Creepypasta

Creepypasta are short horror stories, fanfiction or other media that are collected and shared across the Internet with the intent of frightening or unnerving the reader.^[1] The name is derived from the internet slang term "copypasta", which refers to text that has been copied and pasted by users onto discussion boards multiple times. Creepypastas are similar to urban legends, although creepypastas do not always take the form of written text or spoken word; some consist of allegedly haunted images, videos, or games.

Creepypastas come in a variety of styles, but some are particularly common. "Haunted image" creepypastas are fictional stories that include a picture that is said to haunt and torment the reader. "Lost episode" creepypastas are fictional stories about discarded or unused episodes of real shows, usually cartoons. Lost episodes are intended to unnerve the reader by deviating from the normative behavior of characters, centering on death, and including "hyper-realistic" images of the characters in the show. "Ritual" creepypastas are fictional procedures to invoke entities or supernatural experiences.

Description

Creepypasta is a horror genre that focuses on the interactions between human beings and the paranormal. Creepypasta are generally not published in a fixed location. Rather, they are meant to be spread across the internet by copying and pasting the text into forums, social media sites and e-mails. Creepypasta focuses on the interaction of humans with the paranormal. Many creepypasta writing attempt to appear more realistic by taking the form of documents like diary entries or scientific reports.^[2]

Notable Examples

Polybius

Slender Man

Slender Man is a fictional supernatural entity that originated from an Internet meme created by Something Awful forums user Eric Knudsen in 2009. Slender Man is often depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall man with a featureless face in a black suit. Creepypastas involving the Slender Man commonly feature him stalking, abducting or traumatizing people; particularly children. The entity of Slender Man is not confined to a single narrative, but appears in many disparate works of fiction, mostly composed and shared online. Portrayed in numerous creepypastas, hoax photographs, YouTube documentaries, video games, and even references in mainstream media,^[3] Slender Man has grown immensely popular.

BEN Drowned

BEN Drowned is a story involving a college student who obtains a copy of the video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask at a garage sale. The game is inscribed with the name "BEN" and it is revealed that it was previously owned by a boy named Ben who drowned under suspicious circumstances. After the narrator removes the previous owner's save file, the game starts to act abnormally. The narrator describes various audio and graphical glitches, NPCs referring to the player as Ben and messages such as "You shouldn't have done that." and "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" being displayed at inappropriate times. Alarmed and confused, he attempts to record and upload footage onto youtube. Various posts online imply the narrator suffers a mental breakdown due to his experiences with the game.

The story is notable for being portrayed in a believable manner. The several videos that accompany the creepypasta were created by modding the video game to show many of the phenomena described in the story.^[4] In reality, the creepypasta was created by a man named Alex Hall, known on the Internet as Jadusable, who wanted to create a story that would appear believably horrifying.

"Dead Bart"

Dead Bart is a story about the discovery of a lost episode from the first season of The Simpsons in which Bart dies from falling out of an airplane. The story is accompanied by footage from other episodes edited together to reflect the narrative.^[5] "Apparently", the episode was locked away.^[6] Speaking in 2015 about another Internet hypothesis about the death, The Simpsons executive producer Al Jean said that the episode never existed and that "Dead Bart" belonged in the "intriguing but false file".^[6]

Lavender Town Syndrome and Pokémon Creepypastas

Lavender Town Syndrome is a popular internet phenomena concering the first generation of Pokémon video games, Pokémon Red and Green Versions released in Japan in 1996. The general consensus is that the first couple dozen copies of the game contained a different theme for a part of the game known as "Lavender Town", which in the real game, is a gravesite for Pokémon and has a few eerie things in it, already for a children's game. The theme as presented in these copies had incredibly high frequencies that only children and young teens can be able to process, due to their ears not being fully developed. The effect of these notes, as typically documented, included headaches, paranoia, nosebleeds and suicidal tendancies. The music was supposedly featured in the beta versions of the game during the testing stage. However, due to the suicides, the frequencies had to be fixed to be far less nauseating, which postponed the games' release date from it's original December 1995 deadline to February 1996, which could explain why the copyright date for all Pokémon games has been 1995.

As it's very unlikely that a story like this would be covered up so easily, at least from western news, the fact that there have never been any other documented illnesses surrounding music and videos that attempt to re-create the original Lavender Town theme have not had any negative side-effects on children, it's unlikely that Lavender Town Syndrome is real. However, there have been several fan games and conspiracy theory videos attempting to simulate what it must have felt like under the effects of the syndrome.

Aside from Lavender Town Syndrome, there have been several other popular Pokémon-related creepypastas. One of which is called "Pokémon Creepy Black", or just "Pokémon Black", not to be confused with the generation 5 game of the same name. Pokémon Creepy Black centres around a video game bootleg collector who claims to have owned a hacked version of Pokémon Red with some morbid differences. The first is that when acquiring a starter Pokémon, Professor Oak also gives you another Pokémon called "GHOST", who looks like the Ghost Pokémon that you'd normally find in Pokémon Tower without the Silph Scope. This Pokémon only knew one move, which was "Curse", which did'nt work like it would in the later games in which it debuted. Instead, when used, the screen would cut to black, the Pokémon's cry would be heard in slow-motion, and the Pokémon would have died (instead of fainted). This move also apparently worked on trainers, which would then be replaced by a tombstone on the overworld. Once the Elite Four is beaten and you enter the Hall of Fame, the game fast-forwards to when Red is an old man, and when arriving back at Pallet Town, the "GHOST" confronts him also, uses "Curse" on him, resulting in the game crashing and it's safe file being erased, implicating that he died. Unfortunately, the owner of the game lost the cartridge when he moved to a new house, so he couldn't provide screen caps.

Another noteworthy Pokémon Creepypasta is "Pokémon Lost Silver", based on Pokémon Silver. In it, a college student decides to build up his hype for Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver by buying a used Pokémon Silver cartridge. However, the game typically crashed on the Game Freak logo at the being, except for one instance in which the player found the title character standing in a dark room. The author checked his profile and found that the previous owner had done pretty well in the game. He eventually found his way out of the room, and wierd things began to happen, such as the player's profile displaying information that should be impossible for the player to accomplish, the character's profile picture slowly rotting and losing body parts, his Pokémon Party began to change and level-up without reason and a Pokémon Battle with Red from the first game, which ended with the Pokémon dying. After the character becomes a ghost, he gives up his life and a shot of a grave is seen of the character. After that, the game crashes. This story is cited as one of the best video game-themed creepypastas ever written.

Jeff the Killer

Jeff the Killer is a story about a 13-year-old boy who is invited to a birthday party, only to be attacked by three other teenagers. During the attack, Jeff is set on fire. Although he survives the attack, he is severely disfigured. His mental state deteriorates and he begins to go insane, further mutilating his eyelids so that he cannot blink, and using a knife to carve his mouth into a permanent smile. He eventually attacks his parents, stabbing them to death, and soon after attempts to kill his older brother, who is sleeping at the time. His brother wakes up, only to find Jeff standing over him. He proceeds to tell him to "go to sleep" before murdering him. The creepypasta has produced various incarnations of Jeff and has also seen spin-off characters such as Jane the Killer created.^[7]

The creepypasta was the inspiration of a game and several gaming mods.^[8] The origin of the "go to sleep" meme is unknown, although 4chan and promotional material for Saw V have both been suggested as the original source.^[9]

Squidward's Suicide

Squidward's Suicide is a creepypasta that claims the existence of a lost episode of SpongeBob SquarePants in which character Squidward Tentacles commits suicide.^[10] The alleged episode also consists of "strange and upsetting noises in the background" and "quick flashes of dead children and gore".^[10]

Sonic.EXE

Sonic.EXE is a creepypasta detailing the story of a boy named Tom who receives a CD labelled 'Sonic.EXE' through the mail from his friend Kyle. Kyle asks Tom to destroy the disc, though Tom ignores this request and decides to insert it into his computer instead. On the disc is what seems to be a PC port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game, but Tom describes several instances of the game behaving in an abnormal manner, including brief flashes of disturbing imagery, gratuitous depictions of violence, and eerie messages directed at the player. After becoming frightened by what he had played, Tom decided to take a break and went to sleep. However, he began to experience a vivid nightmare about the game. Upon awaking, Tom decides to play the game again, only to be confronted by more disturbing imagery and a jumpscare with the words "I AM GOD".^[11] Terrified and confused, Tom turns around only to find a Sonic plushie with blood dripping out of it's eyes.

Sonic.EXE became incredibly popular and spawned a fanbase within the DeviantArt community. A large quantity of fan art, a fan game,^[12] and an actual Sonic the Hedgehog ROM hack have been created based on the events of the creepypasta.^[13]

Creepypasta in the media

Creepypastas gained notability in the media after the alleged attacks inspired by Slenderman, starting with two 12-year-old girls allegedly stabbing their friend after discovering the Slender Man story in the Creepypasta Wiki.^[14]

In October 2014, a book about the phenomenon titled Creepypasta: Spökhistorier från internet ("Creepypasta: Ghost stories from the Internet") was published in Sweden, which resulted in some coverage from Swedish media.^[15]

See also

• Ghost story
• List of Internet phenomena

References

External links

• creepypasta.com
• creepypasta.org