Horror stories play with man’s deepest and darkest fears—the ones that we all have in common, whether we’re in the middle of the Amazon jungle or a suburb in upstate New York. The best horror stories work off the idea of the unknown; when something sounds like it could be real, and maybe there’s even spotty evidence for it, but the solid truth is never known.
Recently, I found myself digging around the Internet (read: procrastinating) for scary stories after spending a few days around Halloween listening to them on YouTube. This led me to the discovery of a certain type of scary short story published and perpetuated through the Internet: the Creepypasta.
The term “creepypasta” originated from the word “copypasta,” or, for those of you less fluent in Internet slang, a portion of text that is copied over and over, usually through chat forums and social networking sites (such as the infamous 4Chan). It comes from the notion of “copy and pasting” text, something that most computer users do on a regular basis. Creepypasta itself is a subgenre of Copypasta; the scary text is copied throughout the Internet via websites and forums. It’s become a bit of a phenomenon, much like lolcats or The Room or just about any other meme you can think of. The origins of these stories are often hard to come by, unless their popularity soars and further information is divulged for the sake of everyone’s sanity.
What I love about most of these stories is that, on a realistic level, next to none of them are based on truth and are almost entirely made up. But the way some of them are created, told, and supported with videos (even if they’re falsified) makes you question the idea of whether or not they could be real. And like I said above, that questioning of what is or isn't possible—and the general fear of the unknown exemplified through the Internet—is what makes for a great story.
For those of you interested in them, here is a list of my personal favorite Creepypastas. They’re not in any particular order, so I recommend you just read all of them. They’re worth it.
#10 - Suicide Mouse.avi This is the first creepypasta I ever came across, and it was a good two years before I actually knew what a creepypasta was. A friend of mine on a social media site linked this video in her journal and wrote about how much it scared her. Curious, I clicked on the link and watched it.
To be fair, the clip itself isn't that interesting. It's just a looped clip with sketchy animation of Mickey Mouse walking down a street. As with all the pastas, you need to read the text (in the description) to get the most out of it. The story goes that Leonard Maltin, a well-known film critic, watched a "lost episode" of a 1930's Mickey Mouse cartoon for review upon the release of the clips onto DVD. However, this episode wasn't what he was expecting; it was something much, much more horrifying.
I'm going to be straight-up honest and say that yes, this pasta is loaded with cliches and the video that accompanies the text doesn't match up much with what is described in the story. But what makes it work, I think, is the use of Leonard Maltin, a real person, and the fact that the subject matter is something that shouldn't ever be exposed to the world of the macabre and horrifying.
#9 - The Other Watcher
This one isn't so well-known. I found it on another blog and my curiosity was piqued by the description of it. When you first start the story, it's a bit hackneyed and flat, but what gets you is the ending. It's not so much legitimately scary as it is freaky.
#8 - The Girl in the Photograph Okay, so again, this pasta doesn't win points for being particularly scary, but the commonplace twist ending is what makes it so damn awesome.
#7 - Psychosis
One of the more lengthy stories on this list, but definitely worth the read. It's been rated the number one creepypasta on the creepypasta.com website for several months straight, and while the ending may or may not work for you, I find the fact that it's well-written and explores the idea behind such a strange topic as insanity and psychosis to be fascinating.
#6 - Jeff the Killer
This particular pasta is one of the most notorious. It's been floating around the Internet forever. I read the story to my little brother about a year ago, and for the next three months, the poor kid couldn't go to sleep at night. Perhaps the best part about this creepypasta isn't even the text itself; it's the ominous picture of unknown origin that accompanies it. If you look at the picture first and then read the story, it makes it all the spookier. #5 - Dear Abby
Also not one of the well-known creepypastas, but it's one of the highest rated on creepypasta.com. I think what makes this story unnerving is the fact that, all joking aside, it could potentially happen to someone. I'm always a big fan of the epistolary-type creepypastas because there's something so genuine about them that it makes it harder to determine whether or not they're real.
#4 - Russian Sleep Experiment
What I like about this one is the professional-quality writing and the fact that it plays on people's fears of foreigners and the unknown. While using Russians might be catering a little bit to stereotypes, I think it's effective. The author doesn't paint them to be soul-less monsters, just people that are a product of their time. Despite the premise being a bit far-fetched and over-the-top, it still manages to deliver a spooky tale that will leave you dying for a good night's sleep.
#3 - Candle Cove By far one of my favorites. There's something so chilling about the fact that this is written with a message board format, complete with misspellings and grammatical errors all over the place. When I first read this story, it's construction and life-like conversation led me to genuinely believe Candle Cove was a real show. And it's that kind of talent for making something convincing that leads to a successful creepypasta.
#2 - Dibbuk Box
Okay, so I'm cheating a little with this one. It's not so much a creepypasta as it is just a really freaking scary story about a presumably possessed wine chest that was a real item listed for auction on eBay. In order to get the full effect, just go ahead and read it. I'm not even going to tell you about it.
#1 - BEN DROWNED (Haunted Majora's Mask)
People will sit and debate the validity of this story all day long. Yes, it's been debunked. Yes, it gets a little ridiculous at the end. And yes, it's a bit silly to be so moved by something like this and convinced that it's real. However, that doesn't change the fact that this story WAS, for so long, swapped around internet chat rooms and perceived as true by thousands of people.
I attribute its success and popularity to a couple of things: - One, the epistolary form in which the story was written. The author of the piece wrote it as an entry on the 4Chan website over the course of several days, and the whole thing reads like a diary. A very twisted diary, but one nonetheless.
- Two, the amount of detail put into the story. You can argue that some things are generic and obvious red flags, but there's still an incredible amount of detail and thought put into this thing's creation, down to the fact that the author is a sophomore in college and lives with only one roommate. You don't get that kind of specificity with most ghost stories.
- Three, the accompanying clips from the "game." This is what got me for so long; I was convinced that, because these clips were so realistic and well-edited, they had to be real.
- And four, the premise of the story itself. After reading it (which will take a while because it's rather long), you have to sit back and say, "Well...that COULD have potentially happened." I don't mean in a literal sense—I doubt an actual ghost would bother to haunt a game cartridge—but that a hacker or someone very well-versed in technology could create something like this. I'm sure there's someone out there who has attempted it. While again, I don't think we'll all end up being controlled by demonic forces that are living in our computers, there's still the notion that 98% of the population really has no idea how a computer or video game console works on a functional level.
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| What do you mean? I'm not scary at all! |
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