Short Summary

The Muse ARG is a story that spans several YouTube channels and websites. It involves several “main characters”. Our main protagonist is of course **Alex Bale**: a YouTuber who struck gold with his **Spongebob Conspiracy** series. By the third conspiracy video, though, it is revealed that Alex has been feeding a monster in his garage raw meat in exchange for video ideas. In the fourth video, Alex laments just being known as the “Spongebob guy”, but when he confronts his monster (**the Muse**) about it, the Muse says he only managed to gain popularity because of its help, and refusing it would ruin him. In the same video, Alex shows a clip of **Conspiracy Carl**, a conspiracy nut, reacting to his video. By the time Conspiracy 5 rolls around, the Muse has moved into Alex's living room - taking over more and more of Alex's life.

Conspiracy Carl also has a whole storyline, mostly told through stories on his wix.com website. In hidden older videos, we see that he used to make non-nutty conspiracy videos, specifically saying he doesn't want to be like that. However, his newer public videos show a complete change in persona. Slowly, it becomes clear that Carl also has a Muse causing his massive boom in popularity. However, we also come to find out that, because of his new videos, his wife and kids have left him (and he might have fed his cat to the Muse). He finds Alex's videos, and loves them at first. When Alex releases a horror short film instead of the next theory, Carl directs his viewers to leave hate comments to get back to the theories. However, when Alex releases his next theory, Carl turns on Alex, calling him a member of the Illuminati. Then Carl accidentally includes footage of him saying “what have I done.”

A clip from the **Cynical Critic** is also included in Conspiracy 5. The Critic is a guy called **Mark** who makes controversial film review videos to get attention. We quickly see him having a stack of Missing Persons posters, soon revealed to be for his friend **Anthony Williams**. It is then revealed that Mark and Anthony used to run the channel together, but Anthony and Mark disagreed about monetization and clickbait, and soon after Anthony disappears and Mark takes over full control of the channel. Mark is quickly revealed to have a Muse as well, and it is shown that Mark's mom lost her insurance, but the Muse helped Mark get it back. Mark is now also getting a sponsor from mystery company **HMF**.

The Cynic's videos also introduce us to **SONC THE BLUE RAT**, a character based off Mark's childhood drawings of Sonic now coming to life as an animated YouTube channel. The animated show seems to be under direct control of the Muse and is used to intimidate and threaten Mark into compliance, by using different characters as stand-ins for Mark's real-life friends and family.

In September 2021, Carl secretly reaches out to Mark and tries to warn him of the Muse, and tells him not to “plant the spore”. The Muse now marks Mark as a flight risk, and calls for reinforcements, whatever that means.

In late September, a YouTube video was posted from Happy Meat Farms — HMF for short in the channel, **this place is not happy**. It's a leaked video showing some horrible experimentation on animals leading to horrible growths. The website for HMF reveals that it's a huge animal farm company that seems to be working with Muse in some capacity. A few weeks later, HMF shows up as Alex's newest sponsor. In that same video, Alex sacrifices a cat to the Muse - the Muse demands more and more from its victims.

In November, Mark introduces us to his new friend **Antonio**, who takes over Anthony's previous role - but clearly either is or is controlled by the Muse. Antonio pressures Mark to continue making a video he clearly doesn't want to, and psychologically pressures him by reminding him of his mistakes. Now, Mark is also indicated to have begun “planting the spore”.

In late November, we get a new HMF leaked video of their experiments on humans, as well as access to a new part of the HMF site which confirms that their experimentation led to Carl's ex-wife getting sick, explaining his motives for working with the Muse. It also confirms that Mark is Carl's son, and that an escaped human experiment stole a bunch of data from the HMF servers. Alex's 7th spongebob video comes out the next January, and reveals that one of his filmmaker friends Victoria has not only been making ads for HMF, but even has a Muse of her own. And mid-February, we are introduced to Paradox 1313, an upcoming film produced by HMF Entertainment, alongside an in-universe ARG. Part of that ARG was set up to cover up the leaked footage of an escaped HMF mutated cow and save HMF's reputation.

In March, an employee orientation video for HMF's mysterious HR Department was leaked. The video reveals that HMF has a project specifically designed to torture the Hosts of the Muses (such as Alex and Mark), and also reveals that **Ramona Bynes**, the founder of HMF who seems to have turned against the company's horrible practices, is the person that has been leaking these videos. We are also introduced to a mysterious **Jared**, who runs the IT Department.

There is also a notable side character, **Wesley**, who is an independent filmmaker rumoured to be able to control lighting. He has sacrificed many dogs to the muse.