Creepypastas are horror-related legends or images that have been copied and pasted around the Internet.[1] [2] [3] These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intended to scare, frighten, or discomfort readers.[1] [2] The term "creepypasta" originates from "copypasta", a portmanteau of the words "copy" and "paste".
See main article: article and The Backrooms. The Backrooms is a short passage originally posted to 4chan's /x/ board in 2019 as a caption to a photograph of a hallway with yellow carpets and wallpaper. The story purports that by "noclip[ping] out of reality", one may enter a realm known as the Backrooms, an empty wasteland of corridors and rooms with nothing but "the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in",[4] [5] [6] as well as malevolent entities that hunt the traveler across three separate areas of the Backrooms, "Levels 0 through 2".[7] Over time, The Backrooms has been successively expanded into a mythos, with online writers adding information on new levels, entities, items, and phenomena within the Backrooms.[8]
The location in the original photograph that spawned the Backrooms story was unidentified until May 29, 2024. A team of Discord users found that the photograph was initially posted in 2003 to a blog[9] [10] documenting the renovation of a HobbyTown franchise in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.[11] [12] [13] [14] Backrooms images are an example of liminal spaces.[15] [16]
See main article: article and Backrooms (web series). On January 7, 2022, YouTuber and VFX artist Kane Parsons (known online as Kane Pixels) uploaded a short horror film The Backrooms (Found Footage), which follows a cameraman who records his experience in the Backrooms after accidentally falling in.[17] [18] Since then, it has garnered acclaim from the viewers, with over 57 million views as of February 2024.[19] [20] Since the original upload, Parsons has expanded upon his take on the Backrooms lore with more videos,[21] [22] including a film adaptation based on his shorts, which was announced by A24 in February 2023.
The Expressionless is a story that was added to the Creepypasta Tumblr in June 2012. The story is set in June 1972, where a woman appeared in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center wearing only a gown drenched in blood. The woman had a kitten clamped in her jaw. She pulled the animal out and threw it aside, and then collapsed. The doctors decided that sedating her would be the best option. After attempting to sedate her, the woman rose from the bed. The staff attempted to restrain her, but it did not stop her from brutally massacring and cannibalizing the majority of the present personnel using her sharp teeth. A female doctor who survived the attack nicknamed her "The Expressionless", as throughout the entire incident, the woman's face remained completely absent of expression, even during the peak of her furious assault against the staff.[23]
Jeff the Killer is a story accompanied by an image of the title character. In the most notable version of the Jeff the Killer story which originated in 2011, a teenager named Jeffrey Woods is attacked by a group of bullies. The fight ends with Jeff being nearly arrested for assault, which his brother Liu takes the blame for, getting taken away to juvenile hall. This resulted in Jeff becoming depressed and introverted. His concerned parents force him to go to a party, where he gets approached by the same bullies he got in a fight with before. While he manages to kill the bullies, he is doused with alcohol during the fight and is set on fire, suffering severe burns over most of his body. After being discharged from the hospital and having his bandages removed, Jeff begins to go insane when he sees the burns he suffered. He carves his own face to leave a smile-shaped scar, removes his eyelids, and kills his family.[24] He becomes a serial killer. He kills by sneaking into houses at night and whispering "Go To Sleep" to his victims before killing them.[25]
The story quickly became one of the most popular creepypastas and would inspire many other stories, including Jane the Killer.[26] The character of Jeff was created by DeviantArt user "sesseur", the pseudonym of Jeff Case of Auburndale, Florida.[27] The story above was not made by sesseur himself, but rather "a fan of his earlier work". Sesseur began posting about Jeff on Newgrounds in 2008 under the alias "killerjeff", describing a Bloody Mary-like a ritual which supposedly can be performed to summon Jeff. According to the original story, Jeff "accidentally spilled a bucket of acid on his face while trying to clean his bathtub". Also in original story, Jeff's real name is Jeffrey C. Hodek, not Jeffrey Woods.
A 2013 article asserted that the original image of Jeff the Killer was an extensively edited picture of a girl who reportedly committed suicide in the fall of 2008 due to people online ridiculing her appearance.[28] However, in 2018, after extensive research done by the users of 4chan's /x/ (Paranormal) board, this rumor was debunked; the earliest known instances of the image that was used in the creepypasta appearing online at the time had been found on the Japanese imageboard website pya.cc, dating back to September and November 2005. In 2022, an even earlier instance of the image was found dating back to July 2005 on the Japanese image sharing site fileman.ne1.jp.[29] There exists a community dedicated to finding the unedited image that was featured in the original creepypasta.[30]
See main article: Momo Challenge hoax. "The MOMO Challenge" or just "Momo Challenge" and "Momo" is an internet urban legend, hoax, and Creepypasta about a human or humanoid user named "Momo" which tells people to harm themselves.
Penpal is a six-part creepypasta novel by Dathan Auerbach. The original stories were published on Reddit, and were collected as a self-published paperback in 2012.[31]
The Rake is a strange humanoid creature described as resembling either a naked man or a large hairless dog whose sightings have been reported on four different continents, occasionally being referred to as a "Skin-Walker", with the earliest known account being a mariner's log in 1691. Named for its massive, incredibly sharp claws, the Rake lacerates its victims in their sleep and in some cases, speaks to them in a shrill voice. Those fortunate enough to survive an encounter with the Rake usually end up traumatized by its appearance and behavior.[32]
The Rake is often listed as one of the most famous Creepypasta monsters.[33] In 2018, a film based on the Rake was released on TubiTV and Amazon Prime.[34] The film was poorly received by critics.
See main article: Russian Sleep Experiment.
The Russian Sleep Experiment tells of Soviet agents and scientists experimenting on both political prisoners and prisoners of war during World War II, in which the prisoners are kept in a sealed-off room which was filled with an experimental gas to prevent sleep. This mysterious gas turns the prisoners into violent zombie-like monsters. In the end, the commander demands a researcher to enter the room and start killing the prisoners,[35] with one of them uttering "So nearly free" or "Finally put to rest" before they die.[36]
See main article: Slender Man.
Slender Man is a lanky humanoid with no distinguishable facial features, who wears a trademark black suit. The character originated in a 2009 Something Awful Photoshop competition, before later being featured as a main antagonist in the Marble Hornets alternate reality game. According to most stories, he targets younger people who supposedly go into his forest looking for him. The legend also caused controversy with the Slender Man stabbing in 2014.[37] [38] [39] The character is featured in various films, television series and video games and is fondly remembered as one of the most iconic Internet urban legends of the 2010s.
Created by Toronto-based illustrator Trevor Henderson in 2018, Siren Head is a tall, thin, and skeletal figure with rotting skin and two sirens for a head. The sirens sometimes blare random words in a "staticky" voice; in other stories, they scream garbled music and radio reports, or the sounds of people screaming for help.[40] [41] Siren Head became popular online in 2020, to Henderson's surprised delight. It was featured in viral YouTube and TikTok videos, as well as numerous indie games with retro aesthetics, leading Henderson to gain many teenage fans.[42] Some YouTubers made a 12feet model of the monster, and one-man developer Modus Interactive created a Siren Head game which was played by YouTubers Markiplier and Jacksepticeye. Writers for PC Gamer and The Daily Dot have compared the creepypasta to Slender Man. It was the topic of an episode of the PBS show Monstrum.[43] In a VIZ Media YouTube video where horror mangaka Junji Ito was shown pictures of internet monsters, he deemed Siren Head the best.[44]
See main article: Ted the Caver. Ted the Caver began as an Angelfire website in early 2001 that documented the adventures of a man and his friends as they explored a local cave. The story is in the format of a series of blog posts. As the explorers move further into the cave, strange hieroglyphs and winds are encountered. In a final blog post, Ted writes that he and his companions will be bringing a gun into the cave after experiencing a series of nightmares and hallucinations. The blog has not been updated since the final post.[45] In 2013, an independent film adaptation of the story was released, called Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver.[46]
See main article: article and Zalgo text.
Zalgo is a recurring creepypasta character who is alternately interpreted as a deity, an abstract supernatural force, or a secret collective.[47] The concept originated in 2004 on the Something Awful forums, with edits of cartoons to depict characters mutating and bleeding from their eyes while praising Zalgo. The depictions were coupled with a unique form of distorted text that became known as Zalgo text.[48]
Lost episode is a common subgenre of creepypasta and revolves around lost episodes of various media properties. These lost episodes are usually explained as having been prevented from airing, or pulled during broadcast due to controversial, mature, or unsettling aspects being shown, such as graphic violence, gore, and adult themes. The episode's disturbing content usually leads to the narrator (or a friend of theirs, a family member, or even their children) getting traumatized and having various nightmares.
See main article: Candle Cove.
Candle Cove is a 2009 story by Kris Straub written in the format of an online forum thread in which people reminisce about a half-remembered children's television series from the 1970s involving a young girl – the series' protagonist – going on adventures with a cast of pirates. The posters share memories of the puppets used in the series, and discuss nightmares that they experienced after watching certain episodes (such as those involving a villain called the Skin-Taker, and one that had no dialogue and involved the puppets screaming relentlessly while the protagonist was reduced to hysterical crying). One poster then asks their mother about the series and is told that the mother just used to tune the television to static, which the child would watch for thirty minutes.
Syfy announced a television drama based on the story in 2015, adapted by Nick Antosca and Max Landis.[49] The story makes up the first season of Channel Zero, which premiered on October 11, 2016.[50]
Dead Bart is a story by writer K. I. Simpson. It features the Simpson family going on a plane trip together, but while being his usual, mischievous self, Bart ends up breaking a window on the plane and getting sucked out, falling to his death. After an apparently very realistic view of his corpse, the show's second act features a surreal take on the Simpson family's grief. Act three opens with a title card saying one year has passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa are skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There is no sign of Maggie or the pets. They decide to visit Bart's grave. Springfield is completely deserted, and as they walk to the cemetery the houses become more and more decrepit. The family arrives at Bart's grave where Bart's body is simply lying in front of his tombstone, appearing similar to the corpse in act one. The family starts crying again, but eventually, they stop and blankly stare at Bart's body. Near the end, the camera starts to zoom in on Homer's face and, according to summaries, Homer tells a joke during this part. In a later update, it is revealed that Homer is saying "If only we were all that lucky." The episode ends with a zoom-out of the cemetery, featuring the names of every single Simpsons guest star on the tombstones, with the ones that have not died yet all having the same death date.[51]
The full story is told from the perspective of a person who interned at Nickelodeon Studios in 2005 as an animation student. The student and some other coworkers received a tape to edit titled "Squidward's Suicide" for the series SpongeBob SquarePants. The staff initially assumed it was just an office prank. In the firsthand account, the video consists of Squidward preparing for a concert. After Squidward finishes playing at the concert, the crowd (including Spongebob) jeers at Squidward, during which all have red "hyper-realistic" eyes. The next part shows Squidward forlornly sitting on a bed, while strange and upsetting noises play and become louder in the background. The scene is spliced with quick flashes of murdered children; each time, the noises get louder when cutting back to Squidward—now bearing the same red hyper-realistic eyes as the audience. Eventually, the camera zooms out to reveal Squidward holding a shotgun which he uses to shoot himself after a detached, deep voice commands him to do so, and the video ends, leaving the staff horrified. [52]
The circulated image of red-eyed Squidward associated with this creepypasta was referenced in the series; an altered version was included in the original uncut airing of the season 12 episode "SpongeBob in RandomLand". According to Vincent Waller (the showrunner and co-executive producer of season 12), the purpose of the reference was to make fun of "try-hard edgy fanfiction", and he has referred to Squidward's Suicide as a "ridiculous fanfiction". He further clarified that it was only intended as a reference and that the "Red Mist Squidward" character is "FAR from canon".[53]
Suicidemouse.avi is a nine-minute Mickey Mouse video uploaded to YouTube in 2009, with the video posing as being forgotten Mickey Mouse footage made by Walt Disney himself during the 1920s golden age of American animation. This video uses the "rubber hose animation" style. The "forbidden" cartoon begins with a 3-minute animation loop of Mickey walking down a street with a dull, almost depressed look on his face. All the while, the sound of a piano being played poorly can be heard in the background. After the 6-minute mark, the video cuts to black as the sound of TV white noise replaces the original banging piano music. The video then cuts back to Mickey, who starts sneering after a while, and the sound of a garbled cry can be heard. It is at the 8-minute mark that the audio changes once again, this time to a woman screaming in agony, and as the screams get louder and louder, the picture changes; the streets and sidewalks Mickey is walking on start to travel in impossible directions, while the buildings look destroyed. Mickey's face begins to fall apart as his eyeballs roll to the bottom of his chin like marbles in a fishbowl and disappear, his smile creeps up to the left side of his head, and eventually he ends up looking demented. The screaming continues until the 9-minute mark when the episode ends, while the original story and footage of Mickey ends there, one interpretation shows a scene with Mickey spinning and then falling to the ground, dying, and a demon appears, making a loud screeching noise, before disappearing. An image of Mickey's head appears on the screen (similarly to the ending of classical Mickey Mouse cartoons around the time) for approximately 30 seconds, while what sounds like a broken music box plays in the background, with a Russian text that roughly reads: "The sights of Hell bring its viewers back in". The remaining 30 seconds is supposedly unknown to the public, but the footage was so mentally traumatic, that it resulted in the employee who first screened the episode committing suicide after watching it and uttering the phrase "Real suffering is not known."[54]
This creepypasta was adapted into a movie on June 15, 2018, directed by Christo Lopez. The budget was over $5,000 and it was filmed in the United States.[55]
The Wyoming Incident is the case of an alleged interruption of the transmission of K2 News in Niobrara County, Wyoming in the late 1980s. During the interruption, viewers saw disembodied human heads performing various poses and emotions. The story goes that those who watched for a prolonged period of time presented everything from vomiting, hallucinations, and headaches. These physical ailments are believed to have been caused by the high-pitched noise that played throughout most of the video. The hackers who allegedly did this were never found.[56]
These creepypastas commonly focus on video games containing grotesque or violent content; this content may spill onto the real world and causes the player to harm themselves or others. Many video game creepypastas involve malevolent entities such as ghosts or artificial intelligence.
See main article: Ben Drowned.
Created by Internet user Alex Hall (a.k.a. "Jadusable"), Ben Drowned tells a story of a college student only identified as Jadusable who buys a used copy of the video game from an elderly man at a yard sale. Jadusable finds that the cartridge is haunted by the ghost of a boy named Ben, who drowned, as well as an entity that seems to have taken his name only identified as BEN, and an enigmatic force known as the Father. After performing the Fourth Day Glitch, Jadusable encounters disturbing glitches and ominous messages such as "You shouldn't have done that ..." and "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?", and begins to encounter Ben in the game, who takes the form of the Elegy of Emptiness statue. The story would later spiral into an Alternate Reality Game with the introduction of an in-universe website belonging to the Moon Children, a mysterious cult. After an eight-year-long hiatus, the story returned in 2020, once again in the Alternate Reality Game format, for its final arc, dubbed "Awakening", which featured adjacent plotlines about a man calling himself Jadus recounting his experiences during a societal collapse due to a virus known as H.E.R.O.E.S, people waking up in a mysterious hotel run by a man named Abel, and a return to the haunted Majora's Mask cartridge.[57]
Catastrophe Crow!, also known as Crow 64, is a creepypasta revolving around a fictional 3D platform game for the Nintendo 64 developed in Germany that was never released,[58] whose developer, Manfred Lorenz, supposedly disappeared at sea.[59] The story of the video game was first released when a video produced by YouTuber Adam Butcher was released, titled "What Happened to Crow 64?".[60]
See main article: Herobrine.
Originally posted by an anonymous user on 4chan, Herobrine is a supernatural being or ghost that haunts single-player worlds of the sandbox video game Minecraft. The character is supposed to look like Steve but with blank eyes, one of the default character skins available for new players of Minecraft, except for a pair of glowing white eyes which lack pupils.[61] Theories which explain the Herobrine's supposed origins range from his purported identity as the supposedly deceased brother of Minecraft creator Markus Persson, to an "unlucky miner" who haunt living players out of a desire for vengeance.
This legend purports that, shortly after the original Japanese release of the video games Pokémon Red and Green in 1996, there was an increase in the death rate amongst children aged 10–15. Children who had played the games reportedly screamed in terror at the sight of either of the games inserted into the Game Boy handheld console, and exhibited other erratic behavior, before committing suicide through methods such as hanging, jumping from heights, and creatively severe self-mutilation.[62] Supposedly, the suicides were connected to the eerie background music played in the fictional location of Lavender Town in the games. In the game's canon, Lavender Town is the site of the haunted Pokémon Tower, where numerous graves of Pokémon can be found.[63]
The legend alleges that children, besides being the primary players of the games, are more susceptible to the effects of the Lavender Town music, because it supposedly incorporates binaural beats and a high-pitched tone that adults cannot hear.[64] It has been speculated that the legend was inspired by an actual event in Japan in 1997, in which hundreds of television viewers experienced seizures due to a scene with flickering images in an episode of the Pokémon anime, titled "Dennō Senshi Porygon".[65]
NES Godzilla Creepypasta is a story written by Cosbydaf, who also produced the sprite artwork for the story. It relates the tale of a character named Zach who plays an unusual copy of the Nintendo Entertainment System game Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!. As Zach progresses through the game, simple glitches begin to turn into entirely new content and new monsters - including members of Toho's monsters that never appeared in the game and monsters from entries in the Godzilla franchise that were released after Monster of Monsters!, and wholly-original creatures unrelated to either of the prior two categories - and eventually, a malevolent, supernatural being by the name of Red reveals himself. As the mystery behind the nature of Red unravels, it is revealed that the demon has closer ties to Zach than he ever could have expected. The story concludes with Zach - having defeated Red during the final battle - selling the game on eBay, unable to bring himself to keep or destroy the mysterious cartridge.
The story is often praised for its extensive use of custom-made screenshots, depicting thousands of sprites created by the story's author. A fangame based on the story is being developed;[66] a demo was released in 2017.[67]
See main article: Petscop.
Petscop is a web series released on YouTube which purports to be a Let's Play of a "lost and unfinished" 1997 PlayStation video game of the same name. In the game, the player character must capture strange creatures known as "pets" by solving puzzles. However, after the narrator of the series enters a code on a note attached to the copy of the game he received, he can enter a strange, dark, and hidden section of the game: the Newmaker Plane and the depths below it.[68] Although the puzzles continue, the game's tone shifts dramatically, and numerous references to child abuse appear; Newmaker appears to refer to the real-life case of Candace Newmaker, who was murdered during rebirthing therapy.[69]
See main article: Polybius (urban legend).
An urban legend claims that in 1981, an arcade cabinet called Polybius caused nightmares and hallucinations in players, leading at least one person to suicide. Several people supposedly became anti-gaming activists, after playing Polybius.[70] [71] One of the oldest urban legends regarding video games, Polybius has entered popular culture, and numerous fangames exist as attempts to recreate the game from numerous accounts of its nature.
Sonic.exe is a creepypasta initially created by JC-the-Hyena. The original story follows a teenager named Tom Miller, who receives a CD from his friend Kyle Scott and a note telling him to destroy it. Finding Kyle's warning to be a joke, Tom decides to play it, finding it to be a haunted version of Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). The haunted version of the game contains an eldritch entity known as X, who takes on a form almost identical to Sonic, with bloodstained, blackened sclera and glowing red pupils. In each of the three levels, Tom plays as Tails, Knuckles, and Doctor Eggman, only for them to be killed and enslaved by X at the end of them. After all the characters are killed, a "hyper-realistic" image of the character appears with the caption "I AM GOD". Hearing a voice say, "Ready for Round 2?", Tom turns around, only to see a stuffed Sonic toy crying blood on his bed, his fate unknown (the sequel states that Tom tried to hang himself to avoid having his soul taken by X, only for X to take his soul anyways).
The original story was posted for the first time on the Creepypasta Wiki in August 2011 and was removed in January 2014 due to complaints of its poor quality when compared to other gaming creepypastas, despite it being somewhat influential. The growing backlash towards the story led its author to publish a protracted diatribe about his grievances with the Creepypasta Wiki's decision, which only fueled further criticism.[72]
Toonstruck 2 is a story revolving around the sequel to the video game Toonstruck, which was developed but not released due to the commercial flop of the first game.[73] [74] The protagonist of the story, an adventure game geek named Dave, buys a rare copy of the game from a creepy man in a black raincoat; as he plays Toonstruck 2, its atmosphere becomes increasingly sinister, and the game begins to change the real world around him (the original Toonstruck was about a cartoon animator transported to the toon world through TV). The story alleges that Toonstruck 2 was based on art from the sketchbook of a mentally ill cartoon animator who murdered his boss, bought by one of Virgin Interactive Entertainment's executives at a murderabilia auction, and the real reason for its cancellation was that its contents were too shocking.[75] [76]
SVG's Christopher Gates wrote: "The incomplete storyline has proved to be fertile ground for fans, who seem more than happy to fill in the blanks... If Toonstruck had been finished, maybe it would've faded away. But it wasn't, and the mystery has kept Toonstruck fans engaged for over 20 years—and counting."[77]
See main article: Analog horror. Although not strictly fitting the definition of creepypasta, analog horror was built on many of the tropes pioneered by earlier creepypastas.
See main article: Local 58. Local 58 is a YouTube web series created by Kris Straub revolving around a television news channel that is being constantly hijacked.[78] The series is notable for its visual effects to make it look like an actual television broadcast. Each episode revolves around a different scenario in which the news channel is being hijacked. For example, "Contingency" shows a hijacking where a foreign country had allegedly captured America and the broadcast tells the viewers to commit suicide via gunshot. The broadcast then concludes that "the 51st state is not a place" before the broadcast abruptly changes to a message apologizing for the 'hoax' that had been played on-air. Another entry in the series, "Weather Service", details through Emergency Alert System messages a seemingly-apocalyptic alien event involving the Moon or a force based on it 'infecting' those who gaze at the satellite. The video culminates in a person attempting to implore the audience not to look at the Moon, only to become 'infected' themselves after fighting with an entity instructing the audience to do the opposite, the final shot being that of the 'infected' human turning the camera feed to the full Moon while a large number of people can be heard screaming in terror in the background.
See main article: Gemini Home Entertainment. Gemini Home Entertainment is a YouTube analog horror anthology series produced by Remy Abode. The series shows the contents of a set of VHS tapes produced by various entities and released by the eponymous Gemini Home Entertainment, a fictional media distributor. Over the course of the series, it becomes apparent that the material the tapes contain represent information about an ongoing extraterrestrial assault on the Solar System masterminded by 'The Iris', a sentient rogue planet, which has created numerous alien and paranormal entities to subjugate humanity and invade the Earth.[79]
