Zalgo text
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Zalgo text, also known as cursed text or glitch text, is digital text that has been modified with numerous
combining character In digital typography, combining characters are Character (computing), characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritic, diacritical marks (including c ...
s,
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
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 technical fault, such as a transient one 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 pl ...
y. Named for a 2004 Internet creepypasta 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, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...
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 were one of the most common forms of internet memes in t ...
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
combining character In digital typography, combining characters are Character (computing), characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritic, diacritical marks (including c ...
s to the letters in a
string String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
of digital text. Historically, it has primarily been used in horror or creepypasta 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 commenced in November 2019, later than most other campaigns for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Bloomberg opted not to compete in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada ...
, originally mistaken for an official logo, was described as closely resembling Zalgo text. In 2020, a teenager and
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
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 cyberattack 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 co ...
s against iOS users. Similarly, Zalgo messages sent over
Gmail Gmail is the email service provided by Google. it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide, making it the largest email service in the world. It also provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser, and is also ...
have caused crashes.


Influence

Zalgo text has led to the creation of other Internet-based
glitch art Glitch art is an art movement centering around the practice of using digital or analog errors, more so glitches, for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices. It has also been regarded as a ...
.
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 Cthulhu Mythos deities are a group of fictional deities created by American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and later expanded by others in the fictional universe known as the Cthulhu mythos. These entities are usually depicted as immens ...
in the work of
H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...
.
Fan art Fan art or fanart is artwork created by Fan (person), fans of a work of fiction or celebrity depicting events, Character (arts), character, or other aspect of the work. As fan labor, fan art refers to artworks that are not created, commissione ...
depictions of Zalgo have included drawings and short films.


See also

*
Unicode characters The Unicode Consortium and the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/Working group, WG 2 jointly collaborate on the list of the characters in the Universal Coded Character Set. The Universal Coded Character Set, most commonly called the Universal Character Set ( ...
*
List of creepypastas Creepypastas are Horror fiction, horror-related legends or images that have been cut, copy, and paste, copied and pasted around the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intended to scare, frighten, ...


References

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