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 extraordinarily optimistic and ecstatic.

Cause
The virus is triggered when a "Wonder Hug", or a hug filled with all of the love and happiness in the world, is given. No-one knows who invented The Wonder Hug. It is unknown if it affects the person who gives the hug, but the person(s) who gets hugged becomes "patient zero". The Wonder Hug will cause a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud to appear. The example in the episode may or may not be the first incident of a joy outbreak.

Stages of infection
When the subject wakes back up, they are now fully infected, and are in a zombie-like state. It is possible that certain people may like being a hugger, and that the infected people's sadness is locked up inside them. It should be noted that when they wake up again, they retain most of these symptoms when they are in their zombie-like state and may want to become a hugger again, as they enjoyed being one.
 * Stage 1: Smiling: The infected individual will being to smile 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. (This is not to be confused with Compulsive Singing Disorder). 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. For example, the school nurse is seen to be a candy cane.
 * Stage 4: Hugging and Kissing: Shortly after Stage 3 occurs, 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.

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.
 * Arms held out.
 * Hysterical laughter.CrazyDar.png

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.
 * They will not attack any multicolored people, as they believe the person is already infected.

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 are sped up greatly, causing a hugged person to be fully infected within five seconds, unless they are very miserable, like Miss Simian.

Cure
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. It is unknown if prolonged exposure to this music can completely revert the effects of the virus.



People infected

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Principal Brown
 * Nurse
 * Bobert
 * Alan
 * Rocky Robinson
 * Eggheads
 * Juke
 * Carmen
 * Jamie
 * Teri
 * Masami
 * Leslie
 * Banana Joe
 * Penny
 * Anais
 * Mr. Small
 * Sussie
 * Coach
 * Tina
 * Tobias
 * Miss Simian
 * Richard (possibly)
 * Anton
 * William
 * The other residents of Elmore (possibly)