User blog comment:EtherBot/Jeff the Killer: Creepypasta as Creepypasta/@comment-25941663-20171009144500/@comment-25458443-20171009193711

I mean, personally, as somebody who started with an interest in folklore in general and then backpeddled into creepypasta specifically, I see creepypasta as almost an "anti-genre" as opposed to a real genre. Certainly Jeff didn't do a good job at defining the tropes or beats that creepypasta uses today, but tropes and beats are irrelevant to me.

To me a creepypasta is a "kind" of story, not a "style" of it. Everything from the Hyraaq Tobit series to Slender-Man are creepypasta not because they follow simple genre tropes but rather because of how they are created. A campfire story isn't a campfire story unless told at a campfire, otherwise its just a ghost story, whereas urban legends come in all flavors but all SPECIFICALLY involve vague and scary distortions of suburbia life. (Oh there's a rat in my soda. A murderer hides in the back of my nice car. I'm babysitting the house of some kids and there's a murderer hiding in the attic. etc.)

Creepypasta is more "campfire story" than "urban legend" I guess is what I'm trying to say. Perhaps I'm alone in finding the distinction both super distinct as well as really interesting.