If you’ve spent any time on the weirder corners of YouTube or Reddit, you’ve probably stumbled across it. A grainy, documentary-style clip where a narrator explains how various substances affect the web-weaving patterns of common house spiders. It starts off professional enough. Then, suddenly, the spider on crack cocaine builds a "crack-house" and shoots the caffeine spider with a "pop-a-cap-in-yo-ass" gun.
It’s hilarious. It’s a classic of early internet culture. But here’s the thing: most people don't realize that the spiders on drugs video—the funny one—is a parody of a very real, very serious, and very strange series of scientific experiments that date back decades.
Science is often stranger than fiction. Sometimes it's also a lot more disorganized.
The Actual Science Behind the Meme
The parody video, created by Andrew Struthers, wouldn't be half as funny if it wasn't mimicking the stiff, academic tone of the 1995 NASA study that actually happened. Yes, NASA really did put spiders on drugs.
They weren't just bored. Researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center wanted to see if they could use spiders as a sort of biological sensor for toxicity. The idea was that if a spider's nervous system is sensitive enough, its web—a physical manifestation of its motor skills and cognitive state—would show distinct patterns based on what it had "consumed."
They used European garden spiders (Araneus diadematus). They gave them caffeine, Benzedrine, marijuana, and chloral hydrate.
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The results were haunting.
The spider on marijuana basically gave up halfway through. It started a web with great enthusiasm but then just sort of... stopped. The chloral hydrate spider (a sedative) didn't even get past the first few foundation lines. But the caffeine spider? That was the real shocker. Instead of being hyper-productive, it created a chaotic, nonsensical mess of silk that looked nothing like a web. It was just a cluster of random angles.
Peter Witt: The Man Who Started It All
Long before NASA got involved, a pharmacologist named Peter N. Witt started this in 1948. He wasn't even trying to study spiders at first. He was actually trying to find a way to get his lab spiders to build their webs at a more convenient time.
See, spiders usually weave in the early hours of the morning, around 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM. Witt hated getting up that early. He figured if he gave them drugs, maybe they’d change their schedule.
It didn't work.
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The spiders still built their webs at the same time, but the shapes were totally different. Witt was fascinated. He spent much of his career documenting how LSD, mescaline, and strychnine changed the geometry of the web. He found that LSD, in tiny doses, actually made spiders weave more regular webs. It was only at higher doses that the symmetry started to break down.
Why the Spiders on Drugs Video Still Goes Viral
Why do we keep coming back to this?
Maybe because it’s the perfect intersection of "weird science" and "internet irony." The 2006 parody video by Struthers perfectly captured that 1970s Canadian Hinterland Who's Who vibe. You know the one. Soft voiceover, acoustic guitar, grain on the film. It feels authoritative. That’s why the "crack spider's bitch" line hits so hard—it subverts the expectation of educational content.
But beyond the joke, the spiders on drugs video resonates because it visualizes the invisible effects of chemicals on the brain. We can't see what caffeine does to our neurons in real-time. We can, however, see a spider lose its ability to draw a straight line.
It’s a visual metaphor for cognitive impairment.
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The Toxicity Question
NASA’s 1995 study was particularly interested in using computer analysis to quantify these webs. They used "deformity" as a metric. By measuring the regularity of the cells in the web, they could assign a numerical value to how "toxic" a substance was.
Interestingly, caffeine turned out to be one of the most disruptive substances tested. This is a bit of an ego check for those of us on our fourth cup of coffee. To a spider, caffeine is a potent pesticide. Plants actually evolved caffeine specifically to mess with the nervous systems of insects that try to eat them.
What Most People Get Wrong
People often assume these experiments were animal cruelty for the sake of curiosity. While modern ethics boards might look at "high spiders" differently today, the 1995 NASA researchers were genuinely trying to develop non-mammalian models for drug testing.
Another misconception? That the "Wood Spider" mentioned in the parody video is a real species behaving that way. It's not. The video is a satire of the "Hinterland Who's Who" nature shorts. Don't go looking for the "Crack-Cocaine Spider" in your backyard.
Actionable Takeaways for the Curious
If you’re looking to dive deeper into this bizarre niche of science history, don’t just stick to YouTube. There’s actual data here that's worth your time.
- Check the NASA Tech Briefs: Look for the 1995 report titled "Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity." It contains the original images of the webs that inspired the memes.
- Read Peter Witt’s Work: His book, A Spider's Web: Problems in Regulatory Biology, is the definitive text on the subject if you can find a copy in a university library.
- Analyze the Visuals: Compare the caffeine web to the LSD web. It’s a fascinating study in how different stimulants and hallucinogens affect spatial reasoning.
- Respect the Parody: Watch the Andrew Struthers version again, but pay attention to the timing. It’s a masterclass in deadpan delivery and editing that has kept it relevant for nearly 20 years.
The reality of the spiders on drugs video is a mix of legitimate 20th-century pharmacology and 21st-century satire. It reminds us that science isn't always done in a vacuum—it's prone to the same weirdness and cultural re-interpretation as everything else. We use spiders to understand ourselves, and then we use comedy to understand the spiders. It’s a weird loop, but it’s a very human one.