Abstract

This article explores transmedia swarmings via the Lovecraft mythos which has mutated across various media. The chapter uses the insights of theorists such as Henry Jenkins and others working on transmedia in combination with Jussi Parikka's notion of "insect media", a posthuman approach to media ecologies that emphasises the swarming and contagious nature of cultural exchange. As Glennis Byron and Dale Townshend have suggested, swarming is a recurrent chronotype in Gothic fiction, as zombies, vampires, clones and viruses operate as mobile, deterritorialized and ferocious agents across threatening, non-human networks. As such, the Cthulhu mythos offers an example of how the distortions, mutations, and contagions of swarming media can manifest themselves in multiple formats.