional star, it seems that "current charge" is only a temporary target, and there is another hidden meaning behind the large-scale collective "soul calling".
Humans are complex animals, and it's hard to tell why so many people are lying about their poisoning and injuries at the same time. But if you have to find an optional answer, it may be that the act of "playing an injured and sick weakling" is itself a part of the big cosplay at Comic-Con, driven by the collective unconscious.
Comic Con is still a social game after all. The so-called "comic exhibition poisoning", judging from the communication psychology of some of the victims, may be a kind of social media, identity-based huddle for warmth - of course, even if most of the communicators may just be joking, it does not prevent the "poisoning incident" from causing a negative social impact, and it is also abusing the kindness of others.
This is not the first time that a comic book has been poisoned, and it probably won't be the last time for the foreseeable future. It's important to be mindful of snacks from strangers, but it's also important to remember that the Internet isn't an outsider, and not everything can be used as an excuse to make up stories.