User blog comment:EtherBot/Jeff the Killer: Creepypasta as Creepypasta/@comment-29652084-20171009225505

Back in 2014, when that story was deleted, it was essentially the beginning of evolution and change. If you ask many of us who were admins during that time, including myself, you'll find that a lot of us wanted Creepypasta to evolve into a respectable writing medium and therefore had to delete Jeff the Killer - it was poorly written and a reflection on the medium as a whole. A huge amount of support was given to the thread posted for its deletion - many of the opposes were for fear of the shitstorm it could cause.

And we were right. In order for Creepypasta to evolve, Jeff had to go, and when it went, a slow but steady increase in quality was achieved. People wrote stories that were original and put care into their writing. We attracted amateur writers who cared about what was posted and what wasn't and wanted to ensure that they got to be apart of a community that was reflective of their interests: to improve on their work using the medium as a stepping stone. In order for that to happen, the medium still had to improve as a whole.

Jeff the Killer achieved popularity through simple means. He was a teenage Mary Sue with flat one-dimensional traits and ambiguous rebelliousness both within his story and to the genre as a whole - thus, he ended up with fangirls who could apply themselves to him and became the 'face' of Creepypasta. Jeff is basically our version of Roman Reigns, except we were smart enough not to push him.

There were better creepypastas, better stories, better things that could be preserved. Dogscape, by definition, is a creepypasta. Psychosis is a good one. Many others too. They either arrived too late or were just too out there with no edgy character to grasp on and make into various fanfics and OC's.

This change in mission protocol, as you put it, is not a bad thing. It's helped far more than it has hurt because, in the end, those within the community at large have changed. Those who didn't like the evolution of creepypasta and didn't want to put effort into their work went elsewhere, and those who stayed and cared improved and became all-the-better for it.

There is no need for a name change. I like to think that we're one of the front-line leaders into the future of the medium and it should stay that way. It helps those who want to better themselves and get their foot in the door, and I don't think we should re-brand simply because we elected not to hold on to the worst parts of our past.