Basic Trope: A piece of technology that is cursed or haunted.
- Straight: Alice's MP3 player only plays a demonic anthem and displays a pentagram on its screen. It always seems to appear with her, even if she forgets it or throws it away.
- Exaggerated: The MP3 player hops after Alice and tries to strangle her with its earbud cords.
- Downplayed: The MP3 sometimes plays creepy bzzzz sound and the screen sometimes turns red. It's always in Alice's pocket.
- Justified: Alice's MP3 is a can for Sealed Evil in a Can.
- Inverted:
- Alice's MP3 player plays Gregorian choirs and by listening to it people can be healed from Demonic Possession.
- Complex technology is the only thing that is completely immune to curses and haunting.
- Alice's MP3 player has a recording of the Aria of Exile on it. Not only can it be played for the obvious effect but it also prevents any ethereal being from even touching it indirectly through a possessed vessel.
- A haunted electronics workshop produces MP3 players and is mostly harmless, just producing the usual pollution byproducts and being unsettling to witness in action.
- Subverted: It is actually a program that causes it to do that, installed by the retailer as a prank.
- Double Subverted: After Alice removes the program, it keeps doing it.
- Parodied:
- It displays a pentagram and only plays "Baby" by Justin Bieber. Alice reacts as if she had seen The Devil itself.
- Alice's MP3 says her mother does various things in Hell and pukes constantly. Alice, along with everyone else, show mild annoyance with this latest software update.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some MP3 players are haunted, others are not.
- Alice's MP3 player goes from acting demonically to beatifically to neutrally with no apparent rhyme or reason.
- Averted: Alice's MP3 player functions normally.
- Enforced: Producer wants to show that technology is evil — and he does it literally.
- Lampshaded: "There's a devil in my MP3 player!"
- Invoked:
- The Religion of Evil who runs the MP3 manufacturers specifically designs all the MP3s to be the vessels for their God of Evil.
- The God of Evil can find vessels for itself; it just finds MP3s and devices that can play them to be suitable.
- An android is created for the explicit purpose of being haunted so that the ghost can interact with the world.
- Exploited: Alice uses the MP3s to pass as a demon and infiltrate hell.
- Defied: Alice has an exorcism done to remove the offending curse.
- Discussed: "What if it's possessed?"
- Conversed:
- "Somebody said that in a TV show — an innovation that requires devices that can capture and record audio and video. Clueless Aesop, anyone?"
- "Thanks, now you've worried the viewer next to me."
- Implied: Alice is complaining to POV character, Bob, about her MP3 player acting weird and creepy.
- Played for Laughs: The haunted piece of technology was a complete flop, like a Betamax tape, and winds up completely unused. The haunting entity regrets its decision as it ends up trapped.
- Deconstructed: The device in question is necessary for Alice's lifestyle.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice gets a replacement that is not haunted.
- Alice and the phantom in her device reach an understanding that it won't interfere with her — though she didn't say her friends and family weren't fair game...
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