Michelangelo Virus Hysteria Syndrome

Appeared in Volume 6/1, February 1993

Mass hysteria about a virus named "Michelangelo" has been spreading rapidly in MS-DOS-based personal computer users around the world. This scare is "triggered" each year slightly before March 6th, Michelangelo's birthday. No one is immune... people ranging from university students to the staff of TV nightly news programmes have been affected.

According to various psychologists, the Michelangelo Virus hysteria is spread though almost any media channel... written, electronic, oral, computer networks, or on-line services. Once a person is "infected", he will attempt to automatically spread the hysteria to every person he sees. The hysteria also corrupts base reasoning and logic, so loss of common sense is often a symptom. This is unfortunate, since the hysteria can be eliminated at any time with common sense. This means that once activated, the hysteria cannot be easily removed; the easiest thing to do is to let it dissipate naturally on March 7th.

We advise you not to attempt to trick people into believing that March 6th has already passed in order to avoid the hysteria. (Even though we tell you about 3 paragraphs later that we tried it anyway.)

The Michelangelo virus hysteria displays pronounced symptoms, which makes it easy to detect. Some possible symptoms of this virus hysteria include, but are not limited to...

Running virus-checking runs 6,000 times (per disk.)
Sending repeated and redundant email messages.
Sending repeated and redundant email messages.
Sending repeated and redundant email messages.
Photocopying 50,000 flyers and distributing them in every possible location on campus.
Irrational fear/paranoia of or destructive behavior towards computers. (Pushing them off rooftops, etc.)
Using typewriters.

In addition, Dr. Ima Quak of the Bureau of Useless and Lame Laws advises that "we have determined that this hysteria seems to have an almost annual cycle to it. Perhaps this can help us in detecting it."

Any person that is not infected and has common sense can also detect the Michelangelo Virus hysteria.

The Solution

There are many trained psychologists that can detect and/or remove the Michelangelo virus hysteria. However, these steps are usually not necessary. The following techniques have been used to combat the hysteria:

Vigorous shaking and/or slapping.
Large quantities of cold water (a fire hose, for example.)
Avoiding watching TV news programmes.
Accurate, brief, and non-redundant information.

Rest assured that some steps are being taken to help prevent this hysteria. In fact, just last year University of Pittsburgh Chancellor J. Dennis O'Connor approved $82,000 to form a committee to appoint a committee to call a meeting to look into the matter.

For More Information Watch for future bulletins.

If you believe you might be infected with the Michelangelo virus hysteria, please slap yourself once or twice, and ask someone to hose you down with a fire hose.

James Ralston Crawford
qralston@cislabs.pitt.edu