User blog:AB1997/Am I the only one who feels that the original charm of creepypasta was lost a long time ago?

I know that this will most likely spark a lot of inflammatory debate, so please take my opinion with a grain of salt and try to remain civil.

As someone who's not only been around since the early days of /x/, but also viewed the wiki since it was formed all the way back in 2010, I can safely say that I while the quality of creepypasta has greatly improved, I still prefer the old days of creepypasta over the new ones.

Here's why.

To me what made creepypasta so great was not only how short they usually were, but also how source-less they felt. There was no author or creator, they were all shared, copied and pasted, and shared anonymously, This managed to make them feel like campfire stories and urban legends that just happened to be online.

Nowadays not only do you know EXACTLY where they coming from and who's writing them, but they're also almost always long complex narratives with characters and twists in the plot. They started to feel less and less like online urban legends and more like stories you would see published in a book.

I think it's the same reason why YouTube has been on such a decline. What made it a great platform in it's early days because it was like a unique alternative to cable TV. Until it was purchased by Google which has gradually re-structured it to be more like cable TV in order to make more profit off of it. Honestly, I'd also go as far as to say that it was the creation of places like the wiki, creepypasta.com, nosleep, etc. that led to the decline. The whole idea of "rules" for writing creepypastas, that there where names and faces in charge of it all, admins, mods, etc. should have been the red flag that it was never going to maintain it's original charm.

It stopped being this creepy, formless thing and became another flavor of short stories.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for content creators receiving credit for their work, and like I said before I won't deny that the quality of creepypastas has improved. But I think that's it's a "you can't have your cake and eat it too" situation, and there's no maintaining that unique magic once you pull back the curtain and take a bow.