The image of using chiaroscuro lighting to accentuate one’s face in the process of weaving a tale of terror and intrigue is one as enduring as marshmallows over fire. The scary story, and its close associate the urban legend, have been mainstays in the public consciousness for years, but that intertwined quality seems to have lessened in the years between reports of Gef the Mongoose and the current year.
Icons of the cryptid world, and veritable tabloid stars, urban legends had a home in the hearts and minds of everyone from the simple storyteller to the true believer to the fraudsters in our midst. Sasquatch’s home ever in debate, and his Hisuian variant the yeti snowballing in popularity as a pop culture fixture featured in films like “Monsters Inc.” when in need of an abominable snowman.
A name familiar to most, the Loch Ness Monster garnered theories around its existence from being driftwood all the way to being the final true dinosaur keeping the spirit of the urban legend alive. Blurry photos providing proof of Nessy burrowing their way into the imagination of the public in much the same way as Bigfoot’s infamous turn. Acting to the sea what Sasquatch and his cousin are to land.
The urban legend’s spirit was so insatiable that even nowhere places like desert settlements, Fresno and the entire state of New Jersey got in on the action with their own respective sightings. The ever popular UFO giving hope that perhaps this universe isn’t so lonely and inspiring terror that there is in fact someone else home. The Fresno nightcrawler inspiring memes about why sentient pants haunt the suburbs. The Jersey Devil proving Jersey Is Hell.
In my lifetime however, this experience as I had been taught to recognize it never found me, no campfire stories, and all rumors of the supernatural half-hearted pisstakes of the legacy of the urban legend. The void of the supernatural rumor mill, suspicious in its absence, yet inconspicuous in its disappearance. A white out spill normally only reserved for things we culturally have wished to bleach our brains of organically, or perhaps more like an emptied room.
The urban legend didn’t get erased, it just moved to a new place.
The boundless frontier of the internet was the next stage of the unknown, a place where it could morph to find a home in a world that was becoming increasingly well suited to fill in the gaps where the art form thrived. With the democratization of publication the internet provided anyone with time, a computer and a little dedication could find themselves at the birth of a modern day tale of horror.
Often these tales took the name of Creepypastas after the website with the same moniker and the ubiquity of some of the tales migrated, created or otherwise hosted there are what lead me to believe the urban legend didn’t so much disappear. It just got a new digital pad.
Figures such as Slenderman, who while associated with Creepypasta was actually a forum creation and migrant to the website, are as ubiquitous in the minds of anyone who has been surfing the web as cryptids of old are to the zeitgeist at large. By using the unique qualities of the internet to achieve their fear factor, in particular the image editing in the early days, the defining images of these horror stories proved replicable and striking for the digital age.
Slenderman himself beginning as a mere creepy edit of an old photo to capitalize on the idea of something being present that was hitherto uncovered, proving fairly easy to make and propagate. Ben Drowned’s iconic grimacing visage as an advertisement for the story of the game he haunts. Jeff the Killer’s rudimentary, overexposed uncanny face like a deep fried Heath Ledger Joker reaching far beyond even his tale.
In keeping with tradition, all of the stories are perhaps not literary masterworks, but all earnest attempts to keep their target audience up at night. Peeking out from their duvet scared of the unknown and all it could hold. Always able to get another campfire tale from all the other amateurs sitting around the digital campfire. Always tempted to take one more glimpse beyond the real.