Some Thoughts on Creepypasta

What is Creepypasta

            The term Creepypasta is a quasi-pun on the term “Copy Paste a” as in you are copying and pasting a story you read somewhere to a new forum for people to read.  The idea being that the original source is lost, much like a rumor, gossip, or in the case of “Creepy” a campfire ghost story.

            It is an online community that was based around the format of presenting stories in such a way that they look real.  Photoshopped pictures, drawings, formatting the text to look like a web board conversation, and other little tricks to make them appear as authentic.

Authenticity inevitably dies by the sword of meme culture though.

            The creepy factor has more to do with playing with people’s expectations of the mundane.  You see and read information off of a chat window every day, so reading someone else’s chat going back and forth about something creepy, like finding a dead body, or hearing something outside, that can be cool.

            The problem is… WAY TOO MANY of these things are god awful to read, and I can tell you why, but first let me state something about criticism in this instance.

Criticism

            All of this hacky, poorly structured, poorly edited schlock is just a creative writing exercise.  People will never get better at writing unless they have the space to practice and the support of a community that will read their stuff and give them criticism.  The idea that your stuff is being read and enjoyed by someone motivates you to write more, and getting sound advice and biting criticism can push someone to become better.

I cannot recommend Gladwell's books enough.
I have read "Tipping Point", "Blink", and "Outliers" (Where this quote is from).
They have a lot to say about critical thinking and wider social trends.

            Writers get better with practice and an idea made of the misassembled ideas stolen from other works can mutate into something of value and substance.  As derivative as this all can be, something can come out of it.

            If you don't like reading amateur work, that is fine, but you should not be down on it as a whole. These communities act as creative outlets for people who might not otherwise have access to the teachers or support groups necessary to cultivate their aspirations as writers.  These communities serve a function, and it is a function that should be respected, lauded even, for what it can do to help people become better.  Only 1/10,000 people has any knack for writing, and lot of what they write will be bad too.  But without the other 9,999 people around to read their stuff and give them support, it will all go to waste.

            If you want to read these things, try to encourage people to not only write something out, but to edit their work for typos, edit their work for word use, and to edit for punchy and functional length. Don't just tell them that they never got past 8th grade, because the reason their writing didn't get past 8^th grade English probably has something to do with a lack of support to begin with.  Or they are literally in the 8^th grade and starting out early to develop their writing.  I wish I had an online means of getting my stuff read back in 1998, I would have gotten a lot more down and reviewed.

            Be a critic.  Be better than the guy who insults amateurs for trying.  Even if you are a better writer, even if you are a really good writer, don't be the guy who derides other's attempts when they are starting out just trying to tell scary stories to their friends.  Help them, don’t dissuade them.

Famous Creepy Pasta

            There are really no bones about this one.  Slender Man, star of video games, internet memes, and the inspiration for one real life attempted murder of a child by other children has to be number 1 with a knife.

            I am confident most people have heard of this character, and there is more lore surrounding him than I am interested in learning, but what is sort of fun, he might be a work of quasi-plagiarism.  Here is a video from the youtubers, RedLetterMedia to explain how they kind of invented a character like Slender Man.

  

            What is important to note here, aside from the fact that creepy people in suits talking to children is instant horror, is that this idea permutated in an interesting way.

            Suits are dehumanizing status symbols that imply an uncaring but wealthy/powerful person with control over your life.  The less personality or distinctiveness to the suit the more alienating it is.

            I am sure in Ancient Rome there was a boogeyman figure that wore a toga.  And I am sure there have been similar non-person manifestations of the supernatural thru all cultures.  Wearing something nice, and otherwise having no identity.

            See, even if the guy got an idea from watching some shit movie in the Midwest, it doesn’t really matter because the ideas are so derivative and hack that they could have come from anywhere.  Slender Man is a mashup of elements that has inspired a lot of online… let’s call it “literature” and has grown beyond the original idea, which had grown beyond the work of RedLetterMedia, and wherever the germ of that idea came from they grew it from beyond that.

Idea Growth and Development

            Stories are in some ways, living things.  They grow and change passing from mind to mind, changing the environment of those minds based on how much of an impact they carry and passing onto new minds via being memorable and catchy.  Like a pop song or a virus.

            The reason I wanted to talk about Creepy Pasta has to do with a show I watched last year and whose sequel series is being called, “The best horror show you’re not watching”.  The show is “Channel Zero” which might be the best title for a horror anthology show since “The Twilight Zone”.

            The reason, I suspect, that no one is watching season 2, has to do with the steady decline of season 1 to a truly unsatisfying ending.  It left a bad taste in my mouth that I have wanted to talk about for ages, but because I had so much to say I just couldn’t sit down and get it out.

            If I were a youtuber I would go thru “Channel Zero” episode by episode pulling it apart.  Here, on blogger, I am just going to put down enough of my ideas to feel like I am done thinking about it.  To get it out of the cycle of my thoughts.  Because, and this is no joke, for the last year I have thought about that show periodically and it has bothered me how disappointed I was with it.

            See, the “Criticisms” section above, that applies to the amateurs that put their work out on a website for fun and some attention.  That does not apply to a professionally produced TV show on Sy-Fy made by people who are supposed to know where to make cuts and where to put things in.  I wanna lay into them a bit, but not too much because the show had a lot of positive elements that I feel could have been great if not for the key failures.
            Here is Part 1 of my look at "Candle Cove".

The monstrous figure here... That is an element that should have been given a miss.

A Parting Criticism

            This is Jenny Nicholson, a delightful woman who primarily makes fun of “Star Wars” and is a combination of low key strangeness and cuteness.  She is an interesting youtube persona.  This video is her explaining a SUPER LEGIT criticism for Creepy Pasta that I think many writers of the stuff might want to take to heart.

            The issue being how the genre(?) has moved away from plausible to just an arms race of gore.  Lots of purple prose discussing guts.  Guys, I respect your efforts, but you are not Clive Barker.  Try to describe something mundane like a flower or a bookshelf before trying to describe viscera.

                                    

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