User blog:Banned In CP/Ramble: What the hell is a Creepypasta anyways?

Just something I've been thinking about lately is the elasticity of creepypasta, and how sometimes it's not even horror at all.

What? But it has the word "creepy" in it's name! It's defined by terror, they are the campfire tales of the internet. Right?

I don't think so. And I don't think I'm talking out of my ass here when I say it, because I've been reading them for years and written several of myself. And an interesting thing is that often times, creepypastas aren't what you would think of it as being. Sometimes, it's not even horror at all. Sure, when it was at it's peak popularity you had stuff like Russian Sleep Experiment and Ben Drowned. Sure, those fit the idea of CP, because they feel like campfire tales for the internet. But where exactly does it not become a creepypasta? Because there are several stories on this wiki that don't try to scare, and aren't even scary. I've written several myself. And to explain what I'll mean, I'll talk about some I've written, not out of self-importance, but because I know how exactly to disect them, since I created them.

I have one story called "Crossing the Swamp" about a woman who wakes up in a swamp in Louisiana with a deep stab wound in her abdomen, with no recollection as to how she got there. I picked this one to start out with, because it does still have elements of horror. It has a serial killer. It's from the perspective of someone who is trying not to die as she's bleeding out in a swamp. It has an ugly corpse apparition. But it's not scary, nor was it made to be. But neither is it a thriller, even though it has a serial killer in it. All it is is sad. There's no point in which there is an active effort to try to frighten the reader. Yet it's allowed to be on the site. Why? I'll get to that.

I also have another one about a guy who's walking home from the liquor store and gets mugged. He gets shot, hits his head, and slips into a coma, except he's still conscious, he just can't move. Again, there's nothing here trying to be scary. Sure, being awake while helpless in a coma is a scary thought, i didn't write it with the intention to make anyone look twice over their shoulder. But that's been on here for years, and that doesn't even have any elements of horror.

The last one I want to talk about is a sci-fi story I wrote set in a world in the far-future, about a judicial trial. It's gruesome. It's vulgar. But it's not horror at all. Really, it's more dystopian. But nobody would call 1984 dystopian would they?

I think that the main thread that actually ties CP together when you dig down deep is really just a certain tone. Not blood, not ghosts, not monsters, not tears or fear. I don't think horror is actually what truly defines CP. I think it's really just a certain graveness, a kind of thematic heaviness. Because the second it turns light, it's a trollpasta. Or it goes on Wattpad or something. The thread isn't the clammy corpse with its frozen fingers around your throat, it's simply having something around your throat.