The telling of the scary story is as old as the campfire. Now, they’ve made the jump from summer camp and slumber parties to the web. The internet’s hunger for new, sharable content has sped up production of scary stories and urban legends. A bewildering number of web-forums, messages boards, and specialty websites are dedicated to sharing stories that have been passed around so often that no one knows where they came from, and which maybe, possibly, could be true. The genre is called “creepypasta,” a silly-seeming name for some of the scariest stuff on the web. Our guest Will Wiles, wrote about "creepypasta," a genre he calls the folk literature of the web.
"Scary stories serve a useful social purpose. They let us know which fears we have are commonly held. And we know that other people share our fears, which is inherently reassuring, even if telling of the story is very scary. "
We read Wil's article in Aeon magazine and got completely creeped out by one story in particular, so we made a little radio play. Maybe don't listen right before bedtime.
