What do “Canterbury Tales,” “Frankenstein,” and “The Great Gatsby” all have in common? The answer is that they’re all classics — the very cornerstones of the English literary canon. They stand proud as some of the books considered to be the best or most influential of their respective literary movements. More importantly, however, is that reading them in public will make you look “aesthetic.” Us aura farmers have spent centuries trying to find a way to predict what texts would eventually be awarded classic status so that we can maximize our aura output, and we believe we’ve finally cracked the code. According to our research, the Internet Era’s grand contribution to “fine literature” will be creepypastas and fanfiction, and we suggest that you begin treating them as such.
For context: fanfiction refers to works that are written using characters or settings from pre-existing properties, and Creepypasta refers to online works that seek to spook or deeply unsettle the reader, acting as the digital successor to campfire stories. Both mediums boast massive communities on the internet dedicated to the writing and dissemination of these stories. These communities have thousands of writers, many of whom are young amateurs publishing their work for the first time. This can mean that many works that get posted can end up being less than stellar — but also that some previously unknown writers can silently publish peak fiction under everyone’s noses. For every two dozen contrived horror stories and banal fluff fics unleashed onto the internet, there is bound to be at least one story that deserves to be remembered alongside the best works of the Brontës. But if this is truly the case, then shouldn’t libraries be filled with shelves of survival guide creepypastas and gold-gilded tomes of BakuDeku? Why aren’t creepypastas and fanfics getting the respect they deserve?
Creepypasta to most people brings forth memories of cringy mascot horror like Sonic.exe and Jeff the Killer. But behind the viral missteps that taint the good name of creepypasta lie the true gems, the works that take humanity’s oldest fears and meld them with the terrors of the internet age, congealing into something that pushes the medium of horror into a new era. This evolution of horror can be seen in collaborative writing projects such as The SCP Foundation, a fictional organization that keeps user-written entries on an assortment of anomalous objects and beings. It contains not only research entry-style creepypastas, but also a collection of small stories known as “tales” that serve to flesh out the universe between the entries. Due to the way that the tales build off the entries, the SCP writing project has turned into a web of horror literature that is self-referential, yet totally fresh — something that could have only ever happened in the medium of creepypasta. This has led to situations where newer entries can directly build off older entries despite having different authors (the recent SCP-8066 masterfully expands upon the classic SCP-2006) and still have both stories feel like parts of a cohesive universe. Some of the tales are masterpieces in their own right; I wouldn’t be surprised if “There Is No Antimemetics Division,” a tale about isolation and the weaponization of ideas, is hailed as a seminal classic in the future. Outside of larger writing projects, communities such as Reddit’s r/nosleep lower the bar to entry for lesser-known writers, leading to classic bone-chilling horror stories like “Penpal” and “Borrasca.” Unfortunately, no matter how scary creepypastas get, they will never spook people quite like fanfiction.
Fanfiction has accrued quite an unfortunate reputation over the years due to its association with smut. And you know what? A lot of that reputation is earned. But to the people who feel like their heels are being licked by hellfire whenever they come into contact with anything fanfiction related, I tell them this: go to any Walmart’s book section and open any of the romance novels. You will find that two-thirds of Walmart’s book selection is straight smut (smut that costs money, I may add). If you’re comfortable at Wally’s World, you’ll be fine tiptoeing around Archive Of Our Own, otherwise known as AO3. After all, due to AO3’s robust tag system, you can completely avoid stuff like that steamy A/B/O fic that you totally don’t have open on your phone right now, you freak. Now, I’ll be honest — I’m not a big fanfiction guy myself. A man can only read so many corruption AUs before he loses all hope in humanity, and after I read a “The Vampire Chronicles” fic, I swear I can sometimes hear Anne R*ce’s lawyers rustling around in the walls due to her penchant for prosecuting all fanworks using her characters. But I do know that fanfiction is an outlet that people can use to explore their interests and their feelings through fiction and somewhere to create without judgement. And create what, exactly? Anything. There’s the obvious example of a 14-year-old girl making their fictional crush kiss everything that can be kissed. But it could also be them trying to fix perceived issues with their favorite stories. Or writing a self-insert power fantasy with all their favorite characters. In fact, I’m not even going to bother with listing any fanfic recommendations because the entire point is that you can find a franchise that you’re interested in with the tags you want and read the associated fics. The best stories in fanfic are treated less as monoliths of the medium and more like semi-hidden oases for Those Who Know.
The most important effects of fanfiction and creepypasta are the effects that it has on young readers. A lot of this content appeals heavily to a younger audience, which causes them to further develop their interest in reading. Reading waves upon waves of creepypasta/fanfiction builds mental connections between words and their uses, slowly turning the reader into a better writer. Many young writers’ first exposure to writing occurs through writing fanfiction, and through repeated exposure to writing comes mastery. All of those low-quality fluff pieces that litter fanfiction sites? Probably just some kid trying to find their bearings while developing their personal style. Growth like this is needed before they bloom into an author that can write something truly special. And if they don’t end up making masterpieces? No problem! The beautiful thing about writing on the internet is that there’s no obligation to write anything good — you can write things just to satiate your own love of writing and no one will stop you.
Perhaps the greatest contribution that the mediums of fanfiction and creepypasta made to literature is the popularization of the democratization of writing and publishing stories. Prior to these mediums, stories would either get picked up by some publisher or magazine or stay underground, never to be read by others. But fanfiction and creepypasta spurred the development of spaces where people can both write and share their writing, allowing everyone to write and be read, and allowing great authors the recognition they’ve been gatekept from. I know that one day, sooner than you think, fanfiction and creepypastas will get the respect that they deserve. Maybe Lit majors will eventually have to take mandatory “Intro to SCP” classes. Perhaps WangXian fans can one day succeed David Foster Wallace simps as being the most insufferable literature enthusiasts. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to get back to my aura farming and — ANNE RICE??!! COURT DOCUMENTS?!! MY AO3 HISTORY?!! NO LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME ALONE LEAVE ME AAAAAHHHH *transmission ended*
