Creepypasta has been described as fearful legends and cursed images that have been copy-and-pasted around the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user generated ghost or alien stories intended to scare readers. They include gruesome tales of murder, suicide and otherworldly occurrences. According to Time magazine, the genre had its peak audience in 2010 when it was covered by the New York Times.

The genre's most notable image is that of a fictitious character called Slender Man. This "urban viral legend" was reportedly the driving force behind the stabbing of a young Wisconsin girl in 2014. According to the two 12 year-old girls who allegedly committed the attempted murder, they first encountered the Slender Man legend at a creepypasta website and wanted to "prove the skeptics wrong". After the murder attempt, some creepypasta website administrators made statements reminding readers of the "line between fiction and reality".

Other notable creepypasta characters and stories include the following: Jeff the Killer, Ben Drowned, Ted the Caver and the Lavender Town Syndrome. In October 2014, a book called Creepypasta: Spökhistorier från Internet (Creepypasta: Ghost Stories from the Internet) was published in Sweden.