Creepypasta games are more popular than ever, so why is the creepypasta audience shrinking?

There’s never been a better time to be a gamer that loves creepypasta. You can find all kinds of creepypasta games across nearly every possible genre. Bem Feito is a deceptively cute life sim filled with sinister secrets. World of Horror is a 1-bit adventure game that pays homage to classic creepypasta tales as well as the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Junji Ito. There are multiplayer games inspired by the SCP Foundation, terrifying nightmares in liminal spaces, and even massive new updates for classic Slenderman titles.

But while creepypasta games have become increasingly popular, actual creepypasta is on the decline. According to Google Trends, interest in creepypasta peaked in 2014, and it’s been fading ever since. The creepypasta subreddit still has tons of subscribers, but there’s been a major decrease in comments and posts. Creepypasta has been losing steam for years, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever get back to the highs of its glory days.

People are still engaging with creepypasta-inspired media, so why aren’t they reading creepypasta anymore? To get to the bottom of this mystery, let’s dive into the history of the creepypasta format.

The History of Creepypasta

Humans have always found ways to share strange and terrifying stories. In medieval times, minstrels traveled from town to town, singing songs about death omens and killer bunnies. During the 1800s, it was common to gather around fires and share spooky ghost stories. People love the feeling of being scared, and we love scaring each other even more.

As the world has evolved, the ways we share these stories has continued to change. Advances in printing press technology made it easier to spread stories through books, newspapers, and magazines. When post offices became more accessible, people began to distribute stories via chain letters.

The rise of the internet gave people new ways to pass along terrifying tales. One of the earliest examples of modern creepypasta was Ted the Caver, a 2001 website that documented strange discoveries in a mysterious cave. The tale unfolded over a series of blog posts and included numerous photographs, which gave the story an air of authenticity.

While creepypasta started out on websites, it wasn’t long before people started to spread these stories. It was common for people to copy the text of their favorite stories and paste them into emails or message board posts. This led to the creation of the term creepypasta, a combination of the words “creepy” and “copypasta.”

Some popular creepypastas, like The Russian Sleep Experiment, were fairly traditional horror tales. However, many others weaved collaborative, mixed media stories that felt like they could only be told on the internet. One of the most popular examples is The SCP Foundation, a collaborative writing project revolving around a fictional paranormal organization. Participants created mock scientific reports that documented mysterious phenomena and creatures.

Another classic case is Slenderman, a supernatural character invented on the Something Awful message board. Users worked together to create the Slenderman mythology. Soon, the legend of Slenderman spread far beyond the forums, and the character began to appear in other forms of media, like fanart, YouTube videos, and video games.

The Rise of Creepypasta Videogames

2012 saw the release of two viral freeware games based on these creepypasta formats: Slender and SCP – Containment Breach. The titles initially received mixed reviews, but they were able to reach a wider audience thanks to Let’s Plays and free content updates. Soon, both games saw massive success. In fact, Slender was downloaded so many times it caused the game’s website to repeatedly crash.

The popularity of these titles led to even more creepypasta-inspired games. In 2014, developer SnowOwl released It Moves, a pixelated horror game based on the popular creepypasta tale Bedtime. Another developer, Konsordo, released a series of survival horror games inspired by The Rake, a horrifying entity that’s appeared in many creepypasta tales.

Some devs took a different route and tried to bring fictional creepypasta games to life. Llamasoft created a playable version of Polybius, a legendary arcade game that was allegedly developed as a psychological experiment. Others created their own versions of imaginary bootleg games, like Pokémon Black and Sonic.EXE. Most of these titles couldn’t be released commercially, but they made the world of creepypasta feel a little more real.

Not every creepypasta game managed to find an audience, and some weren’t actually games at all. In 2015, a YouTube channel shared footage of Sad Satan, a horror game that was allegedly downloaded on the dark web. The footage was shared on gaming websites and other publications, but it turned out to be a hoax. The Sad Satan footage was created for YouTube, and the real game never existed.

Despite these bumps in the road, creepypasta continued to inspire all kinds of video games. Cult studio Project Moon got their start with Lobotomy Corporation, a monster management game inspired by SCP Foundation stories. The game spawned multiple sequels and led to the creation of a brand-new fictional universe. Other titles, like Stories Untold and Pony Island, told original stories that were clearly inspired by the creepypasta format.

While creepypasta games are primarily a part of the indie scene, major developers have lifted from creepypasta too. Control, an action-adventure game developed by Remedy Entertainment, is filled with references to SCP Foundation stories, including a story about a singing furnace and a tale of a haunted toaster. The first Control DLC was even called “The Foundation.”

Why People Stopped Reading Creepypasta

It’s clear that people are still drawn to creepypasta-style stories, so why aren’t they reading it as much as they used to? If you look at the success of creepypasta games and other creepypasta-inspired media, you’ll see that people haven’t actually lost interest in creepypasta; they’re just choosing to experience it in new ways.

While people are less willing to read through stories, popular creepypasta YouTube channels like The Dark Somnium are still getting hundreds of thousands of views. Sure, no one is typing up tales for message boards anymore, but they are sharing stories via TikToks and podcasts. Creepypasta games are hugely popular, but these stories are also being adapted as TV shows and movies.

People will never stop trying to scare each other. Whether they’re spreading urban legends or telling tall tales around a campfire, horror stories help humans communicate with one another. Spooky stories don’t just give us goosebumps; they’re a way for us to share our fears and anxieties. Creepy tales help us understand each other, and they can even give us a better understanding of ourselves.

Classic creepypasta may have fallen out of fashion, but the stories behind them haven’t gone anywhere. From playable creepypastas to interactive videos, people are terrifying each other in all kinds of thrilling new ways. There might be a day when we stop calling it creepypasta, but spooky stories are here to stay.