Barbelith Underground > Laboratory > Theory Lab: The Cathode Virus X-Periments!

so in Videodrome, the special signal created a genetic change in the viewer -- max gets a brain tumor from watching the channel which makes him hallucinate, and turns out to be a new kind of organ.

in the japanese Ring movies / books, an evil psychic creates a videotape out of her mind that gives the viewer a virus similar to smallpox, transfered from person to person through the watching of the video.

these seem like the ultimate end of the MEME -- a literal combination of media and genetics. speaking pseudo-scientifically and for the hell of it, how could such a thing be possible? the most obvious version would be a screen that beams powrful rays giving the viewer cancer. but how could it be imagined in more complicated ways, ways that could reprogram genes based on the contents of the media itself?

have there been experiments in real life to do this sort of thing?