Joy Virus

The Joy Virus is a highly contagious virus. It makes its first appearance in "The Joy."

Terminology
The virus gets its name because it causes the infected person to become extremely happy and ecstatic. The virus can spread by hugging and physical contact.

Cause
The virus is triggered when a "Wonder Hug", a hug filled with all of the love and happiness in the world, is given. It is unknown if it affects the person who gives the hug. The Wonder Hug will cause a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud to appear, and the person becomes "patient zero".

When the subject wakes back up, they are now fully infected, and are in a zombie-like state.
 * Stage 1: Smiling: The infected individual will start smiling uncontrollably. The face will remain this way, and any way to change it usually results with the face distorting itself in order to return to the smile. An alternative form is heel-clicking, but the heel-clicking will eventually become smiling.
 * Stage 2: Singing: The infected individual will then start to sing in an auto-tuned voice. After that, the individual will then begin to laugh hysterically for short periods of time, and they will begin to cough up a rainbow-colored fluid.
 * Stage 3: Hallucinations: At this point, the individual begins to hallucinate. The individual's pupils dilate, which shows they are in the middle of the infection.
 * Stage 4: Hugging and Kissing: Shortly after hallucinating, the individual will feel a dominant need to hug and kiss people. This is how the infection spreads.
 * Stage 5: Final Moments: The individual will begin to laugh very hysterically, cough up rainbow fluid, then pass out for a short period of time, while they are unconscious their heart beat monitor plays a small song from the beeps and fills with rainbows.

Huggers
A hugger is any infected individual who has gone through all five stages of infection. They are mindless, zombie-like, and highly contagious.

Physical traits
These traits denote a hugger physically.
 * The huge grin.
 * The rainbow fluid, which the infected individual would continuously cough up before passing out, will now ooze out of their mouth.
 * The dilated pupils. In Mr. Small's case, the pupils are smaller and red, and in Tina's case, her pupils seem "demonic".
 * Arms held out.
 * Hysterical laughter.
 * Ripped clothes.

Mental traits
These can denote a hugger mentally. A hugger hugs any individual in its sight. Any normal hugger is not very strong, yet an entire horde is enough to rip a room apart board by board.
 * Huggers lose most of their intelligence and memory when they pass out. They remember basic skills, such as running and hugging, and have retained some memory, as when Gumball hugged (and infected) Penny, after kicking away an infected Banana Joe.TheJoyITSSPREADING9.png
 * They are easily fooled. If one acts like a hugger, the person can get through an entire horde with ease. However, they are attracted to yelling, discipline, and unhappiness, and will try to infect any depressed person.

Contagion
A hugger infects people rather quickly. The more huggers, the quicker the infection will spread. Following this rule, one or two huggers can infect an entire school within five minutes.

The infection for people hugged by a hugger is faster; the infection stages speed up greatly, causing a hugged person to be fully infected within five seconds, unless they are very miserable, like Miss Simian, which in that case the infection will take longer (up to 30 seconds).

Vaccine/Cure
The Joy Virus vaccine is kind of like a camouflage. If you dress up multicolored, for example: Tobias, the infected will think that you are already infected. The only known possible cure is to play depressing music, such as Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." Because of the music's dark and depressing nature, this combats the virus and forces huggers to flee. The hugger's pupils are no longer dilated and will return to its original look. It is unknown if prolonged exposure to this music can completely revert the effects of the virus.

Symptoms of Joy Virus

 * Happiness
 * Hugging
 * Fever
 * Kissing
 * Dilated pupils
 * Rainbow fluids
 * High temperature
 * Uncontrollable smiling
 * Fast heartbeat

People infected

 * Richard (source)
 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Principal Brown
 * School Nurse
 * Bobert
 * Alan
 * Rocky Robinson
 * Eggheads
 * Juke
 * Carmen
 * Jamie
 * Teri
 * Masami
 * Leslie
 * Banana Joe
 * Penny
 * Anais
 * Mr. Small
 * Sussie
 * Coach
 * Tina
 * Miss Simian
 * Anton
 * William
 * Clayton
 * Tobias (as seen in picture #12 below)

Trivia

 * Miss Simian managed to survive the first wave of the infection and even find the cure, but failed to completely neutralize it, and got infected by Gumball and Darwin when they ambushed her from behind.
 * It is possible that Richard was not infected, because he caused the epidemic via the "Wonder Hug."
 * Carrie, Ocho, Hector, Rob and Molly were some of the few students not infected. This is because Carrie, Ocho, and Hector were absent for the duration of the episode. As for Rob and Molly, they had been sucked into the Void. It is also probable that Sarah and Idaho managed to escape, as they were not seen being infected.
 * The Librarian was the only staff member not infected.
 * Gumball and Darwin were the Joy Virus first victims.
 * Principal Brown and is the only known survivor of the Joy Virus.
 * Richard is responsible for the outbreak of the Joy Virus.
 * Anais might be somewhat responsible for the outbreak as well, since she convinced Richard to hug them to begin with.
 * In "The Tape," a similar rainbow liquid to that of the virus comes out of Gumball when he is affected by Darwin's cuteness.