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We are altering virtual reality when we manipulate the net of language and sensation in which we are all are caught to varying degrees. We can train our brains and the brains of others to assemble the pieces according to different schema. If the only world people know is the story told after the fact, then changing the story changes their world. Changing people's worlds also changes what they do. This obviously gives the storyteller immense power, and put into practice this falls under the idea of a hypertext. The hyper in hypertext refers to the links embedded in the text that, out of separate pieces, create a network of associations. These links of associations allow readers a nonlinear method to navigate across and through texts. This radical change in how people use text is one whose effects are only starting to be felt. It has allowed readers a view of meaning that is somehow beyond the traditional experience of reading, one in which the co-creational aspects of language and text is more keenly felt.

This heightened awareness sets up a dynamic within the reader, setting them on their own path to interpreting a text, and serves to have gone from a footnote in the literary world to the primary model in which new media are navigated by today's media consumer⁴⁸. This hyper-textuality online, by way of fragmentation, (or more properly, fractalization) of digitized media, means the potential for people to start from the same meme pool but out of that space develop truly unique personal environments, experiences, and fully realized virtual worlds, is greater than ever before. Fan culture alone has developed as a kind of post-industrial cargo cult, and the global nature of interconnected fan communities⁴⁹ has expanded the reach of any given trend or hot icon.