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Mini: Creepy Pasta · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to why we do what we do many. I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: am your host, Abraham, I'm your host, Shane. We are
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a psychology podcast. Copy We are a psychology pod, creepy
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: podcast and pasta cost Yeah I tried. Anyway, that's what
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: we do. We talk about the things that humans and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: non human animals do, and for the month of October
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: we celebrate the spooky things and talk about the something.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Usually it feel as like, even though we like talking
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: about the creepy things, we end up making them less
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: creepy by sciencing them to death.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, so the thing, Yeah, the thing about
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: knowledge is like, you know, people fear what they don't know.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: We make you know things. It's so that you don't
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: fear things.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, fear is the mind killer. Anyway, Welcome to our podcast.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Our doing podcast, which we did. If you didn't know,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: We've said this time and time again over the last
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks. We're doing podcasts now more or less.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you slice it the right way, that is correct.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I don't remember where I was going with this.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: This is a mini We record these short form episodes.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: They come out on Mondays. Our full length episodes come
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: out on Wednesdays. If you'd like to support us, like
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: subscribe rates, review, tell a friend, join us on Patreon.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that when we're done with this,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: but I think we're ready to jump into our topic
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: because that's all the things I have to say, right,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Am I missing something?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Uh No? I think that covers it. So support us
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: like us, share it with a friend. These are bite
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: sized episodes, you know what. It's spooky season, so they're
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: more like snack size episodes.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: There you go, Yes, fun size.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Fun size, that's the word I was looking for.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: All right, we're talking about creepy pasta. That is pasta
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that you look at it and you're like, ooh, yeah,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I should neat that.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: You know, it's such a bummer. Creepy pasta is good,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: but Poki noodles would be so much more fun.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Missed opportunities, you know. But you know, we're talking about
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: creepy pasta as in the stories, these these very interesting
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: weird Internet stories. What is or what were creepy pasta?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Where did they come from? Where are they now? And
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: just sort of give a like list some of the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: more popular ones that there have been. And that's our topic.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Da Jore yeah, I.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Actually really like this, So I do have a fun
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: story about this. My buddy was on a podcast he
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: got invited to, like a popular podcast to talk about
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: a story that he had had that like they called
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: her a creepy pasta, but it was like an actual
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: thing that he experienced, which was a cat with a
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: human face in the witch town that is near us,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: and so it was like a one thing. He's like,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: he's going to go to the grave believing that he
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: saw a cat morphin. Do like a cat with human
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: face morph into a cat and it's a whole thing.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Anyway, was this a Joe Rogan podcast?
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's Joe Rogan podcast. No, he was on last
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: podcast on the left actually, Like he was.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Like, Ody, that is big.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and the guys were like what they were
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: freaked out, and he's like, yeah, dude, it was crazy.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So anyway, let's talk about creepy pasta. So creepy pasta
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: is a is a horror related narrative, often in the
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: form of a legend or parable. These are the sort
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of democratized, usually short form, user generated stories, often depicted
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: as reporting real events, albeit often somewhat vaguely supernatural. So
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: it's like it seems like it could happen, but it doesn't.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It's like kind of like something's a little bit off. Yeah.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that doesn't feel quite right, Like I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: feel like that you're saying something that intuitively feels wrong
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, but yeah, so that's what they are.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: This comes from copying and pasting stories or section of
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: stories over and over again and various online forums. And
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  Speaker 1: that was called copy pasta, which morphed into creepy pasta,
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  Speaker 1: and that was coined circa two thousand and seven or so.
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  Speaker 1: And I believe nobody said this, but I'm like, I'm
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: fairly confident that it was like copy paste and they're
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: like copy pasta and then it turned into creepypasta. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: think that's sure the trajectory it took anyway, So, as
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I said, coined in two thousand and seven with this
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: advancing tendency toward somewhat paranormal scary stories in their telling.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: But they sort of have that urban legend vibe.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, like found footage, like you're not supposed to
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: be reading it. Something's uncomfortable and weird and something just
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: a little bit off right.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And oftentimes like it's not made. It's like
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: really big stakes. It's not like end of the world stuff.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, this weird thing happened to this small
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: town and it was just weird. So it's like it
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: didn't make the news. And so that's why it often
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: feels like kind of plausible that you're like, why if
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it was that major, why wouldn't I have heard of it?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't that major, so it kind of allows
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: it to just live in this under the radar sort
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of place.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, creepypasta were sometimes accompanied by pictures or videos
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: depicting ambiguous or distorted or gory or unnerving content to
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: kind of add to the lore and the spookiness of it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And over time these have evolved to sometimes include multi
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: part complex narratives with a lot of content and requiring
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a commitment to get immersed in the story or whatever,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: different presentation modalities. There's kind of various ways that these
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: exist now, like things do on the Internet, it just
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: kind of grew and changed and morphed and became other things.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But that's sort of where creepy pasta is or has
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: been lately.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And these are often intended to convey a sense
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  Speaker 2: of reality, and so they might be told in first
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: person narratives as if relayed from personal experience, and this
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: is sometimes referred to as an anecdote formula. And you'll
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: see these sometimes where people are just kind of like
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: sharing stories or like testimonials and stuff. It's interesting.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there are also a lot of creepy pastas that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: require specific actions on the part of the reader. So
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you maybe remember things like the emails for those of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: us who were of an earlier generation, maybe like when
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: emails were happening in the nineties. For those of us
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: who are around back then, you might sometimes get an
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: email that said, like forward to ten people, you'll have
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: bad luck for one hundred days, or something ridiculous like that. Yeah. Yeah,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: they anyway, they had some kind of action you had
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to take. Sometimes it was spreading the message, sometimes it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was just doing something. But anyway, these are called rituals,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and they involved performing that that action in real life. Irl,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: you had to go out and do a thing or
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: on think gear computer do a thing, but it was
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: like something Your engagement was not passive. You weren't just
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: reading it. You were also doing something. It might include
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: traveling to specific locations at a specific time, or perform
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: specific actions, or just be at a place that there
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: were supposed to be part of the sort of ritual
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: involved in the creepypasta. And I think a lot of times,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: even if there wasn't a coordinated event that took place,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: it was supposed to evoke the sort of sense of unease. Yeah,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you're just sort of like I'm looking for something I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: don't I don't know exactly what to expect. You're still
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: kind of immersed in it, if that makes sense.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like and just as an example, like sometimes
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: people have a hard time with this, but example would
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: be like something like this, listen to this ad or
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: have bad luck for ten days. So we're back. We're
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: talking about creepypastas, not this spooky noodles that God, I
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: just I feel like now we've just got now we've
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: got a business line. We have to see if somebody's
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: trademarked spooky noodles. Why we do what we doodles spooky noodles.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I love this idea.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great. We're gonna make stickers. So there
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: also is a kind of creepypasta called the Lost Episode
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: that are presented as some hapless observer stumbling upon lost
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: footage of a TV show with disturbing content that was
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: evidently never published and hidden from the public. There's a
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: famous example of this, relaying a story in which some
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: intern came across an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and which Squidward,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: after failing a clarinet recital, chooses to die by suicide,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: which is dark.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, quite dark. Yeah, there's kind of this meta level
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  Speaker 1: creepy pasta that's like a story about a story type thing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, these are a fiction And that's actually a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: really good example of a thing that's fictional that didn't
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: actually happen, but it's like plausible enough. But you're also
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: sort of like, why would they? I mean, first of all,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: you have to understand the sequence of events that someone
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: had to order this story. It had to then be written, edited,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and then gone to the animators and voice acted, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: like then they're like, no, we're not going to release that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, at what point along that sequence did someone
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: not stop and go like, I think we probably shouldn't
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: do this, guys. I'm like, of course this, yeah, But
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: that's that's the kind of plausibility that's embedded in this
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the way creepy pastas are constructed, it's like, if you
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: think about it, it doesn't make any sense, but like
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you could sort of logically hear it and be like,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: there's no major red flags here, just like a whoa,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that's crazy. That happened anyway. One of the most famous,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: probably of all the creepy pasta stories that have ever existed,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: as slender Man. People have heard that if any of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you have heard that, that's where it comes from, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that actually resulted in the real life stabbing of some kids.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: It also inspired a movie that had just the worst
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: reviews you've ever seen. So, yeah, that's if you're wondering
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about still and you've heard of Slenderman,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: then that's where that comes from.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Another one is also the Russian Sleep experiment, which
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: participants are kept awake for it to scene the amount
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: of time and as a result undergo horrific psychological torment
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and death. So again, like you kind of have like
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: this like sense of like there's a little bit of
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: reality here where like it could happen, or maybe something
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: similar did happen, and they've kind of expanded on it,
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: like you'll see that kind of happen and show up
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit to just give it that sense of like, oh,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: that's uncomfortable, because that could be real.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Importantly, one thing to know here is you might
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: hear this and think that this is trolling people. Trolling
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: is really not the same thing as creepy Pasta. Neither
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of those weird chain mails that as I mentioned earlier,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that are like forward this really get bad luck, or
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: you'll die in ten days or something like that. The
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: idea with trolling is like to specifically like get under
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: someone's skin. Right, we did a whole episode on this
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: at some point. But with Creepy Pasta, the idea is
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: really just to write a unsettling story that has a
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: level of plausibility that has people actually like question it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and then to just have it spread around like you
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: just really wanted to get as many eyes on it
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: as possible.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. So the question that kind of comes up
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: is like why, like why why would somebody put so
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: much time and effort into doing something like this. And
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: the truth is, it's like it's kind of fun, Like
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: people like being scared and that's kind of a fun thing,
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: but like it does this cool thing where it stretches
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: our creativity and imaginations and gives us an opportunity to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: practice a sort of kind of avant garde storytelling instead
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: of traditional story formats and structure. It gives usn opportunity
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: to kind of share with a community like something that
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: people really enjoy and some of the best stories, like
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: some of the best kind of like creative output I've
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: seen has come from this creepy pasta space, like and
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: you can kind of see how like like like really
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: cool and interesting lore can emerge and stuff like. It's
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: really just kind of a fun exercise in creativity more
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: than anything else.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is. It's difficult to do that.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: And so people democratizing this so kind of anyone can
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: participate and they can sort of lend their own ideas
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to it, I think really builds this sort of interesting
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: social movement.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And I also think that the lack of sort of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: winks you know that that people have and an official
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: participation in traditional storytelling avenues also kind of facilitates the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: believability and credibility of them, which makes them seem distressingly
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: plausible because it's like you're not being fed this as
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: if it's a story. You're not being fed this as
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: if it's a fictional entertainment piece. Yeah, being fed this
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: as if it's reality. And so it's like it doesn't
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: really wink at you. But at the same time, it's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: not so disturbing that you are like, except for slender Man, maybe, yeah,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: but like it's not so disturbing that you're like actually
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: in action about it. It's just sort of like, well,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I don't like that.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the feeling, the sense of like
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: dread or the sense of like unease that like the
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: Twilight Zone.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Will give you, yeah yeah, or like god, I'm really
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: dating myself right now again. But when the Blair Witch
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Project came out, they marketed that movie hard as like
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a legitimate found footage document. Yes, And there was like
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a website and everything, and this was like brand new.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: By the way, at the time, websites for movies was
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: not a thing, right, And so anyway, a lot of
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: people saw this thinking like is this did this really happened?
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Like this looks like it really happened. I mean, of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: course it didn't. Lan's a movie, but it was marketed
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that way, and like it was kind of a very
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: similar idea, albeit an actually fleshed out story.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: So, but anyway, that's that's it. That's I think the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: fun thing about creepy pastas. They're creepy, they're pastas and
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: they're fun.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it, all right?
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Anything to add there before we wrap ourselves in mummy
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: cloth and get out of here.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: No happy spooky season. Look out for our new product line,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Why We Doodle Spooky Noodles, and so, it'd be great.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to tell us your favorite creepy pasta
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: stories or tell us something we missed about creepy pastas.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: You can certainly email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can reach us on the social media platforms.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We look forward to hearing from all of you. If
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you like to support us, you can do all the
• 13:23
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• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and you can join us on Patreon. If you do that,
• 13:28
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• 13:31
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• 13:33
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• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and we thank those people on our full length episodes
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: by saying their names, and you can have your name
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: also read by us in our silky smooth voices if
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you joined that group of people, which we so appreciate,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: but otherwise, thank you to my team of people. Thank
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you all for listening. Is there anything I missed or
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: that you would like to add before we bury it?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Nope, I don't have it. I got anything else? All?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: All right? Very good? Then this is Abraham.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: It's a shame.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Why we do what we do? Mini is out.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: we hope you have an awesome day