Nobody really knows how it all started.
Way back in the early days everybody had their theories. Newspapers sold copies, personalities gave their opinions on chat shows. Even the most eminent scientists where prepared to stand up and make their views known. Views on how the very first tadpole came into being. Some said it was some school kid messing about in a lab after class. Others thought it was a privately funded research facility that created the first ones by accident. Then there were the conspiricists that thought these things were developed by some huge conglomerate to get people to buy more stuff. Who knows?
Somewhere along the way the first tadpole, a tiny wiggly thing, only seen through an electron microscope, was created. It had the power to inseminate an idea to its host. This being the case, anyone that had it in there system was completely compliant with whatever the idea was. It was like a virus or a flu bug. It was just a tiny squiggly thing that was, in itself, an idea. The difference was that once it was in, it couldn’t be taken out. Lord knows they tried. But, no; once in place it was there to stay. It took decades of scientific research to prove that.
After that, and before any one realised that these things were being inadvertently mass produced through food processing plants around the world, they were just little wriggly things flipping around in a petri dish. It’s hard to tell how long it was before anyone figured out that this newly discovered tadpole was just an idea. A seemingly random idea, each one, once implanted, set a permanent and unalterable future path for the host. Of course, people became quite obsessive about whatever their idea was; strident even. There were lots of TV host-show discussions and constant newspaper and magazine articles. An ongoing debate about what it was all about.
Finally, it was figured out how to pre-program them. This was when they could be customised to the client’s personal requirements. Then there was the marketing. The great selling of them. At first it was only those who really wanted them, really needed them. Then came those who were willing to pay huge prices for them. Then the whole rotten thing became one hell of a lot more complicated. It was discovered that for a little extra, anybody who wanted to have their customised idea implanted in anybody else could do just that. At first, these clients were celebrities, politicians, kings and queens, dictators, then when the price dropped, anybody.
To sum it all up, and to be perfectly frank, there was very little detectable difference from the way things were before the tadpoles came into being.
Apparently, there are now only a few dozen of us around the entire planet that are for some reason unaffected. We’re just lucky I guess. But it begs the question, where will it all end?
I have no idea.