The Digital Campfire: Looking Back At Creepypasta (with Chris Joyce)

Cian and Chris host a campfire chat to remember the heyday of creepypasta: bad grammar, juvenile topics - and yet occasionally incredibly effective bite-size (ok, sometimes epic) slices of crowd-sourced digital horror. Creepypasta ruled the roost in the early days of Web 2.0, back when folks wondered whether Ted really was a caver, whether N64 cartridges really could be haunted, and why you should stay away from cabins in the woods (present company excluded, of course). Conversation includes:

-personal memories of creepypasta

-origins of the name

-some famous Cpastas: Jeff the Killer, Ben Drowned, Slenderman, etc

-Candle Cove and short Cpastas vs epic, expanded ones

-our personal fave Cpastas

-NoSleep and the 'rules' for online creepy fiction

-the 2014 Slenderman attack and moral panics

-nostalgia and the obsession with old video games and pre-digital tech

-the legacy of Cpasta? Indie horror gaming & social media ghost stories

LINKS:

Buy me a coffee! A haunted coffee.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wideatlantic

Vox Possible's Bandcamp Page

https://voxpossible.bandcamp.com/

Finger Post Blog

https://finger-post.blog/

Creepypasta, Candle Cove, And The Digital Gothic, Jessica Balanzategui

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470412919841018?journalCode=vcua

Slender Man Is Coming, Blank & McNeill

https://books.google.ie/books/about/Slender_Man_Is_Coming.html?id=J6NtDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y

Haunted PS1 Indie Game Horror

https://hauntedps1.itch.io/demodisc2020

The Ghost In My Machine Blog

https://theghostinmymachine.com/

Dear David in the Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/dear-david-is-the-bone-chilling-online-horror-true-or-fake-1.3331231

The Russian Sleep Experiment

https://www.creepypasta.com/the-russian-sleep-experiment/

Sonic.exe

https://www.creepypasta.com/sonic-exe/

It Had My Mother's Voice

https://www.creepypasta.com/it-had-my-mothers-voice/

Tales From A Retired Cryptozoologist

https://www.creepypasta.com/tales-from-a-retired-cryptozoologist/