Zalgo (Creepypasta character)

Description

Zalgo is the brainchild of Dave Kelly (aka "Shmorky"), a Flash animator and Something Awful "goon". It was first mentioned (but not seen) in parodies of syndicated newspaper comics on a semi-secret page on his official site. Zalgo spread rapidly from there, with people making their edits of supposedly "Zalgo-fied" comics, writing creepypasta stories about him and continuing the lore. Since the meme's spread, Shmorky has made several flash animations (in his own inimitable style, of course) referencing it, including ZALGO. On August 22nd, 2009, Shmorky explained the origin of Zalgo in a post on the SomethingAwful Forums: "I like how people who try to figure out the origin of the “meme” don’t even know where it came from originally. I’ll tell you where it came from. From me. I just made it up. Zalgo is something horrible. Zalgo is something that’s coming. It’s coming soon. It has nothing to do with Lovecraft. I’m not nerdy enough to make those kind of references. Seeing it become a meme kinda killed doing further Zalgo edits in the future (for me anyway) but maybe I’ll do one when you least expect it." According to Shmorky, Zalgo's abilities only affect comics, cartoons, and illustrations, not reality itself. This idea has drifted out of favor with more recent stories portraying Zalgo as a powerful demonic being.