5 internet horrors that scare us to the core

The Internet is not just a data storage space, but also a real living space full of dark secrets and legends. Part of internet folklore is reptile pasta; Scary web stories that almost break our children’s psychology. They were especially popular in the 1990s and zeros. There are fewer of them today, but they still have not disappeared anywhere and continue to fascinate ordinary readers. We have previously written about the horror stories that scared everyone in the camp. Now let’s remember the horror of Runet, after which we could not even sleep a wink.

Send a letter or your mother will die!

A typical version of a “chain letter” uses the carrot and stick method, that is, it includes a reward and threat condition: “If you love your mother, forward this message to 10 of your friends. Then you will have a fight-free year. Remember, the chain must not be interrupted. If you don’t do this, your mother will die! All this will actually happen.” It goes without saying that this is not true and the messages are spam containing links to malicious resources.

Online demon named Momo

In 2018, a person was created in one of the messengers (we deliberately do not name names, given the different degrees of sensitivity of people – Ed.) with the name Momo and a creepy profile photo. In fact, the profile picture was a sculpture by artist Keisuke Aizawa, depicting the umube spirit in Japanese folklore. At the same time, the first mentions of the character appeared in the 2000s and are associated with the book of a German author about “Momo, or the Strange Story and the Thieves of Time and the Boy Who Returned Stolen Time to People.” Thereupon, an anonymous person decided to use the drawing to scare people. He called random people and convinced them to do something bad to them. There were also strange sounds in the background so that no one would have any doubt that the spirit was real. We can imagine the effect this would have on weak-hearted people, especially children. At first, there was a myth that Momo chose people herself, but in fact, many fans of horror content found her herself. By the way, it is enough to remember children’s love for a scary toy from the horror game Poppy Playtime called Huggy Waggy, which is banned for sale in Russia in 2022. As we know, the purpose of Creepypasta is to scare, so we boldly block the contact of strangers.

slender man

By the way, killer Momo is not the only creepypasta character. For example, Slenderman or Thin Man from the web series “Marble Hornets” was awarded a separate horror movie “Slenderman” (2015). and even the computer game Slender: The Arrival. In general, the Internet hero appeared in 2009 as a result of the Create Paranormal Images contest on the Something Awful forum, where participants were asked to add paranormal or frightening details to ordinary photos using a graphic editor. Under the pseudonym Victor Surge, Eric Knudsen took two black-and-white photographs of a fictional supernatural creature that haunts children. He also left a mysterious signature, adding that the author of the photo was presumed dead. One such hoax sparked interest from people on Internet forums who began creating reptile pastas featuring his character. Slenderman is a faceless figure with abnormally long limbs. The monster quickly acquired a history of bloody murders and kidnappings. After the mutant gained popularity, it was replaced by someone named Siren Head, who allegedly came and killed random users via image. They also have exaggeratedly long limbs and sirens where mouths can be seen instead of heads. By the way, the author of the monster is a very real artist Trevor Henderson.

Virus “666”

Internet myth about a computer virus that kills people. It is believed to be thriving and prowling the internet looking for victims. Allegedly, it settles into systems and causes malfunctions. For example, rumor has it that in one of the hospitals, children died because they were misdiagnosed with the disease due to a glitch in the program. But this is all “pitchfork in the water”. In addition, a virus with the doomsday number weighs 666 bytes and affects the human psyche in the following way. A person sees a picture with a frequency of 24 frames, but the virus allegedly shows him the 25th frame with a color combination that changes life activity and leads to a heart attack. According to one legend, the pattern was invented by a scientist, according to another, by evil spirits. Allegedly the scientist included it in some kind of antivirus program and distributed it on the Internet. The story still remains one of the most popular among web horror fans.

I need your eyes!

In the 2000s, a horror video was especially popular, lasting only 20 seconds, featuring a man with a mustache on a red background (we deliberately do not name him, given the different degrees of impressionability of people – Ed.). Legend has it that people went crazy after watching the video and gouged out their eyes. When that didn’t happen, internet users claimed that the so-called full version existed, so nothing happened. In fact, the only reason why the video, which had poor graphics, had such an effect was because an unidentified person was staring blankly at the camera while disturbing music was playing in the background. A similar effect was produced by smile.jpg images, made using a graphics editor, depicting a dog with a creepy smile, as well as the poem “Tomino’s Inferno”, in which terrible things are thought to happen to you.

In general, these and similar reptilian pastas were often placed in regular videos and even computer games, so many viewers were truly horrified. Luckily no one has actually died from them. But there were also cases when followers of an Internet cult created ghosts with whom they persuaded people and children with unstable moods to commit suicide. They often hid behind harmless communities of interests, for example, calling themselves anime fans, which only confused the investigation. Today, such groups still exist but are much smaller due to increased cybersecurity measures. It is worth saying that terrible legends have always been told, so it is not surprising that this genre began to flourish on the Internet.