Please allow me to say a few words before introducing it.
The original motivation for deciding to write this article was purely out of love. When I was a child, I was very enthusiastic about the unsolved mysteries of the world. When I grew up, I couldn't put it down about urban legends. There was a time when I became obsessed with strange videos on YouTube. I would watch them under the covers in the middle of the night and break into cold sweats from fear. This kind of behavior of going to the tiger mountain knowing that there are tigers in the mountain is actually no different from mental self-abuse...
At this point, I decided to sort out the creepypasta which is relatively famous in foreign countries. As for what creepypasta (hereinafter referred to as cp) is, let me briefly quote the content of Wikipedia:
To put it bluntly, it is an exchange platform and distribution center for various horror novels. As for the name "creepypasta", creepy means "horror" and "pasta" means "pasta". Well, no problem. (Therefore, fans in the circle will evaluate the quality of a CP article as "delicious" or "average taste".)
And CP articles are not horror stories that are "scary for the sake of being scary". Although they are They originate from urban legends, but they often try to express some connotations. Nowadays, most CP articles in the circle are short and medium-sized stories, with content ranging from short and concise dark jokes, to mind-boggling imaginary stories to reversal stories with a magical twist at the end. To a certain extent, with the development of the times, the concepts in CP articles are also changing. Settings such as "black killer" and "heavy flavor hunting" are too dark and secondary (maybe they are jokes). rotten), gradually withdrew from the main stage and became the tears of the times. Instead, there are diversified themes, such as suspense, black humor, and even the setting of the Cthulhu Mythos. Therefore, if we want to define a CP novel, "an open and diverse suspense story" is very appropriate. It should be noted that CP articles are not "negative energy articles" with the nature of revenge against society. A truly qualified CP article shows a unique way of thinking (of course, sometimes it may cause discomfort to sensitive people), rather than a cool article that only exists to vent the author's inner darkness and distortion. If you want to find similar examples in the orthodox literary world, those interested can read the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
After a rough introduction to the nature of CP articles, it is time to invite our protagonists - two "veteran" CP characters.
The following pictures are from the Internet. Some of the pictures may cause discomfort, so please be careful when viewing them.
The tallest, richest and most handsome man in the CP world. Known as Uncle Slim and Brother Noodles. His hobbies are abducting children, sticking stickers, and stealing the spotlight. There are already games featuring him.
Ahem, let’s get down to business. Slenderman (hereinafter referred to as slender) is one of the most well-known entities in American urban legends. His common appearance is that of a tall man wearing a crisp suit, with disproportionately long limbs, but a pale face with no facial features or hair, and only vague sunken eyes and mouth. However, it is said that he has a mouth that can be opened like the Slit Girl and is full of sharp teeth. There are several black tentacles on the back of the slender to help it move and capture prey.
The slender wanders the woods looking for victims. He stalks his prey—mostly children or young adults—for months or even years. During this period, the poor victim will suffer from hallucinations and nightmares, feeling that the slender is standing outside the window or in front of the bed watching him. Finally, he will suffer from nervous breakdown, a complete breakdown of his psychological defenses, and will either die or go crazy. Another theory is that the slender will appear in the victim's photo, and then the victim will suddenly disappear. The victims were either found dead or found dead in strange positions in the woods.
With the vigorous development of CP-related games and fandom, the setting and image of slender are gradually becoming more and more complete. When slender appears, all electronic devices will suffer strong electronic interference, and the lights will flicker on and off; he will even manipulate some humans to act as his agents. The slender seems to have evolved from a simple kidnapper into an insidious supernatural creature. But all in all, the emergence of slender has added a lot of color to American urban legends, and it is really important.
Regarding how slender spread, the initial information can be traced back to a foreign online forum in 2009. A netizen posted several photoshopped pictures and described them, defining a kind of monster that specializes in kidnapping children: slenderman.
Soon a large number of "eyewitnesses" emerged to prove the authenticity of slender; some good people did not hesitate to forge "first-hand information" such as notes, newspapers, files, etc. to fan the flames. Then those "historical materials" that traced the origins were also put on the table, and soon spread wildly on the Internet, sitting on a broad "mass base"; finally, slender extended to other fields (such as literature, social aspects), and its followers It also followed up like a snowball, thereby maximizing the spread of slender’s existence. To a certain extent, this is simply an example of social psychology...
What’s interesting is that the creator of slender is still alive and well.
After all, who would die because of a character they created.
Therefore, through the Internet, the image of slender was widely spread, and after a relay of reinterpretations by netizens, it finally became the image of the thin uncle we are familiar with today. Nowadays, slender can be seen more or less in games, comics, and micro-movies (mostly in the form of pseudo-documentary), and many people even believe that slender is real. Even the original author probably never imagined that a character in an urban legend could develop to the scale it is today.
Slender is very well-known in foreign countries, almost as famous as Sadako in China. Therefore, among people who love paranormal phenomena, a subculture about slender was born.
As the saying goes, fandom drives the official to death. You are no longer the thin uncle you used to be. In addition, many fans have created derivative characters of slender and are set as his brothers. The originally bloodthirsty slender began to develop into a daily routine and a warm one, so I won’t go into details here.
In the acg field, slender enthusiasts can’t wait to put their favorite slender in as private goods.
There is also a special game in which players can transform into the fragile protagonist holding a nuclear flashlight and confront the thin uncle while looking for the note.
Warning: High energy ahead.
The number one person in terms of appearance (artistic) in the CP industry. Called brother-in-law. With his horrifying smile, cruel murder methods and tragic past, he rivaled Uncle Thin. He is the originator of the "black killer" genre of CP writing. "Go to sleep" is his wise saying.
Let’s first explain what a “black killer” is. In fact, you can find examples of this in many novels around us: a boy who was an orphan and was abused by his adoptive parents and bullied by his classmates since childhood, finally became unbearable and turned black. It broke out that people were blocking people and killing people, and Buddha was blocking Buddha. From then on, he transformed into Long Aotian and embarked on the road to dominate the world. Well, that's pretty much what it feels like. This kind of article has now been rejected by the orthodox CP circle. First of all, this kind of bloody plot has no highlights. The cruel description of killing is at best a way to vent the author's inner dissatisfaction with reality; more importantly, After Jeff's article became popular, similar novels that followed the trend became overwhelming, which can even be said to have lowered the quality and reputation of the entire literary circle, causing the audience to be tired of aesthetics and avoid such articles.
However, because Jeff was the pioneer of this type of article, he did not lose the reputation of "the root of all evil". Instead, he was treated like a veteran. But...that's all.
Okay, let’s first introduce Jeff himself. He is just a fictional character in a CP article, but I don’t know who made the picture you just saw. The author still remembers being tortured by this big face and not sleeping well for several nights.
In the story, Jeff and his younger brother Liu were bullied by three gangsters on campus. Jeff, who suffered from potential split personality, took the opponent's sharp knife and stabbed him to protect his younger brother, but Liu was Sent to juvenile detention center as a suspect. Afterwards, the three gangsters came back to seek revenge, injured Jeff and set him on fire. Jeff, who was severely burned, suffered a split personality under the stimulation of painkillers. His face turned pale and his hair turned black. Crazy Jeff slit the corners of his mouth with a knife, maintained an eternal "smile", burned off his eyelids, killed his parents and then bumped into his younger brother who was coming downstairs to check. Jeff killed him with a knife in the dark, muttering softly: "Go to sleep." and then fled to commit the crime. It is said that he likes to open the unlocked bedroom window in the middle of the night and commit crimes. Before committing the murder, he will whisper the words "go to bed" in a low voice.
The above is Jeff’s tragic story. From being a victim of violence to being a perpetrator, it seems that this story has a lot of connotations if you think about it carefully?
There are actually many similar stories about cruel and irrational murderers: the world-famous "Jack the Ripper" in the UK, the still unsolved "Black Dahlia" in the United States, etc. are also familiar to everyone. This will not be expanded upon.
Also because of the title of "the first generation of black killer", Jeff has a considerable number of fan creations in the circle, and there are even special costume plays abroad. However, considering Jeff's terrifying appearance, many secondary creations have been beautified. But it seems that this image has an ulterior relationship with Japanese slit girls?
About the origin of another version of Jeff:
If you search for "Jeff the killer" on the Internet, you will probably find another version of Jeff. This picture looks stunning. However, there is a little-known story behind it. This story has been verified by colleagues in the industry and is extremely credible.
Let’s adjust the time to 2008. A girl named Katy Robinson posted a photo of herself on 4chan, which is the girl in the picture below. But this move soon attracted a large number of attacks and abuses from netizens, criticizing her for daring to post selfies with such a figure.
What's more, the girl's selfie was turned into a picture - that is, Jeff's original picture:
But things soon developed beyond people's expectations, and the girl who couldn't bear the pressure was in her committed suicide in his room.
After the girl's death, this photo was spread and adapted, and finally became the picture accompanying the cp article "Jeff the killer" and became widely known. But few people pay attention to the story behind it.
And this picture is exactly the ironclad evidence of online violence and bullying!
In the story, Jeff went astray because of violence, but in reality the girl died with hatred because of violence. Ironically, it is "violence" that connects them, one is the story itself, and the other is the story behind the accompanying pictures. This is no longer an urban legend. But a living human life.
As for why this photo was so horrifically ruined? The so-called "malice" is mostly like this.
The above, I hope you can understand the nature of creepypasta. It took a whole day from whim to completion, and the information I had hoarded before was finally put to use. But I still feel a little proud when I see it finished. As for why I spend so much time coding and looking for information, to put it bluntly, it’s probably because of my love. In addition, there are many interesting characters and stories in CP's world view, but unfortunately most of them are works by foreign authors and are difficult to access in China.
But one day, I believe that this kind of niche cultural circle will grow here. Most definitely.