A few days ago someone was talking about modern myths. But what about monsters and fantastical creatures? I can think of a few creatures that grow out of social media culture but there must be others.
Brainworms (inspired by real parasites (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-people-get-parasitic-brain-worms-like-the-one-rfk-jr-had/))
Leopards Eating People's Faces Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkeys_voting_for_Christmas) (more of a parable, est. Twitter 2015)
Fail whale (Yiying Lu, a graphic designer for Twitter)
Mind virus (Richard Dawkins' memes; whether the mind virus is the esoteric Neo-Nazis or their 'woke' imagined other is a matter of perspective)
Reply Guy
As well as some modern monsters with offline origins:
Red Queen's Race (Lewis Carol, also more of a parable)
Robots (AFAIK Hephaestus' walking tripods never revolted like in The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
Sasquatch (yes there are First Nations stories, no the modern settler cryptid does not have much to do with them)
Nessie (est. 1933)
Dracula (not quite the same as earlier vampires from Eastern Europe or China or anywhere else)
NPCs (the idea that other people lack inner lives or agency, while you and your friends are special snowflakes; I think this comes out of CRPG culture because a good GM will make it clear that tabletop NPCs have lives other than asking the PCs to kill 5 rats)
What are some others? I am not aware of every Internet tradition. The monsters a culture creates or fears can tell you a lot about it.
In terms of modern (C20 or later) monsters, part of it's defining terms. So I think to count as a "modern monster" we may have to exclude some sorts of explicit fantasy? Because otherwise you have half the D&D monster manual and the entire plethora of modern SFF to work with. If we count the Owlbear and the Umber Hulk and suchlike, not to mention the modern understandings of ideas like "elf" and "orc" that didn't exist in 1900 then we get an extremely long list.
We also have the complex problem of whether someone "needs to believe in it" for it to count, or whether it needs to have a "folk" origin of some kind. But given the examples above I guess we're being loose on that front.
So maybe the key things are monsters specific to the period and its anxieties in why they exist.
Things I think may count as especially C20th monsters:
- Gremlins were specifically created to explain aircraft malfunctions IIRC, making them a quintessentially modern monster
- The 'Cthulu mythos' is explicitly allied to modernity, as much as it's been back-imported into fantasy. Fantasy and medieval settings tend to struggle with Lovecraftian mythos, because the essential horror of it is the complete destruction of the scientific/rational worldview and its replacement with uncaring eldritch horrors. IIRC in the Cthulu Dark Ages TTRPG they actually have a neat approach where their medieval characters actually cope better with the revelations of the mythos than a C19th counterpart because they do have a framework where "demonic evil entity" is a way of rationalising the Old Ones.
- The zombie as we understand it today, which obviously bears little resemblance to earlier counterparts. Fear of pandemic disease, societal collapse, and evil looking like massed hordes of angry people are all quite C20th things.
- Godzilla/Kaiju in general have a role of being nuclear war analogies.
Specifically internet lore monsters:
- Modern pop-folk-horror creatures, most obviously e.g. Slenderman, various things in creepypasta traditions (which are something I don't know much about)
- Roko's basilisk
- Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster count?
- If reply guys count, then sealions in the specifically internet sense are presumably in there.
- Exilian-specific ones: teh bunneh, the mighty mushroom of mundifron, professor mcblusterfluff's highly trained titmouse, the Guancananalamama, Krishnabots, Wibulnibs. I think the latter two are probably the most interesting here in that they each emerged from something that actually happened rather than being soley the consolidation of a running joke.
I think the Rust Monster and the Gelatinous Cube would qualify but they do feel different. There are stories about how house horror is a metaphor for the terror of home ownership under late 20th and early 21st century capitalism.
The Cthulu Mythos is also special because its about the last pop culture thing to enter the public domain and become a global sensation. It does have a Catholic variant as well as Lovecraft's cosmically indifferent version.
Flying Spaghetti Monster sounds great! Although His Noodliness is a god not a monster.
Quote from: dubsartur on February 28, 2025, 10:05:57 PMAlthough His Noodliness is a god not a monster.
"Can a god also be a monster" is quite an interesting ontological question. Ammit for example I think one absolutely has to say is both monstrous and divine? And a lot of monsters in different mythologies are the offspring of gods in some way.
Quote from: dubsartur on February 28, 2025, 10:05:57 PMI think the Rust Monster and the Gelatinous Cube would qualify but they do feel different. There are stories about how house horror is a metaphor for the terror of home ownership under late 20th and early 21st century capitalism.
I think there may be a difference between monsters we create as challenges for the sorts of heroes who clearly do not have similar lives to the audience - monsters that, if you like, stay behind the storyteller - and those whose literary conceit is that they might be lurking round any corner.