I’m mainly working on the assumption that pretty much all Goths know about Creepypasta, but if not, here is a quick primer-Creepypasta is a type of story that is designed to be creepy and get spread widely across the interwebs, the name being a vague portmanteau of copy/paste.
The now-infamous Slender Man myth/tale started life as a Creepypasta, and was the catalyst for two minors to try to murder their equally young friend in America, in an attempt to become “proxies of Slender Man.” Read more about this, if you are so inclined, here. Anyhoo, real-life horror aside, let’s get back to the original point of the Creepypasta tales… To delight and horrify, without having any real-world consequences.
I have trawled some of the numerous top Creepypasta lists on the internet in order to find some of the best, most haunting and readable Creepypasta, and have collated them here for your delectation.
1999
1999 is one of the most popular and readable Creepypasta tales on the ‘nets, and it tells the story of a man who tracks down the origins of a weird TV station he was watching in the titular year, which it transpires, was probably not legitimate at all and was likely a pirate station run by a local predator.
Psychosis
Psychosis is a psyche horror story and one of the Creepypasta “grandfathers,” being one of the most widely read and positively reviewed stories of the genre.
The Smiling Man
The Smiling Man is a classic “weird encounter with a stranger” story, which also doubles as a cautionary tale about walking home on your own in the dark.
The Rake
The Rake is an urban legend-type tale, which kicks off with tales of the sighting of a mysterious, painfully thin strange creature in an American town, which appears to a range of different people generating mixed responses from horror to wonder. This is one of my favourites!
And the rest
I could quite literally write a book-length article listing off all of the best ranked or particularly notable Creepypasta tales, and once you get into them, you will continue to find more and more offerings. There are several lists on the internet showcasing well-ranked and particularly creepy, twisty tales, which make for good bookmarking for bored evenings. Check out some of my favourites here, and some more here, and then just keep going.
