Cloud Strife Syndrome

Thanks to the modern anti-social internet (deliberately engineered by Californian tech companies to tap into the human brain's weakness for addiction & envy) the potential for psychotic obsessives to fall into sweeping delusions is greater than ever before. In some cases, they come to believe a grandiose alternate history about themselves. When this happens, we at the Institute have taken to calling this Cloud Strife Syndrome.

The disease is named for the character Cloud Strife from the award-winning 1997 PSX game Final Fantasy VII. His character arc revolves around him having fooled himself into thinking he was an elite supersoldier, when in reality he flunked out of the elite supersoldier program. Due to a mix of shame and a myriad of plot details unrelated to this article, Cloud appropriated the backstory of his dead supersoldier friend, and eventually came to believe it as his own past. He went on for years under this delusion, suffering terrible migraines when confronted with the cognitive dissonance from his imaginary life clashing with cold hard reality.

In extreme cases, sufferers of Cloud Strife Syndrome develop vivid false memories of events that never took place, or detailed recollections of places they were never at. While confused for common lying, it is different in that the patient genuinely believes that these are authentic memories of their lived past.

You're gonna carry that weight.

If someone you know exhibits more than three-fifths of these symptoms, you may want to consider implementing stronger personal boundaries:

• A noticeable change in personality before & after they started getting followers on the internet.
• Rapidly shifting emotions, and an inability to recognize the emotions of others.
• Prideful of their own personality, and may be unwilling to change, viewing any change as a threat.
• Reacts towards others with confusion, denial, catatonic withdrawal, aggression and/or violence when confronted with historical details that conflict with their delusion. May rile up followers to attack them.
• Blames their personal failures or disappointments on others.
• Low tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification.
• Obsessive desire for social approval; needs to be center of attention.
• Is emotionally over-invested in an idea of self to the point it visibly overwhelms other elements of their psyche.
• A pervasive pattern of instability in their interpersonal relationships.
• Exhibits insecure, avoidant, ambivalent, or fearfully preoccupied attachment styles in relationships.
• Maladaptive strategies commonly used to regulate their emotions include self-harm, rumination, avoidance, and thought suppression.
• Self-diagnoses themselves with unrelated conditions which they frequently talk about unprompted, such as blaming their difficulties on things like “Autism”, “Lupus”, “Lyme Disease” or “PTSD”.
• Sees themselves as an essential thought leader to audiences they have no emotional, social or cultural connection with.
• Oftentimes co-morbid with Cluster B Personality Disorders (Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic) and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

A spunky brunette with big tits is not going to come save you from yourself.

As of 2026, Cloud Strife Syndrome is the most common neurodegenerative disease and the fastest growing in total cases. The nature of the false memories makes treatment of Cloud Strife Syndrome exceedingly difficult, as patients rarely realize they are even infected with the disease. Those suffering from Cloud Strife Syndrome are so sure of their imaginary reality, that most attempts to remind the patient of their real-life background will be met with aggressive denial and sometimes even physical violence. This means that their friends & loved ones usually have to cut them loose to the internet, lest the patient's delusions destabilize their lives as well.

Left untreated, Cloud Strife Syndrome is usually fatal, as the patient's imagination increasingly runs into conflict with the real world and whatever remains of their support network. Employers will usually have no tolerance for the patient's internet life taking priority over their responsibilities, and eventually fire them. The patient's unwarranted self-importance will eventually become so insufferable that even their own audience will flee. At the end, the patient will only be surrounded by sycophantic parasites, encouraging all of his/her delusions & vices, until eventually they unceremoniously die by misadventure.

A minor percentage of patients (less than 1%) have what is known as High-Functioning Cloud Strife Syndrome, where they are still able to maintain a stable career & personal life. This rarity is usually because of mysterious financial benefactors that shield them from the blowback of their actions, and is not an indicator of any kind of “hope” for these sad, unfortunate creatures.

Foreshadowing the modern web is the tale of Binjamin Wilkomirski, a Swiss man who wrote a book about growing up in Auschwitz, despite not having lived in Auschwitz. This book, “Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood” won The National Jewish Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir in 1996, alongside several other awards, before being exposed as a fraud (and somehow even continued to win awards after being exposed as a fraud). He was studied by a historical commission afterwards, who came to the conclusion that actual memories of childhood trauma in Switzerland had somehow been affixed to the Polish Front. The condition named in his honor - “Wilkomirski Syndrome” - is essentially the pre-internet version of Cloud Strife Syndrome.

The internet has no shortage of eccentric personalities & attention whores suffering from Cloud Strife Syndrome. Trying to document them all would require a whole dedicated wiki unto itself. So here are just a few that are notorious in my little corner of the internet:

It can happen to anyone, even your children. (Image credit: foolibuster)

• Aubrey “Kirtaner” Cottle, a Canadian intelligence asset and avid steroid user who genuinely believes himself to be the founder of Anonymous, because the CIA covertly sponsored a Netflix documentary & Atlantic article about him.
• Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who convinced herself she was black after wearing blackface for years, and only got exposed after she somehow became President of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP.
• Hasan Piker, a nepo baby who genuinely believes himself to be a hero of the proletariat, despite having no emotional connection with them whatsoever. Thinks of himself as an intellectual, but can only respond to criticism with logical fallacies & juvenile insults.
• Celine Kasem, a USAID-affiliated counterintelligence asset who genuinely believes she somehow saved Syria, despite pushing for sanctions that starved vast swaths of the population to death.
• Bernie “Martin Random” Goldsmith, a former lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell and the Obama Administration, who built a community centered around suicide-trolling that ruined the lives of innumerable people. Genuinely believes his life fell apart after this solely because of “his mother”, “a stalker” and “lupus”. Worked on the Obama-era bailouts for megacorps, yet is convinced he is a communist.
• George Santos, a US Congressman whose entire life backstory turned out to be a largely idealized & fabricated version of his past. Later expelled from Congress and convicted of fraud.
• Jim Stewartson, an “alternate-reality game” (or ARG) developer, funded by Peter Thiel's friend Patrick Soon-Shiong, who genuinely believes himself to be a “decelerationist” while he still lives in the Year Zero ARG he helped create for Nine Inch Nails in 2007.
• Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, notorious internet troll & drug addict who pretended to be a Nazi for shock value, only to become a Nazi for real less than ten years later when he started helping indoctrinate children online for far-right political networks.

• Main Character Syndrome