Serial Experiments Lain is a series that goes in-depth with the theme of how the internet, called the “Wired”, affects peoples’ perception between reality and the online world and how those lines can blur. This affects the main character, Lain, in extraordinary ways in which she comes to realize her true, god-like potential. While the series is considered in many ways timeless in its appeal and message, Serial Experiments Lain explores a prescient vision of the internet’s effects on the public.
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In the world we live in today, post the 90’s technological setting of Serial Experiments Lain, technology may have gotten way more advanced, but our brains are no less wired in the wireless world than in the Wired. We’ve all experienced the effects of brain rot, whether directly or second-hand, in our modern daily use of the internet. But how would the alternate reality of Lain and the Wired fare with modern brain rot internet culture?
The Internet and Brain Rot
What encompasses brain rot internet culture? In general, it’s the excessive consumption of repetitive, low-quality online media that contains such low standards for entertainment purposes that the recipient exhibits effects of mental and intellectual decline. Some examples of such media can be seen in content farming on TikTok, mobile games that showcase nonsensical gameplay with often random explicit themes, the omnipresence of certain repetitive slang, and references to whatever the “rizz king” and “skibidi toilet” are.
An increasingly large portion of our population can freely admit to having some form of guilty pleasure rooted in brain rot, whether it creates hilarious iconic anime memes, or turns individuals into celebrities overnight. It may not be made with much forethought, but brain rot that goes viral on the internet has a way of lingering in one’s memory far past any expiration date. The idea of incorporating this missing component into Serial Experiments Lain’s complex vision, however, projects a different sort of image.
The Alternate Universe Known as the Wired
Lain is a shy middle school girl who initially neither shows much interest in interacting with her cliquey classmates nor her aloof family. Although society in Serial Experiments Lain is depicted as relatively normal, if boring, by day, Lain picks up on strange happenings even beyond the shady nightlife. Lain’s father relates to her a bit more than her mother and sister and introduces her to computers and the Wired world’s uses.
Though the general populace acts like they really only use computers for mundane things like email, Lain slowly becomes consumed with the epiphany that the Wired is much more than something to be contained within hardware. As Lain asserts that the Wired goes beyond the restraints of the physical world and that everyone is connected on a higher level, people start feeling that pull as the new drug of choice begins influencing their perceptions to become caught between the blurred realities of the real world and the Wired. Now let’s imagine how the addition of modern-day internet brain rot culture would affect Lain, and the universe surrounding the Wired.
Serial Experiments Brain Rot and Lain’s Social Circle
As much as Lain is initially depicted to be somewhat disconnected from her classmates both socially and technologically, the addition of brain rot culture to the classroom and after-school activities probably would’ve increased the divide. Lain’s already meek demeanor and formal yet shy way of speaking had already set her apart, but with brain rot slang added to her peers’ vocabulary, Lain would’ve surely felt less affable.
Following her classmate Chisa’s death, maybe the impossible emails received from her would’ve been likely to be written off as a strange, offensive prank. Perhaps Lain would’ve never gone to Cyberia, the local club, if she was unable to decode her friend’s text invitation if it had said something like “Skibidi dat gyat on over with us laterz to rizz up the dance dungeon for some goon ahh vibes!” This, of course, would have been in the place of, “Lain, where are you? Everyone’s waiting! You’ve got to come!”
Even if Lain were to still somehow end up at the club, perhaps she wouldn’t have approached the deranged, hysterical man with a gun if he had begun not just ranting and raving, but doing so in even more incomprehensible slang. The people who recognized her at the club might’ve been more convinced that her Wired persona was someone completely different from her docile self if that more persistent persona included a brain rot factor. Perhaps her sister Mika’s eventual decline of sanity would’ve been even worse off.
Perhaps the existence of brain rot itself would ironically have been something that could’ve actually spared Lain from discovering the forbidden knowledge. Or perhaps, being the Wired itself, she would’ve realized her true world paradigm; Serial Experiments Brain Rot, if you will.
Would Lain Be Affected by Internet Censorship of Brain Rot or the Self?
If those connected to the Wired would’ve been more apt to use TikTok, would Lain have temporarily died even as a god-like figure during the application’s shutdown? Sure, everyone is connected over the internet, that is until government intervention blocks certain uses. Would Lain just get an onion router and VPN to add to her pile of wires and machines?
Then again, perhaps the device she mysteriously receives, a “Psyche” chip, that supposedly allows full-range control and connection to the Wired, would bypass such blockades anyhow. The government can break our application accesses, but they can’t break our spirit processors. Well, maybe they can – after all, the Men in Black, Karl and Lin, had the job of doing so.
The Disastrous Implications of a Video Game in the Wired
Even though the game within the Wired began as software for the scientific study that created the fusion between its creator, Masami Eiri, and itself, there’s no doubt that internet culture would further mold it into something far from reputable. Its fate could’ve wound up being transformed into a strange, modded AR version of games like Fortnite or Team Fortress 2 full of annoying sound effects and ever-multiplying, content-farming provocateurs. Imagine the horrific implications of such a game not simply existing, but existing in a way you can’t actually escape: A brain rot game that follows you into the real world even if you turn off the screen or even actively try avoiding it.
On the other hand, perhaps that’s just real life anyway when things like casual conversation are filled with slang and children in public have tablets fused to their fingers. Any harmful real-world destruction would probably just be seen akin to the exploits of Florida Man havoc. Life imitates art, after all.
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Connecting With Others in This Alternate Serial Experiments Lain
Would the bombardment of brain rot be enough to break a spirit processor? After all, as much as Lain uses her newfound esoteric technologically advanced skills to connect with others and effortlessly gain knowledge, perhaps being assaulted with brain rot content would make her adverse to such an endeavor.
When Lain speaks with who she thought of as her father, she realizes she loves everyone and just wants to be able to still connect with others on such a level. AI-generated nonsensical videos, the “Mr.Beastification” of certain internet spaces, media overconsumption, and overstimulating slop entertainment would inundate Lain with distractions. With such an overwhelming amount of mentally fatiguing and disparaging content today’s viral world holds, would Lain still feel such a deep attachment amidst today’s internet culture? It certainly presents a frightening (or darkly amusing) question that could make for a fascinating anime premise.
The Brain Rot God
“I only exist inside of those people aware of my existence.” The claims of finding a deity figure within the Wired can be taken in a few different ways, but essentially the theme encompasses the idea of solipsism: the philosophy of nothing being certain to exist outside of one’s own consciousness. So, when Lain comes to realize her existence is really essentially the Wired itself, from her perspective, she is the main true existence in totality. Therefore, when the real world and the Wire merge into one existence, Lain does indeed become an omnipresent, omnipotent god-like figure.
So, along with the depictions of Lain’s multiple facets of personas within the Wired, there would surely be one portraying her as the sole origin and embodiment of the “knowledge-maxxing sigma rizzler god.”
Would the Reality of a Brain-Rotted World of the Wired be Any Scarier Than Our Own?
Lain’s life becomes more and more distorted as the Wired tightly squeezes its hold on her perception of reality. As Lain tries to find what the Wired is and who she is, the more unlike herself she becomes. Perhaps that’s what’s happening with brain rot in our world, too: the more people consume such media, the less like themselves they become, their psyches disintegrating from the slop.
Internet culture has become part of everyday culture, uncontained to the online world and instead infiltrating our everyday lives. Everyone is connected in one way or another, whether by willingly creating website profiles or unwillingly having information traced to them by over-encompassing tech company giants. Perhaps the horrific hypothetical implications posed toward the fictitious world of the Wired in Serial Experiments Lain isn’t too far-fetched from modern-day real-life experiences. In the end, you are what you consume.
What do you think would happen if Lain’s Wired universe included all the brain rot content of today? Let us know in the comments!
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