When the Yogurt Took Over

by John Scalzi

A short story about a bioengineered yogurt which takes over the world. Inspired by a random throwaway comment in his Whatever blog, which apparently just stuck in his mind until he wrote about it.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Humor, Fiction, Audiobook, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy

32 pages, ebook

First published October 2, 2010

About the author

John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.

(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.)

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

last year, amy(other amy) tipped me off to this cool thing she was doing: the short story advent calendar, where you sign up to this thingie here and you get a free story each day.

i dropped the ball and by the time i came to my senses, it had already sold out, so for december project, i'm going rogue and just reading a free online story a day of my choosing. this foolhardy endeavor is going to screw up my already-deep-in-the-weeds review backlog, so i don't think i will be reviewing each individual story "properly." i might just do a picture review or - if i am feeling wicked motivated, i will draw something, but i can't be treating each short story like a real book and spending half my day examining and dissecting it, so we'll just see what shape this project takes as we go.

and if you know of any particularly good short stories available free online, let me know! i'm no good at finding them myself unless they're on the tor.com site, and i only have enough at this stage of the game to fill half my calendar.

DECEMBER 6



WE NEED PAYMENT, the yogurt said.

What would you like? The government asked.

OHIO, the yogurt said.

this is fun and short and silly. what i learned from this is that yogurt IS VERY SHOUTY and sometimes we regret the choices we make about who or what we put in charge of our lives on a large-scale.

read it for yourself here:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/10/02...

DECEMBER 1: FABLE - CHARLES YU
DECEMBER 2: THE REAL DEAL - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 3: THE WAYS OF WALLS AND WORDS - SABRINA VOURVOULIAS
DECEMBER 4: GHOSTS AND EMPTIES - LAUREN GROFF
DECEMBER 5: THE RETURN OF THE THIN WHITE DUKE - NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 7: A CHRISTMAS PAGEANT - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 8: DEEP - PHILIP PLAIT
DECEMBER 9: COOKIE JAR - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 10: THE STORY OF KAO YU - PETER S. BEAGLE
DECEMBER 11: THE HEEBIE-JEEBIES - ALAN BEARD
DECEMBER 12: THE TOMATO THIEF - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 13: THE JAWS THAT BITE, THE CLAWS THAT CATCH - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 14: ROLLING IN THE DEEP - JULIO ALEXI GENAO
DECEMBER 15: ANTIHYPOXIANT - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 16: THE AMBUSH - DONNA TARTT
DECEMBER 17: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A TRAITOR AND A HALF-SAVAGE - ALIX HARROW
DECEMBER 18: THE CHRISTMAS SHOW - PAT CADIGAN
DECEMBER 19: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS - PAUL CORNELL
DECEMBER 20: THE TRAINS THAT CLIMB THE WINTER TREE - MICHAEL SWANWICK
DECEMBER 21: BLUE IS A DARKNESS WEAKENED BY LIGHT - SARAH MCCARRY
DECEMBER 22: WATERS OF VERSAILLES - KELLY ROBSON
DECEMBER 23: RAZORBACK - URSULA VERNON
DECEMBER 24: DIARY OF AN ASSCAN - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 25: CHANGING MEANINGS - SEANAN MCGUIRE
DECEMBER 26: SHOGGOTHS IN BLOOM - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 27: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SUDDEN DEATH - CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
DECEMBER 28: FRIEDRICH THE SNOW MAN - LEWIS SHINER
DECEMBER 29: DRESS YOUR MARINES IN WHITE - EMMY LAYBOURNE
DECEMBER 30: AM I FREE TO GO? - KATHRYN CRAMER
DECEMBER 31: OLD DEAD FUTURES - TINA CONNOLLY

come to my blog!

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the Yogurt Took Over by John Scalzi - STORY 3/5★ / SHOW 2.5/5★

Interesting in its own way, but very bizarre. I liked the story better.

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

01 October 2010

Scalzi is just so much fun to read. The story is every bit as ridiculous as the title suggests, and I mean that in a good way.

***

19 December 2022

On this re-read I will only add that visiting Scalzi's blog to read this when written and posted in 2010 will enable you to put this into context, and that bit of nonfiction is when more amusing.

Available online as well as within Miniatures

[Dennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

No one argues with the yogurt.

2.5 stars
Nice little humorous story. It's a quick and pretty weird read. Didn't wow me. But helped me kill some time while I was sitting in a waiting room.

There may actually be a few countries that would be well served letting the yogurt take over.

You can read for yourself here: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/10/0...

[Veronika Sebechlebská · Rating 2 out of 5]

...krátka poviedka o novom druhu politickej kultúry
(via Love, Death & Robots)

Free online tu

[Faris Abdala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks netflix for adapting this and making me discover this story. It's weird, funny, scary, and makes you think in only 5 pages. Love it.

Spend 3 minutes to check this out!
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/10/0...

[Elizabeth Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story makes me want to make a new shelf but I doubt I'll read anything as weird as this, although I wouldn't mind.

[Ardent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kratke, vtipne, a ako Veronika zhodnotila, obsahuje kulturu. Co je viac nez sa da povedat o vela politickych systemoch.

[Tym · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious and thoughtful without being annoyingly preachy, a cute little satire story.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this six stars I would

[Martin Wunder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der Bauern Yoghurt spricht mit mir.

[Boy Meets Books Mx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Te amo John Scalzi. ❤️

[MonumentToDecency · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's not to love about our yoghurty overlords? (Not an actual a question.)

[Maarten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious, even if there's not a whole lot else here (except for whatever snarky political commentary you project onto it yourself).

[Nyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is one of the most bizarre stories I've ever read. Interesting and thought provoking, but bizarre.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious. Ridiculous and absurd in all the best ways. Even thinking of it now makes me want to laugh. Great short story.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard this story read on NPR's Selected Shorts, a show hosted by Meg Wolitzer featuring short stories. This episode was from an event recorded live wherein three works of speculative fiction curated by best-selling author N.K. Jemisin were presented by various actors. This was the first, pretty hilarious while no less plausible speculative fiction about a super intelligent, bio engineered yogurt that eventually takes over the world at humanity's resigned request.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mistrně rozvinutý nápad o jogurtu, který svým intelektem předčil lidstvo. Scalziho poselství o tom, že bychom si možná měli raději pomoci sami je jednoduché a úderné. Ba velmi současné v kontextu internetu věcí a strojů, které život možná ulehčily až příliš. Celá ta legrace ve finále přechází v poměrně děsivý obraz budoucnosti, ke které už nějakou dobu směle kráčíme vstříc.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

"how did humanity jam itself up so badly that being ruled by breakfast food not only made sense, but made the best sense possible?"

A great question answered in an odd story that pokes fun at humanity's inability to solve the big problems. I had seen this on Love, Death & Robots. I didn't know it was from John Scalzi an author I enjoy reading. The animated show follows this pretty closely.

[Susan Atherly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the written version of the story that eventually became a part of the Netflix series "Robots, Death and Love" season 1 and it is classic John Scalzi humor, which is a little bit silly but still leaves you with that creeping feeling that something like this could happen. Not for everyone but it generally is for me.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a simple man. When I see a short story with a hilarious title, I click it.

When the Yogurt Took Over delivered everything I thought it would. It was witty, punny, and actually had a good plot. I was thoroughly entertained and have no complaints.

[Anna Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tor.com has this story in an article, "Seven very short sci-fi stories that can be read in seven minutes or less"

Be careful how you do research, you might create an intelligent bacteria that will take over the world. The problem could be that it doesn't want to stay in charge, then what happens?

[Aryanna Tunstall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting take on the world being taken over be another entity. This entity just happened to be a vast of yogurt that is able to fix the housing market and world economy without an actual brain.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Udderly ridiculous

[Ryan Nebblett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre as hell

[Ray Daley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like yoghurt.

[Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this short story. With a humorous tone, it makes a strong statement about what we value in society.

[Simon Cabral · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Yogurt love is real!!!!

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and fun.

It's written in a way where I don't think it's meant to be taken too seriously, but does have some political commentary.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this story via Love, Death and Robots. I love the simplicity of the story and the absurdity of the truth.