Scary Web Bits

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[There is] … a growing phenomenon making its way around message boards and e-mail chains called ‘creepypasta’ — bite-sized bits of scariness that have joined the unending list of things-to-do-when-you’re-bored-at-work.

… . creepypasta vary widely. One … “The Russian Sleep Experiment,” is a short story about Russian prisoners who are forcibly deprived of sleep until they cannibalize each other.

Another, called “Suicide Mouse,” is a nine-minute, Kafkaesque loop of a vintage Mickey Mouse walking down a gloomy street, which slowly degrades into a mix of distorted images, warped music and chilling screams.

… creepypasta has its own, geeky etymology … . Mike Rugnetta, who is a researcher for KnowYourMeme.com, a Manhattan-based project devoted to tracking and documenting bits of viral Web ephemera — or memes — explained that creepypasta derives from a term called ‘copypasta,’ which described any piece of text that was endlessly ‘copy-pasted’ across the Internet. Creepypasta probably arose as a creepy form of copypasta around 2007, Mr. Rugnetta said, though it’s only recently become really popular. (According to Google Trends, which quantifies the rate at which a given term is searched, ‘creepypasta’ has skyrocketed in just the last few months — roughly five times what it was at midyear.)”

See article at: NYT 14Nov10: “Bored at Work? Try Creepypasta, or Web Scares”