As you read this, a young woman in Costa Rica is staring at her smartphone in horror. She is frozen with fear and dreads the moment someone will come up… Read more » Continue reading →
As you read this, a young woman in Costa Rica is staring at her smartphone in horror. She is frozen with fear and dreads the moment someone will come up from behind and tap her on the shoulder, a horrifying child covered in sores and who has dead eyes that secrete a festering combination of pus and blood. This ghastly boy skulks around Guanacaste looking for his next victim, who happens to be whoever reads this.
Welcome to creepypasta, an online pop culture trend that is spreading across Costa Rica faster than a Guanacaste wildfire. Creepypasta is a curious 21st century term used to describe the compendium of campfire stories and urban tales of horror and supernatural happenstance.
At any given moment, thousands of scary, spine-chilling, and hair-raising stories are stored in the cloud and shared among people in Costa Rica. The prevalence of online social networks and Internet-connected mobile devices play a big part in the spread of creepypasta. This is nothing new, of course. Scary tales have been shared by humans ever since we could think about them. They were once oral stories that were eventually written, illustrated, printed, electronically stored, posted on computer bulletin board systems (BBS), sent as email messages, and lately shared among social media circles.
In Costa Rica, creepypasta is being manufactured with a certain regard for folklore along with sad glimpses of social reality. For example, El Cadejo used to be a sort of supernatural lycanthrope/fantastic creature that would hide in the cafetales (coffee farms) for the sole purpose of scaring agricultural workers heading to bed very late at night, but only if they had been at a bar, dance hall or brothel. It was a morality tale: If you dance the night away instead of getting a good night’s sleep before work, El Cadejo will get you on the way back.
One of the current creepypasta versions of El Cadejo has been updated with the transformation of a child who was mistreated and chained by his alcoholic father. The boy eventually broke the chains, escaped his home and vanished among the coffee plants, whereupon he became an anthropomorphous canine that vowed to mutilate all alcoholic parents who mistreat their children. Whereas in the past El Cadejo seemed to be on the payroll of coffee farm owners and miffed wives, today’s creepypasta Cadejo is more of a socially vindictive apparition with a history of heartbreak and abuse.
The creepypasta phenomenon gained significant attention a few years ago thanks to an insightful article in the New York Times, which argued that Web scares can be emotionally beneficial to a certain extent. We have all seen those clever scary videos that invite us to pay close attention to the screen, only to be surprised by the sudden appearance of a ghostly image and a bloodcurdling scream that nearly throws you off your chair. How did you feel afterward? More than likely, you were high on certain neurochemicals and smiling with glee at the following cognition:
- I am safe.
- That was clever and silly.
- I did not expect to be so scared.
- That was fun.
In the end, small and sporadic servings of creepypasta in Costa Rica can be good for you.