Step into the neon-lit, coin-op haze of 1981 Portland. A featureless black arcade cabinet drops. Kids get violently ill. Men in black suits pull data instead of quarters. Then, the machines vanish into thin air. Welcome back to Victim Matrix.

This week, Raven and Vera are ripping into the ultimate digital ghost story: Polybius. Using the legendary documentary dive by Ahoy as our foundational map, we’re separating the code from the conspiracy. We break down the real-world events that birthed the myth—from the brutal migraines triggered by early Tempest cabinets to the actual FBI arcade raids targeting underground gambling rings.

But we couldn't just stop at the facts. In the second half of the episode, we plunge into the absolute madness of the internet's most unhinged theories. From MKUltra cognitive conditioning and binaural mind-control, to mass hysteria and unshielded electromagnetic radiation. Is Polybius a genuine government psychological weapon, or just a composite memory born from a 1980s moral panic?

Hit play, kill the lights, and don't stare too closely at the screen.

Links & Resources:

• Watch the Source Material: Ahoy’s POLYBIUS Documentary

• Music: Intro and outro tracks mixed and mastered by VEXTOHEX.

Leave us a review and let us know what obscure internet mystery we should break down next!

Welcome back to the bunker for another completely unhinged installment of Side Quests, broadcasting directly from the weirdest corners of the simulation here on the Victim Matrix channel. The world is burning, the timeline is broken, and we are back to laugh at the absolute absurdity of the human race.

This week, we have an episode fully packed with absolute insanity. Grab a drink and strap in.

• The Fart That Stopped Spider-Man: We kick things off in Colombia, where a theater screening of Spider-Man had to be fully evacuated after a moviegoer unleashed a biological weapon so toxic it sent fans running for the exits.

• The Human Refrigerator: Summer heat got you down? A Japanese company just launched the "Do Hiemon Box"—a literal upright refrigerator designed to store a living human being like a carton of milk.

• The Duck Bucks Heist: A South Korean bank manager successfully embezzled $45,000 by swapping real vault cash with cartoon play money covered in ducks and bears.

• Trekking Pole Tough Guy: A Montana wound-care nurse gets fully impaled through the chest by his own trekking pole, decides a helicopter rescue is way too expensive, and casually hikes 10 miles down the mountain with the steel shaft still sticking out of his body.

• Faking Death for a DUI: A man in China takes avoiding accountability to the extreme by convincing his entire family to stage his own funeral just to dodge a drunk driving charge.

• Toilet Chug of Thrones: A Russian plumbing company hosts a bizarre Game of Thrones-themed drinking competition where contestants aggressively chug out of toilet bowls.

• Russian Fuel Warlocks: With massive gas shortages hitting Russia, opportunistic sorcerers and mystics are charging desperate drivers for bogus spells to "magically attract" gasoline into their tanks.

• The Great Fish Sauce Crisis: A tiny Canadian town is finally seeing the light after spending 20 years choking on the stench of 330,000 gallons of abandoned, rotting fish sauce.

• Taylor Swift Barefoot Bandit: Camarillo, California's most dedicated Swiftie breaks into an award-winning ice cream shop with no shoes on, just to steal a life-sized cardboard cutout of "Flat Taylor."

• Crossbow Circus Chaos: We break down the terrifying moment a performer at a New York county fair was accidentally shot directly in the neck with a live arrow (and miraculously survived).

• Painless Tattoos: A UK biotech startup, CipherX, is trying to change ink culture forever with a new stick-on, microneedle patch that permanently tattoos you in 15 minutes with virtually zero pain.

• The 639-Year Concert: We look at the Halberstadt organ that is currently playing a single John Cage composition so slowly it won't finish until the year 2640.

• The Greek Bridge of Denial: A concrete bridge in Greece officially snapped in half and collapsed into a V-shape, but the locals simply refuse to care and keep driving over it anyway.

• 9 Days in the Tub: We cover the absolute nightmare survival story of an 82-year-old widow who was trapped in her bathtub for over a week after a bad fall.

• The Toddler Mukbang Scandal: In our darkest story of the week, we discuss the horrific viral controversy of parents heavily criticized for exploiting and overfeeding their 3-year-old daughter to 77 pounds just for internet mukbang views.

The world is a dystopian circus and we are just here to document the ride. Grab your Duck Bucks, check your toilet bowls, and stay weird.

Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and leave a comment telling us your Petty Hill for the week!

We got chased by Foxy the Skin Walker! Thankfully, Raven made Vera into a wedgie board and we got to work! No wait, the Luigi board told us Vera was pergnit. That's when Raven summoned Zozo through the Owija and fought off Foxy. Then Zozo looked over at us like we were the main course. By that time, the Weejah board farted the planchit into Zozos face. It was disgutted and ran away wimpering with the quija stuck between its legs.

Jokes aside, ​in this episode, we peel back the layers of cardboard, plastic, and satanic panic to separate actual history from total pop-culture bullshit. From ancient Chinese divination rituals to two sisters who managed to scam an entire nation by cracking their toe joints, we explore how a harmless parlor game became the most feared board game in your closet. Plus, we talk about the legendary Aleister Crowley’s weirdly high opinion of the board, and why every ghost-hunting forum in 2008 was terrified of a guy named "Zozo."

​It’s a chaotic mix of debunks, deep historical cuts, and ridiculous stories—crammed with real info, but served with zero gravity.

​Key Topics & Highlights

​Fu Ji (扶乩): The Ancient Precursor

Long before Parker Brothers got involved, spirit writing was already a thriving art in ancient China. We break down Fu Ji—a method of automatic writing using wooden sticks, sand, and sieves—and how it laid the groundwork for modern spirit boards.

​The Fox Sisters (a.k.a. The Original Fox Scammers)

How two bored kids in 1848 upstate New York started the entire Spiritualism movement with fake spirit "rappings" (and how cracking joints turned into a lucrative nationwide racket before it all blew up).

​Demystifying the Myths & the Ideomotor Effect

Why does the board actually move? (Spoiler: It’s your own brain betraying you). We break down the psychology of the ideomotor response and tackle the classic "rules" everyone made up on middle school sleepovers.

​Aleister Crowley's Spirit Board Obsession

Why the world's most infamous occultist didn't view spirit boards as cheap parlor tricks—he actually praised them as legit, highly efficient magical tools for communicating with higher entities.

​The Zozo Phenomenon

Where did this famous "Ouija demon" come from, and why did the internet collectively lose its mind over a name that sounds like a cartoon mascot? We trace the roots of the Zozo panic from 2000s forums to modern paranormal lore.

​Takeaway: Whether you think you're opening a gateway to Hell or just tricked by your friend's nervous twitching, the Ouija board is the ultimate mirror of human belief, fear, and gullibility.