Creepypasta Cliches

[Gatx]

I'm in the middle of a Creepypasta kick recently and have been reading a lot of them, though it's really hard to find good ones on the wiki. A lot of them will be overwritten and try to hard, or it'll lack any kind of subtlety whatsoever.

A small thing that I've been seeing a lot and has been really getting on my nerves is the use of the word "guttural," usually used to describe screams or monster noises.

It's a weird word that I guess people like because it sounds biological/organic and they like the imagery it brings, but it never comes into play in normal speech so it seems out of place when the rest of the story goes for that journal entry/official document style.

It's supposed to refer to throaty sounds like the "ch" in Bach, so I guess it works for monster noises, but what the heck does a "guttural scream" sound like?

Anyway what are some of the things you guys get annoyed by in Creepypastas or Internet urban legends in general?

 

[squeekenator]

The creeeeepy maaaaaagical curse that will afflict YOU, THE READER, now that you have read this story! Can be done well, but most of the time it's just used as a cheap way to get the reader involved because your story wasn't interesting enough to do so on its own.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The best urban legends end with whatever it is collapsing into dust before anyone can get a photo or any more witnesses.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Somebody finds something that should be very expensive but it's being sold at an incredibly cheap price, and when they get home it somehow malfunctions. Creepypasta ensues.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Oh, time to get my nostalgic on:

Spoiler

"This is a true story...it happened to a friend of a friend of mine"

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Not sure if you'd consider this a real cliche, but the constant name-dropping of Pokemon even in stories unrelated to it. Those piss me off more than just about anything because they kill any chance the story has of being spooky.

 

[renegade7]

G̭̹͖̼̫̝̦̕a̧̺̣͎̺r̥̤̖̠͙̰̞f̬i̹̗éͅld̦̰̠̲̤̳ ̪̫̯͙̻̥͕͢c̱̳̬̺͎̫̘o̶̩͍m͙̯ì̻͎̪͍͉c͎͍̹̗̕ ̲̤͙̕ẁ͓͉̬̟̝͍it̯̯͎h̸ ̻͈͔͘h͇̣͇͙̬͟is͓̹̙̫̦ ͖̘͕ȩ̞̝͎̟y͔̱̞e̢s̮̳̙̟ ̜̟b͓̘̖͔̬̳ͅl̜̝̤͔a͙̜̼̤̱̟͎͘c͚k̡͕̱̯͙̙ḙ̝͙̙̳̯́n̩̮̜͡e̬̺̮̺ḏ̺̯͍͖̲͚͟.̴̹͉̘̝̟̦̟

May I ask how you generate that font? I've seen it before.

OT: everything to do with Lavender Town. Okay, I get it. The music is kind of haunting and its role in the story was a bit darker than most of us were used to in our games at the tender age of 7. We are no longer 7. Lavender Town is no longer scary. It has become such a substantial portion of all video game stories that it is no longer interesting.

"I bought a cartridge of my old favorite video game at a yard sale/secondhand shop/eBay and the guy who was selling it doesn't remember where it came from/gave me a vague but foreboding warning about it and it played fine at first but then IT WAS HAUNTED by increasingly spooky variations on the original game/a ROM hack and my Pokemon died when they ran out of HP/a major character appeared with blacked-out eyes."

Oh, and blacked-out, blood-dripping eyes. Stop it. It's gotten to the point where, if I actually were to see someone with blood coming from their eyes, I would assume "Creepypasta fanboy" rather than "In need of immediate medical assistance".

SCPwiki > Creepypasta

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

"I bought a cartridge of my old favorite video game at a yard sale/secondhand shop/eBay and the guy who was selling it doesn't remember where it came from/gave me a vague but foreboding warning about it and it played fine at first but then IT WAS HAUNTED by increasingly spooky variations on the original game/a ROM hack and my Pokemon died when they ran out of HP/a major character appeared with blacked-out eyes."

Oh, and blacked-out, blood-dripping eyes. Stop it. It's gotten to the point where, if I actually were to see someone with blood coming from their eyes, I would assume "Creepypasta fanboy" rather than "In need of immediate medical assistance".

I have to disagree with you here. You sound like someone who's just bitter and jaded because you met with a terrible fate.

Haven't you?

XD

(Sorry, my friend, I just couldn't resist! Hope you know I'm only joking. I really DO agree with every word of your post. Those types of creepypastas seriously get on my nerves too, overdone as they are. Ben Drowned is about as boring now as Slenderman and Jeff the Killer.)

OT - the only video game creepypasta I like is The Theater. That one captivates me for some reason.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

https://encyclopediadramatica.es/Creepypasta/Russia_spoofs

You'll probably like these.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Hyper realism.

Last time I checked, anything trying to include this when posting on the Creepypasta Wiki gets deleted on sight, because the mods are sick of it.

 

[Someone Depressing]

HAIPA REALISTIK BLUD

No, but, seriously, there are good creepypasta. At the slightest mention of hyper realism, horrendous grammar, or cliches in general, I just leave.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's supposed to refer to throaty sounds like the "ch" in Bach, so I guess it works for monster noises, but what the heck does a "guttural scream" sound like?

Literally a scream from the gut. Really low, really resonant, and really powerful. Think "hulk smash" put through a time-extending program.

OT: Freaking "hyper-realistic eyes/blood/viscera". What does that even mean? More real than real?

 

[ToastiestZombie]

If Creepypastas were true I'm sure the amount of creepy old guys selling unmarked games/tapes would have reached epidemic levels. That and media-related suicides would be astronomical with the amount of hyper-realistic lost episodes with dead kids going around.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I'm in the middle of a Creepypasta kick recently and have been reading a lot of them.

If you go on youtube, look up videos by Creepypasta or Creepypastajr. Then you can listen instead of reading.

 

[Loonyyy]

Oh, time to get my nostalgic on:

Spoiler

"This is a true story...it happened to a friend of a friend of mine"

Oh god those were weird. There was one about diet pills which were expanding sponges, and a kid who strapped a scramjet to his car. And a bunch of them weren't scary- Yep, sounds like creepypasta.

All of the childhood.

 

[Gatx]

It's supposed to refer to throaty sounds like the "ch" in Bach, so I guess it works for monster noises, but what the heck does a "guttural scream" sound like?

Literally a scream from the gut. Really low, really resonant, and really powerful. Think "hulk smash" put through a time-extending program.

That's what it sounds like it should mean, and what I assume most people intend, but the meaning of "guttural" doesn't change just because it's combined with "scream." A guttural sound is still a sound made from the back of the throat.

 

[Something Amyss]

Writing it like borderline porn. Everyone is so excitable all the time.

"When I got hope, I ran upstairs. Trembling, I traced my hands along the shrink wrap before I tore into it, leaving my prized possession bare. And then I turned it on, and gasped in horror as I found that there was a single misplaced pixel in the upper left corner of the Nintendo logo. The horror! I fought back tears as I pressed start...."

Emotional responses have their place in storytelling, of course, but I think the world of Creepypastas is populated entirely by drama queens.

I've been tempted to spoof the worst clichés, but I have barely enough time these days to work on my own stuff.

 

[MintSM]

Any creepypasta that's based off an existing source material tends to just suck. Unless the work is obscure and doesn't have a large following or is fictional and definitely has no general consensus, the story will always be linked to it, and it usually highlights a) the writer's incompetency at writing something original and b) if the writing sucks, just how absolutely FAIL it is in comparison.

And sometimes it doesn't even make sense; like why would you try and write horror stories about a lost episode of Spongebob Squarepants or ROM Hacked version of Sonic the Hedgehog?