Lavandia Syndrome

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The Lavandia Syndrome ( English Lavender Town Syndrome ) is a modern legend based on the first generation of the Pokémon game series . This states that the music played in the city of Lavandia was responsible for the suicide of hundreds of children in Japan in the spring of 1996.

background

The background music, on reaching the city Lavandia in the first generation of Pokémon games is played, was established in 2012 by the horror specified website Bloody Disgusting elected zweitgruseligsten used in a video game track. For Brittany Vincent, the decisive factor for the placement was that the "deceptively calm sound is one of the most terrifying childhood memories for many players." The music of the town of Lavandia was composed by Jun'ichi Masuda and combines sharp chiptune sounds with a "string of harrowing chords" to create an eerie atmosphere.

In 2010, an anonymous user of the website published pastebin a CREEPYPASTA , which states that the music in the spring of 1996, more than 100 children in Japan in the suicide forced. Other children, on the other hand, suffered nosebleeds , headaches , hallucinations , panic attacks , sleep disorders or behaved irrationally aggressive. According to this modern saga, binaural beats damaged children's brains, while adults showed immunity. The fabricated disease was called Lavandia Syndrome and within a very short time it spread rapidly on the Internet, including through sites like 4chan .

A video, also published in 2010, showed a graphic representation of the music, the graphic of which towards the end shows the shapes of the Pokémon Icognito , which together form the sentence leave now ( German for "go now"). Although this Pokémon was only officially introduced in the second generation , files containing data from Icognito were discarded on the previous editions .

Over time, many people have added more details to make the narrative more believable. For example, with the help of the image editing program Photoshop, images of ghosts were added to the Lavandia music spectrograms . Mark Hill of Kill Screen described that the appeal of the Lavandia syndrome come from corrupting innocent symbols of childhood and compares this with the episode Dennō Senshi Porygon , an episode of Pokémon - Anime that in Japan at hundreds of children epileptic seizures caused .

reaction

To date, there is no evidence that the alleged incident occurred. There are also no figures that indicate an increased suicide rate during the period in question. Nevertheless, Nintendo had the Lavandia music adapted for a release of the Pokémon games on the western market. The pitches and frequencies were lowered because the developers were of the opinion that the original was too repulsive for Western audiences. These changes also led to speculation as to whether there was any truth to Lavandia Syndrome.

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b MolotovCupcake: The 10 Scariest Video Game Music Tracks. Bloody Disgusting , July 31, 2012, archived from the original on April 20, 2017 ; accessed on November 27, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Markus Böhm: Creepypasta: Scary stories from Internet forums. Spiegel Online , April 10, 2014, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  3. ^ Decoding the mystery of "Lavender Town Syndrome" and the "Lavender Tone". Pastebin , July 11, 2010, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  4. ^ A b Luise Bär: Training for studies. Weser-Kurier Online , May 28, 2014, accessed on November 26, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Thomas Porwol: The Most Absurd Conspiracy Theories in Video Games. Techbook, September 15, 2017, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Janna Tillmann: Pokémon - The Truth Behind the Known Myths. Gamepro , May 4, 2017, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Rainer Sigl: Warning: These video games are haunted! DerStandard , August 12, 2018, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b Malte Eichelbaum: True or False? # 2: 200 dead children from Pokémon? Spieletipps.de , July 22, 2012, accessed on November 26, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Jay Hathaway: Lavender Town: The Bizarre Pokémon Child-Suicide Conspiracy Theory. Gawker , March 12, 2015; archived from the original on October 21, 2016 ; accessed on November 27, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Mark Hill: The Lingering Appeal of Pokémon's Greatest Ghost Story. Kill Screen , February 25, 2016; archived from the original on March 14, 2016 ; accessed on November 27, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Patricia Hernandez: Pokémon 's Creepy Lavender Town Myth, Explained. Kotaku , October 23, 2015; archived from the original on February 25, 2017 ; accessed on November 27, 2018 .
  12. ↑ David Molke: Pokémon - Did the Anime Series Really Trigger Epilepsy Seizures in the 90s? Gamepro, June 1, 2017, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Alessandro Fillari: The 9 Strangest Gaming Urban Legends. Gamespot , December 22, 2017, accessed November 26, 2018 .