Zalgo text, also known as cursed text due to the nature of its use, is digital text that has been modified with numerous

combining character In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents). Unicode al ...

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

symbols used to add

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s above or below letters, to appear frightening or

glitch A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among ...

y. Named for a 2004 Internet

creepypasta Creepypastas are horror-related legends that have been shared around the Internet. Creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal ...

story that ascribes it to the influence of an eldritch deity, Zalgo text has become a significant component of many

Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

s, particularly in the "surreal meme" culture. The formatting of Zalgo text also allows it to be used to halt or impair certain computer functions, whether intentionally or not.

History

Zalgo text was pioneered in 2004 by a ''

Something Awful ''Something Awful'' (SA) is an American comedy website hosting content including blog entries, Internet forum, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard Kyanka, Richard "Lowtax" K ...

'' forum member who created

image macro An image macro is a piece of digital media featuring a picture, or artwork, with some form of text superimposed. The text frequently appears at the top and bottom of the image. Image macros are one of the most common forms of internet memes, and ...

s of glitched or distorted cartoon characters exclaiming "Zalgo!" The text in the images was often distorted, and the style of the distortion became popularised as "Zalgo text". The characters were often depicted bleeding from their eyes, and forum members interpreted Zalgo as an unimaginable, eldritch apocalyptic figure.

Usage

Zalgo text is generated by excessively adding various

diacritical mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s in the form of Unicode

s to the letters in a string of digital text. Historically, it has primarily been used in horror or

Internet memes. Its seemingly improperly rendered or glitched-out characters make it prevalent amongst memes intended to make the reader's device appear to be malfunctioning. Zalgo text has become popular in the world of "surreal memes", which are intended to come across as bizarre or absurd. A common signifier of surreal memes, Zalgo text ties in with an overall aesthetic sensibility of the strange and impossible that includes elements such as

clip art Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...

and strange-looking recurring characters but refuses to represent real-world elements such as real people or brands. Zalgo text has also been used or alluded to outside of Internet memes. A fan-made campaign logo for the

Michael Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign The 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg, a businessman and former mayor of New York City, began when he filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission for the office of President of the United States as a membe ...

, originally mistaken for an official logo, was described as closely resembling Zalgo text. In 2020, a teenager and

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version o ...

creator submitted the word "hamburger" in Zalgo text for his school yearbook caption; when the yearbook was printed, the text overlapped his photograph and that of the student below him. In addition to legitimate uses, Zalgo text has been used maliciously to crash or overwhelm messaging apps. Some versions of the Apple Messages app are unable to properly handle Zalgo text, and will crash if they try to render a message that contains such text. This behavior has been used to perform

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...

s against iOS users. Similarly, Zalgo messages sent over

Gmail Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active users worldwide. A user typically accesses Gmail in a web browser or the official mobile app. Google also supports the use of email clients via the POP and ...

have caused crashes.

Influence

Zalgo text has led to the creation of other Internet-based

glitch art Glitch art is the practice of using digital or analog errors for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices. Glitches appear in visual art such as the film '' A Colour Box'' (1935) by Len L ...

Performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

Laimonas Zakas was inspired by Zalgo text to create Glitchr, a Facebook page that intentionally modifies and glitches Facebook code. Though the most influential aspect of the original Zalgo creepypasta is the modified text characters, other aspects of the story have been popular as well. Fans of the story have conceptualized Zalgo as "either an unseen supernatural force, a secret cabal, or perhaps even an evil demigod" and compared it to the

Great Old Ones American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans who can barely begin to c ...

in the work of H. P. Lovecraft.

Fan art Fan art or fanart is artwork created by fans of a work of fiction and derived from a series character or other aspect of that work. They are usually done by amateur artists, semi-professionals or professionals. As fan labor, fan art refers t ...

depictions of Zalgo have included drawings and short films.

References

{{Reflist Internet memes Internet memes introduced in 2004 Software bugs Unicode Creepypasta Diacritics

History

Usage

Influence

See also

References