The Joy virus, or the Joy, as it is called by Miss Simian, is a highly contagious virus. It makes its first and only appearance and major role in "The Joy."
The virus gets its name because it causes the infected person to become ecstatic and manic. The virus can spread by hugging and physical contact.
Cause
The virus is triggered when a "Wonder Hug," a hug filled with all 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."
Symptoms and development
Symptoms of the Joy virus include unwanted happiness, fever, dilated pupils, rainbow-colored bodily fluids, high body temperature, uncontrollable smiling and singing, and a fast heartbeat.
Stage 1: Smiling
Approximately one hour after the initial infection, Patient Zero 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.
Stage 2: Singing
Patient Zero will then start to sing in an auto-tuned voice. The individual may also begin to laugh hysterically for a short period of time, and they will begin to cough up a rainbow-colored fluid.
Stage 3: Hallucinations
Around 6 hours and 30 minutes after the first signs of infection has been confirmed, Patient Zero will begin to hallucinate exuberant visions of reality. The only way to confirm this is to check if the individual's pupils have dilated or not.
Stage 4: Hugging and kissing
Shortly after hallucinating, Patient Zero will feel a dominant need to hug and kiss people, and will raise their arms in an attempt to embrace others. This is how the infection spreads.
Stage 5: Final moments
Patient Zero will begin to laugh very hysterically, cough up rainbow fluid, then pass out for a short period of time. If the individual is hooked up to a heart beat monitor during this period, it will play a small happy 8-bit tune and its screen will display a rainbow instead of the patient's heart rate. When the subject wakes up, they are now fully infected and are in a zombie-like state.
All 5 stages will occur within approximately 7 hours and 35 minutes after the incubation period. However, depending on the individual, getting infected by a hugger will shorten the infection period down to 30 seconds and even last as quickly as 3 seconds to a near instant before becoming fully infected.
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 goofy grin.
- The rainbow fluid, which the infected individual would continuously cough up before passing out, will now drool out of their mouth.
- The dilated pupils. In Mr. Small's case, the pupils are smaller and red. In Tina's case, her pupils seem "demonic." Gumball gains eyelashes in the final stage.
- Arms held out.
- Hysterical laughter.
- Ripped clothes.
Mental traits
These can denote a hugger mentally.
- Huggers lose most of their intelligence when they pass out, and are driven solely by the need to hug other unhappy individuals. If there are no miserable people nearby, they will simply mill around instead.
- Basic motor controls such as running and hugging are preserved, and some memory is retained after becoming a hugger, as confirmed by Gumball kicking away an infected Banana Joe to hug (and infect) Penny.
- Huggers can process auditorial cues to detect yelling, and are sensitive to any form of unhappiness, including discipline, concern and fear. They are also extremely relentless, as they will stop at nothing to infect an unhappy individual should they notice one.
- Huggers cannot discern the uninfected from other huggers if they smile and/or wear colourful clothes; therefore, it is possible to walk through a horde if one acts like a hugger.
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.
Contagion
The only way for the infection to spread is be hugged (or be touched, for armless ones) by a hugger. However, the infection speed massively increases, causing a hugged person to fully turn into a hugger within a few seconds. Depending on how miserable the victim is, it may take longer for them to be fully infected, up to a maximum of 30 seconds for Miss Simian.
Because of the dramatically increased infection speed, one or two loose huggers is enough to quickly reach critical mass, as seen by the entire school being infected in less than 2 hours.
Cure and prevention
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 cures the huggers. The hugger's pupils are no longer dilated and will return to their original look.
Prevention of the Joy virus includes camouflage. Multicolored individuals, such as Tobias, are seen as already infected by the huggers, and are therefore passed over.
People infected
- Richard (source)
- Gumball
- Darwin
- Principal Brown (cured)
- Ms. Markham
- Bobert
- Alan
- Rocky
- Colin
- Felix
- Juke
- Carmen
- Jamie
- Teri
- Masami
- Leslie
- Banana Joe
- Penny
- Anais
- Mr. Small
- Sussie
- Coach
- Tina
- Miss Simian
- Anton
- William
- Clayton
- Tobias (possibly)
Gallery
Trivia
- Miss Simian managed to survive the first wave of the infection and even find the cure, but she 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 seen being 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, Mr. Corneille, and the math teacher were the only staff members not seen being infected.
- Mr. Corneille and the math teacher were not introduced until "The Others," which explains their absence here.
- The Librarian, Mr. Corneille, and the math teacher were the only staff members not seen being infected.
- Gumball and Darwin were the Joy virus' first victims.
- Principal Brown is the only known survivor of the Joy virus.
- Surprisingly, Bobert was able to get infected despite his emotionless and inorganic nature.
- Richard was responsible for the outbreak of the Joy virus.
- Anais might be somewhat responsible for the outbreak as well, since she convinced Richard to hug Gumball and Darwin to begin with. Ironically, she ended up being infected herself.
- In "The Tape," a similar rainbow liquid to that of the virus (though unsaturated in coloration) comes out of Gumball when he is affected by Darwin's cuteness, and in "The Blame," the rainbow drool from Billy's mouth looks similar to an infected person.
- It is shown that Tobias was the last student infected, although it is unknown how or who infected him, as he was shown to be infected when most, if not all, of the infected ones were shown forcing themselves in the principal's office where Miss Simian was (as seen in picture 12 of the gallery).
- It is completely possible he remained uninfected and was merely trying to fit in with the rest of his infected classmates.