Creepypasta.
No, it’s not some sort of special Halloween food product, but a term for a wide-ranging and very popular type of online horror story.
Often proliferated first on internet message boards or video sharing sites like YouTube, these are tales of terror that have their roots on the web and have gradually become ‘viral’. You could see the creepypasta as a sort of modern urban legend, not spread by word of mouth from person to person but more widely – and quickly – online.
There are many very famous examples – some of which you may have encountered without even knowing it – that have left an indelible mark on our culture. But is there anything a horror writer in the wider field can take away from this particular new stretch of nightmare?
Coming to the boil – A Brief History of Creepypasta
The term ‘creepypasta’ comes from the idea of stories providing sustenance to those who like all things creepy, derived from ‘copypasta’, a web term for viral text snippets, which often lose meaning, or gain new ones, through being shared without context. That doubt about its authenticity is fundamental to the success of creepypasta writing.
As pasta feeds many of us, creepypasta feeds the darker parts of the imagination. It is, by its nature, edgy and disturbing, so non-horror fans may prefer to steer clear.
One of the first creepypastas – Ted The Caver – was told in the form of a blog that began in 2001, closing with a final, inconclusive blog post in 2005. The most famous examples would undoubtedly be Slender Man – a new urban legend that began in 2009 with a series of photoshopped images showing an incredibly tall, gaunt figure in a black suit with no facial features at all. He was said to target children, and has become a popular figure in a wide range of horror video games since. There was also a much more tragic impact of this creepypasta in 2014, when two twelveyear-old girls stabbed a classmate in the woods in what they said was an attempt to impress Slender Man.
Another very popular tale is that of Jeff the Killer, a young boy who was bullied before being severely injured and having his face bleached. The strange image of the near-faceless figure with a smile permanently etched onto his face has again been an enduring concept in horror gaming, and the source of many terrifying tales.
Creepypasta has also engaged extensively with popular culture, with the twisted tale of Squidward’s Suicide being an alleged unscreened episode of Spongebob Squarepants that was never shown (completely debunked by the show’s creators, of course). There are also a range of famed creepypastas centred on video games, with the story of the haunted Zelda cartridge Ben Drowned being very well-known and the music to an infamous Pokemon level purportedly causing people to kill themselves after experiencing the ‘Lavender Hill Syndrome’ (titled after the name of the level). Obviously neither of these tales is true, but they certainly send a chill down the spine nonetheless.
What makes it work?
It’s fair to say that – given its origins – creepypasta is a branch of horror that appeals greatly to a younger audience, very prevalent among teens and young adults. We have a generation very engaged online, and as such a successful creepypasta can seemingly explode overnight with online shares and video links. Folklore and urban myths as we know them have taken years, sometimes even decades to cement themselves, whereas a creepypasta can establish itself in a matter of days.
The online medium also offers a range of ways for the story to spread – social media, blogs, forums, video sharing – and in many cases these complement one another to create a story that is brilliantly engaging and swiftly becomes very believable. If it were being told in one medium, it would be easier to write off. Take one of my absolute favourites, based on a fictional game called Killswitch.
You’ll find stories and articles about its unusual history, a game made in a very limited run by a mysterious Russian corporation that you can only complete as one of two characters, after which the software deletes itself. You’ll find YouTube videos of people playing the game, footage the company behind it apparently wants to bury. Even better, you’ll find threats to the people posting gameplay footage from the corporation and channels suddenly disappearing or stopping commenting. It has the kind of believability that any horror story would love to have, combined with a sort of serialisation – things happening over days, weeks and months to strengthen and grow the legend.
While there’s been no huge movement of creepypasta style stories breaking into the written word, we are seeing the beginnings of a movement in movies that take in some of the facets of the field. Next year will see a Slender Man movie, and we’ve already had a documentary on the subject as well as many unofficial independent releases. Movies such as Unfriended, Antisocial, Smiley and The Tall Man all have strong elements of creepypasta, not to mention more recently that the latest take on the terrifying Ringu film series – the US movie Rings – took the terror away from a video tape and onto the internet. And I’m willing to predict that it won’t be long before the creepypasta works its way more extensively into horror fiction.
Finding the right ingredients
It may never be possible to translate the medium entirely into a horror book – whilst many great examples of creepypasta are written in the first instance, most tales carry some sort of visual elements – but there are doubtless things any modern horror author can learn from the movement.
1. Breaking the fourth wall
The very best of horror is believable – even if a book has a terrifying story, if we are easily able to write it off as fiction that effect is lessened. Actively telling readers that this story is real, and adding the fake evidence to support it (that few would bother to verify!) potentially bring your fiction into the readers’ world.
The book that scared me the most – Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves – adeptly used some of the devices of a creepypasta, with the main character finding a video and watching it, discovering that it gradually started FANTASTIC REALMS to unravel his own life. His manuscript has a lot of purportedly factual elements that make the book hard to forget – and something you can’t shake the feeling could be real. That’s something creepypasta does extremely well, and a horror author can learn from that. Using alternative media can help a story feel more real, even if said media is made up. Consider using fake images or photos, news reports you have written yourself, research – real or invented – that backs up what is happening in your book. What creepypasta has shown is how a piece of fiction can develop into something further by breaking out into wider areas.
2. The power of the internet
In horror terms the internet is a relatively new entity, being as the web as we know it effectively began in the early 1990s. And so horror authors may only have touched on just how effective it can be as part of a horror story – something that creepypasta has absolutely grasped and run with. The internet could feature in any number of superb horror tales in a strong way – we have the shadowy mythology of the deep web/dark web, the chance of finding strange videos on sharing sites, curses or diseases being transmitted through the medium, online entities becoming self-aware, nightmarish chains of emails or social media contact, secrets buried deep in websites a la Cicada 3301 – and what it is they might lead to… the internet is so undeniably prevalent in modern life and there is huge scope for it to be at the heart of truly modern horror.
3. Complex narratives weaving together across media
Creepypasta to no small extent depends on an air of mystery. That’s not unusual in horror, but we may be more used to our protagonists finding missing pieces to dark puzzles in libraries, books or newspapers. What creepypasta has shown is that you can put jigsaw pieces practically anywhere and the great array of internet users will find a way to put them together. And you can do the same in a story – imagine the moments of horror when one awful part of the story is unveiled through forums, websites, online videos and the truth becomes all too apparent. Nothing is too wellhidden on the internet and there’s ultimately – with the right knowhow and determination – almost nothing that can’t be found online (and that can make it scary if nothing else!)
4. Younger people are interested in horror – done the right way.
Horror movies are big business with a teen audience, and many a studio clamours to secure a 15 rating as opposed to an 18, as that can cut out a huge chunk of the audience. Equally a swift look on YouTube will show just how popular ‘Let’s Play’ videos of all the popular horror games are – titles like Five Nights at Freddy’s, Amnesia and SCP: Containment Breach are almost as famous for their YouTube presence as the actual games themselves.
If writers are willing to consider working in a different way, and speak to what a younger audience likes and understands, then teenagers and young adults can be switched on to horror fiction early on. It may require a different sort of thinking, but it can be done – I for one will be fascinated to see what impact Five Nights at Freddy’s: The Silver Eyes has on the book trade long-term. If that is deemed a success, the floodgates might just open for a host of creepypasta-style computer game books to emerge – and a sequel is already on the way…
Pasta on the menu
It’s likely, for me, that creepypasta will only become more influential as time goes on. As more websites, forums and social media platforms open you have a practically infinite, ever-growing universe for the medium to expand into and thousands of young creative minds looking to create the next influential creepypasta. There are new online legends developing all the time, and some are invariably going to ‘go viral’ and become well known, as well as an already rich pantheon for new spins to be made on.
I believe it’s only a matter of time before publishers and writers have to take the form more seriously, and look at how it can be incorporated into the book market as we know it. That, allied with the growth of young adult fiction, could produce some pretty notable results in time. If you’re interested in the form, you certainly won’t find any shortage of creepypasta to keep you sustained and maybe even inspired – just don’t eat too much...
This was my first post on Steemit and I'd like to introduce myself. I am Anurag Sharan, a teenager who likes to write fiction. I also blog stuff about Tech and Internet Marketing. You can check out my blog at: tryinggeek.com. If you liked the article do share some love by upvoting it :) A follow is appreciated as I'll be blogging regularly.