Fear is one of the most powerful forces that exist, and is even capable of changing people’s behavior and perception. There is no better way to terrify someone than by telling a scary story and making it seem real . This is what happens with creepypasta, a new genre that emerged from Internet forums and has become popular in recent years.
In general terms, creepypasta are scary stories that have gone viral on the Internet , causing many to question whether they are true or not. In a way, they resemble the urban legends of all life, but they go far beyond a simple narrative.
Creepypasta can become part of popular culture with a video on social networks, with a video game or with a simple image that, without warning, goes viral. Another important feature is that anyone can be part of that story and enlarge the myth, as long as it fits the original story.
The term comes from the colloquial expression “copypaste”, which refers to the action of copying and pasting a text digitally. Also play with the word “creepy”, which can be translated as “spooky”. Similarly, creepypasta stories are copied and pasted on different network platforms , such as forums and social networks, until some user adapts it to a new format.
Among the most common themes, we find demonic characters that must be summoned, enchanted images or videos that will torment the viewer until his death (see ‘The Ring’), and even “lost episodes” of some works of fiction. 8 famous examples of creepypasta
For you to better understand what this type of story on the net consists of, we present you with the most famous examples of viral horror stories. 1. The Ayuwoki
Ayuwoki. | Youtube. A skeletal entity with an enormous resemblance to Michael Jackson appears to you at 3 o’clock at night in your room if you have not fallen asleep yet. It is the newest of the creepypasta, because the disturbing image of the “King of Pop” has been the subject of an endless chain of memes making the story the most viral.
If you notice, “Ayuwoki” is nothing more than a phonetic translation of the phrase “Annie, are you ok
“ that appears in the song Smooth Criminal. Also according to this urban legend, the Ayuwoki appears to you shouting “Hee Hee”, as Michael Jackson did in the songs.
The origin of such a strange story goes back to the video that appeared on YouTube in 2009 entitled “My Ghoul Jackson” , in which the doll on which the Ayuwoki is inspired is seen moving by itself.
As usually happens in these cases, although at the time this animatronic figure barely had an echo on the networks, a few years later a user has made it viral. 2. Slender -man
Slender-man. | Something Awful.
Slenderman or the “Thin Man” is the creepypasta phenomenon par excellence. It all started in 2009, when a user named Victor Surge posted a series of edited photos on a forum called Something Awful . In the background of those snapshots you could see a tall man, with a black suit and a white face without features.
Victori’s goal was to win a Photoshop contest, but what happened next has changed the history of the Internet. The images went viral and many users began to wonder if Slenderman was a real case . Over time, the character became an urban legend: that of a man who kidnapped and traumatized people, especially children.
The phenomenon gained popularity when developer Mark J. Hadley released the video game ‘Slender: The Eight Pages’ in 2012, but two years later the creepypasta myth claimed its first victim . Slenderman’s first real victim
On May 31, 2014, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, two 12-year-old teenagers, stabbed their friend Payton Leutner up to 19 times. The myth took root in the minds of the minors until they felt the need to “please Slenderman” . Fortunately, the victim recovered from the attack and her two friends were charged with first degree murder.
You can find this chilling case in the HBO documentary ‘Beware the Slenderman’. Slenderman and the origin of creepypasta
Some say that the myth of Slenderman is the origin of this phenomenon on the networks, although the truth is that the tradition of copying and pasting viral fear stories became popular (of course) in the 4chan discussion forum.
This portal has been the cradle of other movements such as Anonymous and is defined as a website for the free circulation of information. In fact, we found the first references to the term creepypasta in 2007 in some discussion threads on the web. 3. Momo Challenge
Momo. | Social media.
Recently, the Spanish National Police has warned of the spread of a series of videos, some of them containing children’s content, which have gone viral on social networks .and that they represent a danger because it is presented as a challenge that incites suicide.
Momo (that’s what this creepypasta is called) is an old acquaintance of network professionals. It was last summer when he became famous thanks to his WhatsApp extension, and put the police forces on alert because he proposed a series of self-harm tests that could end in suicide.
Then all the alarms went off, because it had not been that long since the case of some suicides instigated by the dangerous game of “Blue Whale” had come to light, which had been born in Russia and had spread to other countries. Momo’s challenge
Experts classify it as a “viral farce” when it was found that the “Momo Challenge” (Momo’s challenge) was nothing more than an urban legend based on a non-existent challenge from a supposed netizen who incited teenagers to perform dangerous tests . After conducting an investigation, the police did not find a single case of those affected by this challenge.
This does not mean that several associations have alerted the community of fathers and mothers to protect their children from this type of viral challenges that can arouse the curiosity of young people about these practices. How to protect your children from these types of challenges
Although according to experts Momo Challenge was just a typical case of moral panicfavored by some sensationalist media, it is shown that during the summer of 2018 some fake WhatsApp accounts viralized the image of a Japanese sculpture inspired by a ghost to scare teenagers and force them to play.
Now it seems that this disturbing figure returns with new challenges, and many parents are wondering how to protect their children from this sensitive material on the Internet.
Education and talking to them is essential, but also use parental systems and other security measures on the network. On YouTube, for example, there are five basic rules:
- Activate the security or age restriction mode , which blocks videos with sexual and violent content.
- The option to block users can block any user that we believe is exercising cyberbullying against our children.
- Reporting cases of cyberbullying and videos of inappropriate content to the Youtube Security Center guarantees the general protection of the network.
- In the case of your children having their own YouTube channel , there is an option to disable comments and regulate the messages they receive.
- Teaching your child to make playlists is a very useful method so that you can periodically review what types of videos they watch.
4. The inexpressive (The Expressionless)
The inexpressive. | Youtube. In June 1972, a woman appeared at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, wearing only a white dress covered in blood. This is not so strange either, as she could have been an accident victim seeking help at the nearest medical facility. However, a couple of details were particularly striking.
First, she was not a human entity . She had the dexterity and fluidity of a person, but the structure and countenance of a mannequin. Second, she was carrying a bleeding cat between her teeth, which she spat out before collapsing.
As the nurses treated her,He didn’t move an eyebrow, until he turned his eyes to the doctor and smiled, provoking general horror. Immediately afterwards he pounced on his jugular and gasping through the blood whispered: “I am God.”
After feasting on the medical staff they saw her walking away from her and she was never seen again. If you search the internet you will find the creepy photos of “the Inexpressive”. 5. Jeff the Killer
Jeff the Killer. | Youtube.
Jeff the Killer is another great creepypasta legend of the Internet. It is inspired by the story of Jeffrey Woods, a 13-year-old boy who gets involved in several fights with teenagers. In one of them, Jeff’s face is consumed by the flames , which are fueled by the alcohol and bleach that had been thrown at him.
Then he loses his mind and deforms his lips to draw a big smile on his face with which he enjoys killing.
Of course, this story is completely false, but it has already become part of the twisted collective culture of the network. The curious thing about this is that other stories are formed about the original and the version changes radically from one website to another. In that sense, several users assure that it is a girl who has received abuse at school who is dedicated to killing with a macabre smile on her face. 6. Always Together
The thinking minds of the world of networks do not rest, and there is also a very popular creepypasta dedicated to Valentine’s Day. In this case, it is a narration about a tragic love story of two teenagers illustrated in various videos on Youtube.
Thalia and Gerson were a teenage couple who had just finished high school and were about to enter college. They were the perfect couple, but after some headaches Gerson discovers that he has a strange disease in the circulatory system that is slowly consuming him.
Gerson died a few weeks later, and in a depression his girlfriend turned to an old spiritualist.
Following her instructions, Thalia dug up Gerson’s grave., she cut her finger where she wore the ring she had given him and left it next to her lover’s. Thalia did not eat, she hardly slept, and her appearance had deteriorated a lot, but Gerson did not appear. The old woman told her that the plan was going perfectly: she only had to stand in front of the mirror at 12 o’clock at night.
Thalia saw her skeletal body with one arm weighing more than the other. When she took a photo with her cell phone, she understood everything: there was Gerson, grabbing his arm with the same pallor as the night he dug his grave, and with his tongue he sucked the blood causing him to lose little by little life.
When the police found her body in the morning, she had already been dead for several weeks. 7. The real case of ‘Coraline’
Make believe from the networksthat an animated horror movie has a real background is another creepypasta strategy, and the best example is Coraline. A video circulating on the networks presents, with the pretense of veracity, the real case of Coraline.
With a more or less coherent narration accompanied by real images, the story of the creator of Coraline, the writer Neil Gaiman, is told. On the outskirts of her hometown, New Hampshire, lived an old woman with her granddaughter , whom he had rescued from a fire where her parents died. Since then he did not let her leave the house.
No one had seen the girl, and stories about her spread among the children in her place and seeing her had become a challenge .. With this purpose Neil Gaiman and his friends camped in front of the old woman’s house and at nightfall they entered.
They found the girl’s room, but although she must have been ten years old, there was only a crib with a baby in it. Upon discovering her face, a cry of horror escaped from one of the members of the group: it was a charred piece of meat .
The old woman was transferred to the psychiatric hospital, and in the basement of her house they found the corpse of an eight-year-old girl kidnapped years before and that the old woman intended to transfer her spirit to that of the baby. Years later, Neil Gaiman brought this story to fiction . 8. The Midnight Game
Creepypasta sometimes refer toinvocations or rituals that are performed to attract paranormal phenomena or dangerous spirits of the night. One such celebrated ritual is the Midnight Game.
To do it correctly, a series of requirements must be met, such as it being exactly midnight, bringing a candle and a pinch of salt, or doing everything with the lights off. There is a real risk that psychological terror conditions us in such a way that our brain ends up hearing strange noises in the middle of the night, however we must remember that creepypasta are still pure inventions.
In short, these stories are updated versions of urban legends that take advantage of the potential of networks to spread. The great danger is that some of the users may internalize these stories to the point of claiming that they are real.
As always, the line between truth and fiction is blurred on the Internet.
