What is a creepypasta? It’s a funny mangling of the word “creepy
post”. A creepypasta is a scary short story, usually and urban legend, that
starts on message boards all over the internet. If you think you haven’t heard
any, think again. Spawned from the infamous Marble Hornet videos, Slenderman is
one of the first creepypastas to break out of the boards and into pop culture. If
you haven’t heard of this guy, you obviously haven’t been on the internet for
very long.
I learned about these things years ago. I wasn’t a big fan
of horror movies, but I loved scary stories. So when I found out there was a whole
culture of people writing horror stories online I had to check it out. I was a
young teen, it was late at night, and I was the only person in the house. (actually,
writing this almost seems like a creepypasta intro.) But instead of being
murdered, I just read a bunch of gory stories about hacked pokemon games and
had a hard time getting to sleep that night.
Recently I’ve been getting back into creepypastas, half out
of nostalgia, half out of needing something quick for a study break. I had been
sticking mainly to videogame stories, but today I branched out. I went through
stories like Squidward’s Suicide, The Holders, and one of my personal new
favorites Candle Cove. But I had to stop and think after I read one of the most
popular creepypastas on the web besides Ben and Slenderman. It was titled Jeff
the Killer.
If I was a teacher, and I had gotten Jeff the Killer as an
assignment, it would have gotten an F from me. Maybe a –D and a referral to the
guidance counselor, but that’s only if I felt generous. One of the things that
really irks me about creepypastas isn’t the gore or the ridiculous premises. It’s
that almost every single one of them reads like a middle school kid wrote it! Actually,
for all I know, all creepypastas are written by 14 year olds. I think that’s
what made Slenderman stand out for so many internet users. Instead of slogging
through grammatically dubious and nonsensical stories, it was a competently
done video series.
Maybe J.T.K. was the creepypasta that made me realize that
the quality of writing was so low because it had so much potential. A young
boy, infected by what he saw one dark and horrifying night, turns into the thing
he most fears and finds he likes the transformation. That’s such a wonderful
horror story premise! But it’s ruined by silly gun fights, skateboarding, and
adults that are dumber than bricks. But I should really bite my tongue and let
it be. For all I criticize this story, it’s now lives in a permanent niche of
internet history. How can I snipe that this is a piece of trash when it’s a
legend and I can barely get over 10 views on my own blog? (I’m not bitter, I
swear! *cries*)
Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. The story of Jeff
the Killer isn’t just about one post that got famous. It's the nest step of evolution in story telling. if you think about it, creepypastas can trace their roots back to fairy tales. the Brothers Grimm certainly had stories as gruesome (and sometimes as badly written) as current creepypastas. Then it grew into literature, with horror stories eventually turning into Penny Dreadfuls and comic books. Then to TV, where the crypt keeper screeched at us and Are You Afraid of the Dark became nostalgia for an entire generation of 90's kids. Now that we have the internet, scary stories no longer just belong to people who can write a book or make TV. Anyone can join in and add their own story. Does that mean the quality of writing goes down? Unfortunately yes. I can only stand so many "ZOMG haunted vidya game!!1!" before I get annoyed. But it also means a wave of new ideas, each writer adding a new glimmer of inspiration to the internet's history.
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