Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-37824639-20190407170034/@comment-33904527-20190407195446

It was a good example of how low our standards were back in those days. Not a good story, but I think the main reason it blew up so much was because of this picture:



You see a pattern in old creepypasta where the classic stories are always accompanied by a somewhat unnerving image (e.g. Smile Dog, The Expressionless, Slenderman, Squidward's Suicide, The Rake, etc.)

I haven't read the 'new' version of Jeff the Killer, so I don't really know what it's all about. But the creepy images always seemed to boost a story's popularity, sometimes even becoming iconic. There's no way Jeff the Killer would be such a staple of early 2000s internet culture if that image of the smiling white face never existed.

Like I said, Jeff the Killer isn't a good story by today's standards. It's choppily written, gore is just kind of thrown in for added shock value, and the plot is questionable. But back in that era, it scared the shit out of people. And most modern pastas, however well written, however good they are overall, will never quite achieve that same effect on people in my eyes. I do think this is mainly because of the fall of creepypastas' popularity. In a way, it is a dying internet culture, not fit for movies or TV as we have seen in the recent Slenderman movie and Channel Zero's adaptations.

But who knows, maybe creepypasta will make a comeback within the next decade or so. All it would take is one breakthrough story.