Creepypastas

The age-old tradition of telling ghost stories around a campfire has gotten a digital upgrade with Creepypastas - scary stories or pictures that spread across message boards, becoming Internet lore that are discussed both on and offline.

People around the word share their bizarre and terrifying stories, hoping that the tales will gain popularity and become classics, often quoted or cited by horror fans and frightened netizens.

Like with the ghost stories of old, not all creepypastas are particularly scary or good, even if they are frequently passed around. Reading a long story with an interesting title or image is no guarantee of a frightening payoff, and the writers often forget that just having someone meeting a quick and unfortunate fate does not an interesting story make.

When a real gem of a creepypasta is found, it makes all the searching and scavenging worth it (at least until it's time to fall asleep). So grab a friend, turn off the lights and prepare to be scared to scroll any further - here are the tales of the scariest, nightmare-producing creepypastas of all time. (Both gaming and non-gaming creepypastas.)