The short answer is that a creepypasta is a scary story. The long answer? Well, bear with me for a second while I try to quickly explain some internet history. Long ago, in times of old, people online liked sharing memes just as much as we do today. A lot of those memes, though, were just WALLS of text that would be copied and pasted all around the web. Here's some you may have seen online!

It brings a tear to my eye every time I read these. Anyways, "copy and paste" was soon shortened down to the term "copypasta." See where this is going? Not every copypasta was a rant or funny quote; some of them were... creepy!!!

People soon began coming up with spooky stories that they would tell on forums or share through emails and often encouraged others to share them. Thus, the creepypasta was born, and we were given a glorious decade of top tier horror content for free! Mostly...well...its complicated.

When you have something that literally anyone can contribute to, it's obviously gonna be a mixed bag. Theres some amazing creepypasta thats had a massive impact on online horror content, and then theres some... oh god, I have to talk about Jeff...

No! I'm gonna stay on track, and I'm gonna stay focused! Don't worry about Jeff; that's for LATER! Right now I'm gonna be positive and focus on what I like in a creepypasta and some good examples of creepypastas!

Here's a great one! Give it a read; it's not too long! Make sure to turn the lights off...

I found an extremely bizarre internet survey

Ok, I'm sitting here early in the morning with the sunlight beaming through my window, and this still gave me chills. SPOOKY!

What makes this one so great? Well, for me, it does what a lot of great horror stories do. It takes something we've all worried about—the fear of being watched—and just takes it to an insane conclusion. I'm sure you've experienced that feeling where you're just sitting in front of the screen late at night. Maybe watching some TV or even reading a scary story online. The light from the screen is the only comfort you have in the dark. Being in a situation like that, it's only natural you feel the urge to turn around just to make sure there's nothing behind you. But don't worry, it's silly to think something's in your house! I already checked for you ;D

Let's read another story! If the last one didn't get you, this one definitely will!

If you can see this, it is very important that you keep reading

Woah! That was... I mean, that was just scary! When it turned out the killer was underneath the bed the whole time...INSANE! Huh? You read something else? Who's Jacob??? Who are "they"???

Ok, ok, joking aside, this is a perfect example of horror fully taking advantage of the medium. Imagine receiving this in an email or just randomly coming across it while scrolling on the web. For a second, it really does take you out of reality with how it's written. I actually got a notification right when the story said to ignore notifications, and that made me jump. And when it starts talking about your breathing... well, it's hard not to breathe manually once you get reminded about it lol. It's a story that blurs the line between fiction and reality so much that you almost just wanna jump to the comments to make sure it's fake! And of course it's fake! At least that's what they told me to tell you...

Now there's hundreds of more examples of great creepypastas out there! I just chose some that I read ages ago and still enjoy today. If you want to get into some of the more popular classics, I'd say go check out 1999 , No End House , and Candle Cove ! I couldn't recommend these enough!

But that's enough for the good side of creepypasta. Like I said earlier, when you have something that anyone can contribute to, it's gonna be a mixed bag. For every good story, we have a bad story. Bad horror is nothing new and wasn't just made in the past 20 years online. I mean, have you SEEN some of the cheesy slashers that came out decades ago? Bad creepypastas have shaped modern horror just as much as those movies.

And in my opinion, the most influential bad creepypasta is Jeff the Killer. I'm not gonna spend too much time bashing this story. People have been talking about everything wrong with this story for over a decade now. No, I'm just gonna talk about it and also maybe make fun of it just a bit.

Quick summary: Jeff the Killer is an early creepypasta that's about a young boy named Jeff who becomes The Killer. Got it? OK! If you haven't heard of this story before now, you've at least seen the photo!

Now the photo was actually around the internet way before the OG creepypasta was written, but we'll get to that later. Let's get into the history of the actual story first! Now, from what I found online, it seems the first or at least earliest known version of this story is from Sesseur, who made this little video here:

The Video

And here's the infamous 2011 version written by GameFuelTv:

Jeff the Killer 2011

Now let's be honest, both of these versions are bad. But I'm not really here to talk about how bad it is. The most I'll say is that it's very clear the writers were young at the time. It can be a bit hard to find tons of info on both of these authors, but Sesseur did an interview with YouTuber ScareTheater, which you can watch here:

So in this interview, Sesseur claimed that the Jeff the Killer image was something he made with a mask. And with all respect to Sesseur, THATS A LIE!!! Not a little misinfo, not him misremembering; thats just a full-on Tommy Tallarico level lie!!!

You wanna know where this image came from? Well, sorry, because NO ONE KNOWS! No, seriously, this is a case of lost media. This image has had so many rumors surrounding its origins. From tales of it being a photoshopped image of a bullied girl to a photo of a real serial killer, there's just been so many supposed origins that have just lasted for years. This photo may even go back decades. Ok, its 2024 right now. Sesseur used this photo in his video back in 2008, but it was also found in a video that was made back in 2007, and before THAT, it was found on a forum all the way back in 2005! This forum post is accepted as the origin...for now! Ok, it might actually be the origin, but I've just gotten so used to finding earlier versions of the photo that I'm expecting some reveal of Jeff being around on a forum from the 90s. If you want to look at all the places Jeff has been found on the net, I would recommend checking out the Lost Media Wiki page for the photo. It's a very interesting read!

It's a bit weird that the image of Jeff the Killer has a much more interesting story than the actual stories written about him! Honestly, the idea of Jeff the Killer has had more of an impact than the actual stories, if that makes sense. I mean, this story alone started an entire subgenre of killer teens and inspired so many rewrites you could just spend hours reading and watching them. There's so much fanwork and fanart of this guy, especially from the 2010s.

Speaking of rewrites, Youtuber Pastra had a pretty interesting take on the story that you should check out! (and also sub to them!)

I'm still not completely sold on the "killer teen" story, but I still enjoy this story a lot! The overall story felt pretty grounded, which was a big contrast to the 2011 version, and Jeff actually felt like a threat and not some revenge fantasy character. I'd give this 4 out of 5 Jeff the Killers.

And I think in the end, that's what's really fun about creepypastas. Wether good or bad, these stories inspire others to go out and write, and you can never have too many writers on the internet! Especially with this current AI menance. These stories, especially the earlier ones, also tend to have pretty interesting histories, like with the Jeff the Killer image. You could spend hours on the web going through various creepypasta rabbitholes! Just remember to go outside too.

Anyway, that's it for this week! Hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's too bad because that's all I got for this week. See you next week!