Creepypasta Culture: Reinventing the Urban Legend Online

CONTENT WARNING: This blog post discusses things that may be upsetting. Reader discretion is advised.

When I do research on platforms such as TikTok, I often stumble across videos of people discussing creepypastas as real-life events that actually occurred, BUT it's pretty obvious they were a creepypasta, so that begs the question: Are creepypastas the new urban legends? Have we seen a digital shift in storytelling?

When I was little, there were plenty of urban legend stories that went around, and one that really stuck with me was the story about the porcelain doll. According to Creepypasta Wiki, the story is called "Dolly Molly." It says it was written in 2013, but I DEFINITELY heard it when I was like 8, so maybe like 2004? The story goes as follows:

"Audrey Parvus was turning ten this year. May 8th was on Sunday and it was Saturday afternoon. Audrey, being a terrible person at dropping hints, her mother brought her to the 99 cent stores, letting her choose her own birthday present.

“Now, just look around and let me know if you see anything. I’ll be looking at novels over there.” Her mother had told her. A knick-knack here, a curio there; it was a quaint little shop. Audrey didn’t know what to get; there were so many things to choose from. She’d just about settled on a stuffed rabbit toy when she saw it in the window display.

A beautiful old Victorian doll, with brown hair and brown eyes, with a red dress with blue trims. “Oh, she’s so pretty!” she said, in awe of the beauty of the doll. She happily skipped to her mother and brandished the doll. Ms. Parvus raised the doll up like Audrey did. “Wow, something like this in a simple 99 cent store? You can buy it, dearie.” She handed it back to Audrey, who ran to the old cashier. “I’d like to buy this doll, please, sir.” she asked politely.

The old man squinted at the doll and said “Oh no, you wouldn’t want that doll.” Confused, she asked “What? Of course I want this doll.” He just shook his head and said “Well, alright, but…” His next words were mumbled under his breath. She took the doll off the counter and held onto it as Ms. Parvus paid for a few books. On the way home, she couldn’t stop looking at the doll. Such ornate features, done with perfect accuracy! Such a beautiful doll needed a name. “… Molly. Her name is Molly.”

She hugged the doll tight on the way home. Upon even closer inspection after arriving home, she noticed a flaw. Molly had an extra finger on her right hand. Audrey pinned this as weird, but nothing is perfect. After playing with the doll for the entire day, it was bedtime at 9:00. The doll was porcelain, so she left Molly on the living room table to play with after breakfast. Her mother kissed her good night and walked down the stairs to her bedroom.

Audrey had lovely dreams, her playing with a living Molly in a meadow and dreams such as that. Then she awoke, hearing clacking. Tiny, but audible clacking footsteps. They grew in volume, sounding like they were getting closer to Audrey’s room. Then there was high-pitched mumbling. Audrey stopped whimpering and listened closely. “… first step. Molly’s on the second step, Molly’s on the third.”

Refusing to take anymore, Audrey yelled out “Mommy, mommy! Come quick!” The tiny footsteps pattered away as Ms. Parvus rushed to her daughter’s room. “What, what, what?” “Mommy, I heard footsteps and I think it was Molly!” Her mother sighed, unhappy at being woken up at 11:15 at night. She took Audrey and turned on the light in the living room. Molly hadn’t moved an inch from her position.

Audrey unhappily went back to bed as her mother left to rest. She managed to get 30 minutes of rest before the sing-song chanting and clacking returned. The chanting continued past three. “Molly’s on the fourth step, Molly’s on the fifth step, Molly’s on the sixth.” Calling her mother again, Audrey insists she believes its Molly who’s making the noises. Another check-up on Molly reveals no change.

“Audrey Veronica Parvus, I really am getting tired of this act. Molly is a doll, she can’t walk, she can’t talk, and there’s nothing to be scared of.” Audrey looked uneasily at Molly. The longer she stared, the more Molly’s expression looked malicious. “I have to work overtime tomorrow, and you have daycare, so please sleep and forget about Molly. She’ll seem less scary during the day.” “Ah… Oh… Alright, mommy.”

She sullenly climbs the stairs to her room and lies in bed. She manages to get some sleep when the clacking and chanting come back. It exceeded the sixth step and continued. There were only 12 steps to her room. “Molly’s on the seventh step, Molly’s on the eighth step, Molly’s on the ninth.” “M-m-mommy!” she couldn’t help yelling out. Her mother didn’t respond. “Molly’s on the tenth step, Molly’s on the eleventh step…” “MOTHER!!!” she screamed out. Silence was her response.

“Molly’s on the twelfth.”

There was silence in those heart-pounding seconds. But the doorknob jangling broke the silence. The door creaked open. There stood Molly, holding a steak knife, all bloody. Audrey scrambled under her bed, hoping Molly didn’t see her. “Molly killed your mommy. Now Molly’s gonna kill you~” She grabbed Audrey by the hair and pulled her from under the bed. Pointing the knife towards the crying little girl and said “Molly’s in your room.”

On the corner of Cedar Boulevard and 24th Avenue, Molly is still in the window display, in the 99 cent store, still run by the same old man. She’s waiting for another victim to fall for her charms. She now has eight fingers on her hand.""

Being an urban legend/creepypasta type of story, details of the story would be changed in passing, but when one of my friends at primary school told me this, I was spooked (I was like 8 - who wouldn't be spooked?) AND I had about 5 porcelain dolls in my bedroom that I made my mum get rid of because they scared me, and they were beautiful dolls. Anyway, as an adult, they are less scary, but every time I see one, I think of this story, and it was one story that was around before the internet was super popular.

I'm sure we can all think of stories like urban legends that we had from childhood that spooked us (and most of the time, they were fake - although I have heard of some that were true, like Tent Girl was a bit of an urban legend). I think other popular ones were like Candy Man, Bloody Mary, The Black Eyed Children, and so on. But I think that there's really been a shift in what we know as urban legends. With the rise of the digital age, creepypastas have become the new urban legends.

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Creepypasta Culture: Reinventing the Urban Legend Online

I was watching a TikTok video the other day about "Carmen Winstead" (also sometimes known as Jessica Smith), and the person telling the story WAS really convincing. Basically, Carmen Winstead was a 17-year-old who was allegedly "pushed" into a well by a few friends of hers at a new high school she started in her final year, after moving with her dad. Rumours started that she was sleeping with the school's janitor, and her new group of friends (5 girls) ended up being very nasty behind Carmen's back. The story goes that these girls ended up pushing her into the well/sewer after Carmen confronted them one day after a fire drill. Teachers asked where Carmen was, and the 5 girls joked and said she was "in the sewer". Except when the teachers saw Carmen, her head had twisted all the way around. I don't want to go into more detail about that situation because it's gruesome, but anyway, the authorities were called, and Carmen's parents were devastated, losing their child. All 5 girls denied the truth, saying it was an accident, and the case was closed relatively quickly. However, a few months later, all 5 girls involved in this "accident" started receiving messages on their Myspace profiles from an anonymous source that claimed Carmen's death wasn't an accident and that those responsible need to fess up or suffer the consequences. None of the 5 girls confessed, and they were each found in the sewer, one by one, their fate the same as Carmen's.

Obviously, this isn't real, BUT because it was so convincing, I was nearly "had", and I quickly googled it to make sure I wasn't going insane. If this were real, there would have been plenty of news articles about it. So it's an easy one to debunk, but then I realised that so many people actually believed the story - they hadn't bothered to try and debunk it like I had and I'm like what, you really believe that Carmen managed to haunt all 5 of those girls and lead them to the same fate? I think what was really convincing about this story is that the video I watched had an actual photo of a teenager, BUT in reality, it could have just been a stock photo, a stolen photo, or a random photo from anywhere. I think it's all to do with how the story is told, it can be SOOO convincing that we become extra gullible for a split second, where we're taken into that world.

Carmen's story is just one example among many. There are countless creepypastas that people discuss and share, both in real life and online, becoming so embedded in culture that they are often believed.

Urban legends are considered important due to their anonymity, as they've been told over and over again, and we don't really know where they originated from. Did they come from a nameless storyteller, OR were they actually inspired by a true event? The current creepypasta community is a difficult one because we don't actually know the origins of the story - we know it's on the internet, but did they just make them up, or did they hear them from someone else? We don't really know for sure (Wicked Horror, 2016).

According to Wikipedia, a creepypasta is "a horror-related legend which has been shared around the Internet." Creepypastas are user-generated content that has the intention to frighten readers. Subjects can include topics like ghosts, paranormal stuff, cryptids, m*rder, s*icide, aliens, zombies, rituals, supernatural things, and haunted media. Creepypasta is derived from "copypasta" - i.e., text that is intended to be shared across media and platforms. Creepypastas are designed to be shared and retold over and over, even if details slightly change, and usually there is no credit given to the original author when re-sharing the stories.

In 2014, creepypastas gained popularity and notoriety following the "Slender Man Stabbing". Slender Man is a VERY popular creepypasta. The Slender Man is a fictional "supernatural" character that was first seen on the Internet on an American Comedy website known as "Something Awful" - Slender Man was a creepypasta Internet meme created by Eric Knudsen and is depicted as a "thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless white head and face, wearing a black suit". Legend has it that Slenderman stalks, abducts, and traumatises people, particularly children. The creator did a really good job putting the character into black and white photos and freaking people out.

In Wisconsin in 2014, a 12-year-old girl was st*bbed 19 times by two of her friends after being lured into the woods. She was fortunately saved by a passer-by cyclist, which inspired her to go into medicine as an adult. The two girls who st*bbed her did it because they wanted to prove that Slender Man was real (they weren't having a bar of people saying he was made up). As a result of this case, many creepypasta websites put up disclaimers encouraging people to NOT blur the line between fiction and reality. Sidenote, I've read a book about the Slender Man case, and it's really, really sad. Both girls who committed the crime sounded like they had ill-mental health that was largely ignored by both sets of parents (like one was diagnosed with early-onset child schizophrenia). And they hadn't yet developed critical thinking skills that would suggest that Slender Man was REALLY made up or had the skills to discourage each other. I definitely didn't have these thinking skills when I was little because I made my mum take away the porcelain dolls, and I was more gullible than I am now. If you haven't read up on the case, I suggest you do because it's important and the victim is SOO lucky to be alive. It's important to be critical of things we read online and not to blur the lines between fiction and reality, where possible. A healthy amount of skepticism mixed with curiosity is probably a good place to be. And if we think a child is displaying signs of poor mental health or social skills, we should take them to a professional or even a free counsellor if we can.

Sometimes, we don't actively seek out creepypastas; they naturally come to us, particularly through kids sharing stories with one another as a form of communication. These tales are incredibly popular, even among adults, as evidenced by their presence in TikTok videos. As creepypastas gained popularity, the development of immersive mythologies and characters became increasingly apparent. Many of these stories are deeply intertwined with the digital world, where characters from the creepypastas have a direct link to the digital realm (like haunted video games). Creepypastas push their way into the collective consciousness through things like digital folklore, user-generated content, multimedia format, rapid and viral spread, appeal to horror fans, influence on culture, and a sense of mystery/fear. Vocal Media (2025) says, "Traditional ghost stories were often confined to a specific time and place—whether it be haunted houses, ancient castles, or remote forests. These settings carried a weight of history and tradition. But in the world of creepypasta, the digital age has changed how we perceive haunted spaces. Modern ghost stories are now not just confined to places like dilapidated mansions or old asylums. The internet itself has become a haunted space—a place where things can go wrong, where digital realms become twisted, and where malevolent forces can exist." This highlights the transformation in storytelling. We've moved from the conventional narration of urban legends, which were based on common cultural fears and mirrored societal anxieties, often becoming more frightening with each retelling. In contrast, creepypastas have rejuvenated urban legends by crafting new myths that circulate online and spread extremely quickly. Like, MUCH MUCH faster than any word of mouth story can spread. Remember how we used to get those creepy chain mail emails and text messages? Well, I think that can be seen as an earlier form of a creepypasta.

Some of the more well-known creepypastas are: Jeff the Killer, The Backrooms, Ted the Caver, and The Russian Sleep Experiment.

• Jeff the Killer - is a fictional horror character who is depicted as a "psychotic serial killer with ghastly pale skin, no eyelids, and a permanent smile-shaped scar". The OG story of Jeff the K*ller was created by a DeviantArt user "Sesseur" who told the story that Jeff was summoned by a Bl00dy Mary ritual, and while trying to clean his bathtub, he accidentally spilled a bucket of acid on his face. In true creepypasta fashion, one story about Jeff the K*ller emerged in 2011. Jeff was attacked by a group of bullies, and he nearly got arrested. His brother Liu ends up taking the blame and gets placed in juvey. As his brother is here, Jeff becomes depressed and reclused. Because of this, Jeff's parents force him to attend a party where he encounters the same bullies from earlier. He ends up k*lling the bullies but is doused with alcohol and set on fire - where he suffered severe burns. Once discharged from the hospital, Jeff is so horrified by his own disfigurement that he starts to lose his own sanity. In turn, he carves the smile scar into his face, removes his own eyelids, and ends up m*rdering his own family. Jeff then becomes a serial k*ller.

• The Backrooms - I've done a blog post about The Backrooms before, you can check that out "here". Essentially, "The Backrooms are a fictional location originating from a 2019 4chan thread. One of the best known examples of the liminal space aesthetic, the Backrooms are usually portrayed as an impossibly large extradimensional expanse of empty rooms, accessed by exiting ("no-clipping out-of" reality)." I've gone into detail in my blog, so definitely check that out.

• Ted the Caver - Ted the Caver is largely considered to be the first creepypasta, and because it's about caves, I haven't heard it before, but Ted the Caver is a short story that was written by Ted Hegemann in 2001. It was posted on the website Angelfire. The story is written from the first-person perspective of a man who digs into an unexplored cave with his mates. As he keeps digging, things become increasingly unsettling. As the story had SO many technical details and photos attached, many believed it was true until the author revealed it was based on his own caving experiences but had A LOT of embellishments.

• The Russian Sleep Experiment - This story tells the tale of 5 Soviet-era "test" subjects who were exposed to an experimental sleep-inhibitor stimulant. The stimulant that they were given meant that the subjects didn't sleep for 15 days and because of this, they turned into zombie-like creatures. If you know the story, you've likely seen that one famous image that honestly haunted me for a long time BUT it's actually just an animatronic Halloween prop.

  
  

So we've seen a shift in how we tell and share stories with each other, largely due to the existence of the Internet, but why are we so interested in creepypastas? What is the psychology behind creepypastas?

• Thrill of fear - As humans, we have a "complicated" relationship with fear; often we avoid it, but other times we're drawn to it, especially in a controlled environment. Rozin et al. (2013) term this "benign masochism" - i.e., enjoying something from commonly unpleasant experiences/situations by our bodies. A creepypasta allows people to experience this adrenaline rush of fear without being in any actual danger - it's a controlled fear - and we can stop reading at any time, but this "safe" exposure to fear activates the reward systems in our brain, and we're left exhilarated and eager for more (Fedina et al., 2021).

• Relatability - Often, creepypasta stories are set in environments we can relate to, which can blur the line between fiction and reality, so we can get immersed in the story.

• Role of Urban Legends - Urban Legends are often passed down (usually by word of mouth), and the same thing can happen with creepypastas - they get told and told again, and each time they might seem slightly different, but people want to share them (Almond, n.d). And the way that they are written or told makes them seem "plausible," LIKE how I nearly got caught out with that Carmen story earlier.

• Fascination with the unknown - Vocal Media (2024) says, "Many stories deliberately leave questions unanswered, allowing the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps. This open-endedness not only heightens the horror but also invites readers to speculate, discuss, and even create their own interpretations." We love being able to make up our own minds about something, and often they're different from others, so we're interested in what others say too. And when we don't get closure from a story, we're stuck thinking about it for much longer than other things.

• Interactivity and immersion - This is especially true for ARGs, where we feel like we're along for the ride with the creator. Personal connections can often intensify horror or thrills. I would also say that the subreddit nosleep is a great spot to connect with others and take stories at face value (even when we know they're not true).

• Forbidden knowledge - Humans are naturally curious about forbidden knowledge, we want to know what we're not meant to learn, and so we seek it out more. A sense of mystery keeps us hooked - that's probably why the TV show Severance has been so successful (Pallante, 2017).

• Social Validation and Virality - Creepypastas can be seen as inherently social, as we naturally want to share such stories with others and see if they have the same reaction as we did. And when we do have a shared experience, it brings people closer together (Chornobylskyi et al., 2023).

• Nostalgia and Escapism - Creepypastas can evoke nostalgia in adults because they often tap into childhood fears we may have forgotten about, and it connects us to our past. Creepypastas also offer escapism because they're alternatives to our own reality (Cooley and Milligan, 2018).

Creepypastas can even infiltrate our real lives. Take the example of Momo, which was a hoax/internet urban legend where young teens and children were being harassed by another user called "Momo" to complete dangerous tasks detrimental to them. The Momo challenge turned into a full-blown moral panic due to a media frenzy, social anxiety, and folk culture (Moore, 2023). However, the number of complaints for this hoax was quite small, and no law enforcement agency has been able to confirm if anyone was directly hurt by this hoax. The origins of Momo have also been explained by Moore (2023), who says that a 12-year-old called Ingeniero Maschwitz un-alived herself in 2018. This happened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018. Authorities found that Ingeniero had been speaking with an 18-year-old male via WhatsApp. Before speaking with him, she had recorded videos of herself. There were unconfirmed reports that she sent these videos of herself to her friends, and even though police never could explain why, they quickly jumped to the conclusion of the Momo Challenge, claiming that the Momo challenge was a "WhatsApp-based terror game that origintes in Japan". The connection to Japan is to do with the picture of the woman used to embody Momo is a sculpture called "Mother Bird" that was inspired by the Japanese folk creature, the ubume. Momo is one of those creepypasta urban legends that seeps into everyday life, and was even included on SNL in 2019. You can watch the skit "here". Correlation doesn't always equal causation.

Lake (2013) says, "Creepypasta aspires to be urban legend: dark social memes with just enough familiarity to give a frisson of awful possibility". You can tell horror is effective when it has a Lovecraftian quality. There's even a dedicated section for Lovecraftian creepypastas on the creepypasta website, which you can explore "here". Ondrak (2018) emphasises that creepypastas represent a new type of digital fiction where social media platforms significantly influence the narrative, showcasing a form of post-postmodern storytelling through the features of social media.

There are so many other theories that I could talk about when it comes to creepypastas like Derrida's hauntology or spectrality, OR the uncanny valley, to things like liminal spaces. But I feel like this blog post has been long enough, so if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading (and don't forget to check out my references below).

What's your favourite creepypasta or urban legend? Let me know in the comments below.

Ash x

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References

• Almond, M. College of Creative Studies Writing and Literature University of California Santa Barbara.

• Blank, T. J., & McNeill, L. S. (2015). Boiling over: Creepypasta, Slender Man, and the new face of fear in folklore. Contemporary Legend, 5, 1-13.

• Chornobylskyi, A., Kyrylova, O., Krupskyi, O., & Khotiun, L. (2023). Social Sharing of Emotions in Social Media System on the Example of Creepypasta on Reddit. Information & Media, 96, 65-79.

• Cooley, K., & Milligan, C. A. (2018). Haunted objects, networked subjects: The nightmarish nostalgia of creepypasta. Horror Studies, 9(2), 193-211.

• Dyduch-Hazar, K., & Mitschke, V. (2023). Affective preferences in benign masochism. Journal of Research in Personality, 107, 104429.

• Fedina, O. V., Malenko, S. A., & Nekita, A. G. (2021). “Creepypasta”: Images Of Waiting For Death And Danger In The Online Space. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

• Moore, S. O. (2023). The Momo challenge and the intersection of contemporary legend and moral panic. Contemporary Legend, 1, 1-34.

• Ondrak, J. (2018). Spectres des Monstres: Post-postmodernisms, hauntology and creepypasta narratives as digital fiction. Horror Studies, 9(2), 161-178.

• Pallante, M. E. (2017). Secure, Contain, Protect: Building a Digital Folklore Mythos through Collaborative Legend Creation.

• Rozin, P., Guillot, L., Fincher, K., Rozin, A., & Tsukayama, E. (2013). Glad to be sad, and other examples of benign masochism. Judgment and decision making, 8(4), 439-447.

• https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Dolly_Molly

• https://creepypastafiles.fandom.com/wiki/Carmen_Winstead

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creepypasta

• https://www.wickedhorror.com/features/editorials/creepy-pastas-modern-urban-legends/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man_stabbing

• https://vocal.media/horror/how-creepypasta-stories-have-influenced-modern-ghost-stories

• https://memeburn.com/2015/12/creepypasta-and-the-rise-of-urban-legends-for-the-digital-age/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_the_Killer

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms

• https://www.asheycakes.com/post/freaky-friday-files-what-are-the-backrooms

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_the_Caver

• https://vocal.media/horror/the-psychology-of-creepypasta-why-we-re-drawn-to-internet-horror

• https://aeon.co/essays/creepypasta-is-how-the-internet-learns-our-fears

• https://ks5.vocal.media/horror/what-makes-creepypasta-so-addictive-exploring-the-psychology-of-internet-horror

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momo_Challenge_hoax

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubume

• https://lbhsnews.com/1330/opinions/dont-eat-the-creepypasta/

• https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/what-are-creepypasta-stories-and-why-do-young-readers-love-them

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Sleep_Experiment