So I'm like a 90s baby who grew up during the early 2000s, and man I freaking loved creepypastas back in the day, before they ever even went mainstream. I think one of the first creepypastas I read was in 2010 - "Ben Drowned" - My childhood friend showed me that one, I'm pretty sure. Here's a list of OG creepy pastas to get into.
1. Ben Drowned (The Haunted Cartridge) - read here
A college student buys a bootleg, unlabeled gray cartridge of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask at a creepy yard sale. When he boots it up, the game is already heavily glitched and seems to be haunted by the previous owner, a boy named Ben. It pioneered the "haunted cartridge" genre, turning a beloved piece of nostalgic childhood media into a psychological nightmare.
2. Jeff the Killer
3. Slenderman
Of course, the OG classic. Everyone knows the story of slenderman, aye? This one got popular as I was growing up into an adult, when creepypastas were going mainstream. I bet y'all heard of this one.
Slenderman is arguably the most recognizable and impactful internet urban legend of all time. Unlike many creepypastas that grew organically from anonymous authors, Slenderman has a clear, documented origin.
He was created on June 10, 2009, by a user named Eric Knudsen (under the username "Victor Surge") during a photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums.
Knudsen submitted two black-and-white photos of children with a tall, unnaturally thin, faceless man in a black suit lurking in the background.
The internet took the character and ran with it. Because Slenderman had no "official" canon, users on various forums added their own lore: that he had tentacles, that he caused "Slender sickness" (paranoia and coughing fits), and that he lived in the woods.
(Note: The Slenderman mythos famously crossed over into real-world tragedy in 2014, when two 12-year-old girls in Wisconsin stabbed a classmate, claiming they were trying to become "proxies" for Slenderman.)
4. Lavender Town Syndrome (The Pokémon Suicides)
In early 2010, an anonymous post on Pastebin and later 4chan claimed that shortly after the 1996 Japanese release of Pokémon Red and Green, over 100 to 200 children (with some versions claiming thousands) died by suicide or suffered severe illnesses.
The story claims the cause was the background music in Lavender Town, the in-game graveyard for Pokémon. The original audio track supposedly contained high-frequency binaural beats—dubbed the "Lavender Tone"—that only children’s ears were sensitive enough to hear. These frequencies allegedly caused intense headaches, nosebleeds, insomnia, and eventually drove the children to self-harm.
The myth states that Nintendo quietly recalled the original cartridges and heavily altered the music for all future global releases to make it safe.
(The reality: No such suicides happened, though the original Lavender Town music in the Japanese version genuinely was a bit more shrill and grating than the international versions, which helped fuel the rumor.)
5. Herobrine
Herobrine is a famous community-created creepypasta and urban legend from the sandbox video game Minecraft.
The legend started in August 2010 when an anonymous user on 4chan's /v/ board posted a story about encountering a mysterious player-like entity in a single-player Minecraft world. He looks identical to the default Steve skin, except his eyes are solid, glowing, pupil-less white. [1, 2]
In folklore, Herobrine stalks players and leaves strange marks on the world, such as 2x2 tunnels, stripped trees with no leaves, sand pyramids, and mysterious redstone torches. He is typically portrayed as a silent, hostile stalker who vanishes if approached or sets traps for the player. [1, 2]
Early rumors claimed Herobrine was the ghost of Markus "Notch" Persson's (the creator of Minecraft) deceased brother. Notch has explicitly denied this, stating he never had a dead brother and that Herobrine has never existed in the game's code.
For many years, Mojang playfully added the line "Removed Herobrine" to numerous official game update changelogs, turning it into a long-running community inside joke. [1, 2]
7. The Backrooms
8. Smile Dog (Smile.jpg) - read here
Written in the late 2000s by Michael Lutz, this is a classic "cursed image" and chain-letter creepypasta. It centers around a supposedly real, lost polaroid file called Smile.jpg. The image depicts a Siberian husky sitting in a dimly lit room, but it has human teeth and a massive, terrifying "slasher smile." In the background of the image, you can faintly see a human hand reaching out.
According to the story, anyone who views the image will be driven insane by sleep paralysis and nightmares where the dog torments them. The entity's only demand is that the victim "spread the word." The only way to save yourself from madness and eventual death is to forward the image to someone else, usually via a chain email with the subject line "SMILE! GOD LOVES YOU!".
Just kidding, I rebuke the curse in the name of Jesus. Smile dog can't hurt you.
