Any thoughts on contagious expansion?

I had an idea similar to this two weeks ago.  I was actually RL sick.  So, I started thinking about contagions.  On my YIM, I put a status message "Inflation Flu, VERY contagious".

How this works:  If someone talked to me on YIM, they contracted the inflation flu for 1 week.  They had to make their status message the same "Inflation Flu, VERY contagious"  So people could see the spread of the virus.  The idea was twofold:  first, see how many people would play along and second, see how many people in my YIM list wound up with the infected status.

Overall it didn't work very well, partially because of people's lack of interest in the experiment and also because I have very few people in my chat list.

 There are some stories containing exactly this chain-popping reaction. One of them is written by Lopni http://lopni.deviantart.com/art/Basic-inflation-mutipop-story-120016710

 I've posted it in other thread, but this is probably a better place:

I'm not a fan of spreading an illness, even a sexy illness but yawning and laughter are contagious as well.

Something like seeing a inflated lass chuckling to herself causes someone else to find the idea of inflating funny, so they do it to themselves. And later someone sees them chuckling while inflated and so on.

I got nothing for yawning other than some people pulling an all nighter and every time they yawn the suck in more air but it makes the others yawn as well. That sounds like a really boring story especially given the amount of times you'd have to say yawn. Come on, did you yawn just reading yawn?

There was a meme going around for Balloonitus on FurAffinity for a while I think.

Actually, come to think of it, there are very few if any stories of contagious expansion.

Not the situation when there is a contagious virus. And contagious virus causes expansion, among other things.

But expansion itself is contagious - when someone expands, their expansion spreads

You look at how someone makes a huuuuf - and your belly also billows out. You downed one helium pill - and bwoomph goes everyone nearby. You pump someone up - and both of you inflate. It would be interesting to imagine how people cope in a universe with such laws ^_^

With someone else, I created a wholly different concept of "contagious expansion" - which is, inflation as a trend.

Basically, the city where this happens is set in a more-or-less typical superhero setting. Villains doing bad stuff, heroes saving the day, and etc. One of them stands out among the rest due to his bizarre way of tackling the big bad meanies - He actually expands himself full of air in order to gain power, then releases all that power in strong gusts of wind, mini tornadoes and whatnot.

Eventually, that odd way of justice reaches the men living in this city. They begin trying this stuff out, and word spreads about inflation equaling power, and thus, the amount of guys practicing this kind of stuff becomes larger and larger with each day. Men of the upper class or with high positions are not above this either. Even the mayor himself, who was prone to a lot of rumors about him indulging in expansive business which were later proved true. _{In turn this increased his popularity but shhh}

Eventually, the trend goes viral within the whole city, inflation-related bars and shops open up so men can share their expansive experiences and ideas on how to practice it as safely as possible. A pop is never too far, and while those who happen to reach this state reform, many residents have no idea about it, though this could eventually change too. Seeing a few dudes on varying scales of bloated while you drive to work is commonplace now. Even the superheroes and villains themselves are sharing the word, which causes a rise in recognition of those who take profit of expansion to inflict good or evil upon the city.

So yeah, it's contagious expansion, but in a different way. The trend is contagious, thus inflation spreads that way, but the best part is that it's effectively a willing, consensual act from the guys who happen to bloat themselves up.

Not sure how relevant it is to the whole deal of contagious expansion, but I thought a more figurative way of tackling the topic would be nice too.

_{I guess.}