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My little brother thinks that ZALGO is cool. What do you guys think?

…what is it?

It has appeared recently as a forced meme on /b/. Here is some background information of sorts I guess.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Zalgo

Hectic! Last week Girugamesh -- this week Zalgo

I like apocalyptic memes. catnarok FTW. but does it have staying power?

I guess we will find out on 4/04. I prefer zalgo posts like this:
͡҉҉
̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ZAGLOB ~ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ I S~ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ͡҉҉KEWL!!1! ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉

guess I messed up the img tag. too bad I can't delete or edit my posts.

Zalgo is actually older than "recently". I can't recall when I first saw it (and it seems my /b/ folder is of no help either), but it's a few months old at least. At first nobody really cared, but it never ceased to come back. Eventually people started the copypasta, writing obscure prophecies and stuff like that in usual Zalgo scripting. Then someone added the 4/04 judgment day thing.

I wouldn't call it "forced" meme. It grew out of proportions these last few days (as judgment day approaches, his minions are hungry), but it's been around a little while.

Well… months…
Maybe just a few weeks old. Anyways, you know what I mean. :)

qwell latey i been geting these werid text from a friend from a friend of mine phone ight but he not sending them and it all about Zalgo and stuff. there been 8 different pepole ge these text from his phone but he neer sending anything. i paste copy of some of it on here below. so it going farther then the web. some one some how hacking phones and doing this.

$5,33!3?5:HECOMES~?09?5"587zZALGO!!?(&8!8-?!?-4?.;?.7thewatcherbehind':7..;777thewalls.88;477
,,,84;.;'748hewhosings?;/4&/;7;theendoftheearth7';?';8&?497/5"4'?ZALGO',./;/447
787'8;9887?8/878';*:;4Chaos"478'-/84…9:-848778:;hivemind"";488767,'4:':8.878778.Za?87.@:.'..LGO!.498;42?99696
4041444040404040404040404080708"07558-'-'?,-,?,?. ./." nezperdi."/,"-'-anprince!&:/,..?.---',(404040404040404040404000HeComes")7:/,//-&/./~~,,/',

I'm strangely comfortable with it

up and coming Meme is up and coming

truth me told, reminds me a lot of MisingNo

the corrupter of data, and giver of unlimited items in the 6th slot. WIN in my opinion

actually me and a friend of mine last night had a very well thought out and drunken discussion over aim about what zalgo really is. We decided that Zalgo is the idea of complete corruption of all that is good leaving only evil and chaos. Such a happening would leave the universe in a state in which the laws of physics have been nullified. Without an equal and opposite reaction of good to zalgo's evil the universe will continue to expand, with no way to keep it from expanding there will be no way for the universe to collapse back into itself, allowing it to continue its cycle. therefore the universe will be forever and completely destroyed.

… so good is the only thing keeping the universe from expanding?

I think you've had too much thunder ale

Guys, Particle Noun submitted a Zalgo entry, Chris cleaned it up, and I just fleshed it out… in major need of pics and any and all additional infos:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/124-zalgo

not declaring it a meme per-se, but it's been around in some form or another since 2004 and has been seriously resurging lately

Thanks to Particle Noun for doing what I was too lazy to do.

Someone posted this bit of info the other day:
ZALGO is from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. He lived in the wall, which had to be kept wet with blood by Nny to keep him from coming out. In truth, it fed him, he escaped, and DESTROYED EXISTANCE. It was then REBOOTED, having cleansed a collected cancer seeped from the sins of humanity etc etc.
I think that the 4/04 date was chosen because of the ubiquitous 404 web error message.

◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉ ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚ZAGLOB ̔̕̚̕̚҉◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉ ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉
̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉ ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚S ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓I NG ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍S ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ KEWL ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍S ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡O ͡NG ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍S!! ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉ ҉̔̕̚̕̚҉

◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉ ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚ZAGLOB ̔̕̚̕̚҉◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉HIDES ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍ ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡BEHIND ͡҉҉
̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉◊ ̵̡̢̢̛̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟A ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̏̐̑̒̓ ̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̕̚̕ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚ ͡ ͡҉҉ ̓̔̿̿̿̕̚WALL ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ ̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊̋̌̍̎ CAUSE ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇ ̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍HE'S ̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉SHY:( ҉̔̕̚̕̚҉

Memit Nadill, that is half-true.
Although there is indeed similarities between Zalgo and the creature in JtHM. Both are heavily Lovecraftian monsters, so that might explain the confusion.
Plus, the monster behind the wall is called Moose, not Zalgo (this is due to a caption that reads "Fun fact: it's not a moose." when the creature first appears.)

MASSIVE SPOILER about the story of JtHM here. Don't read if it can be helped!

Actually, Johnny (nicknamed Nny) keeps the wall wet with blood to keep the creature at bay. Which works quite well. It is only when Johnny shoots himself in the head that the creature breaks free, destroying the house and killing many people kept prisoners in the basement by Nny.
The "end" and "reboot" of the universe is caused by Johnny's death, not the creature's rampage, which can't escape the already destroyed house due to "lack of universe outside the house".

By the way, have you guys tried contacting Tim Buckley? I have no idea if he started his Zalgo comics before or after it began a popular thing. He might be one of the causes behind the popularity of this (and could pin-point where he got the idea).

Zalgo had a few garfield comic parodies, /b/ should have them, I think this meme is Eff'ed up

www.zalgoapproaches.com

I utterly fail to see the point of this website.
There's nothing new in there. It even contradicts itself:

- "The Doughboys understand you have something “coming” in a couple days. He has escaped from our friend Johnny’s wall, deep underground, and we’d like him back."
- "Zalgo is not a physical being and there is no anthropomorphic representation."

Notwithstanding the fact that there is NO LINK between Zalgo and the JtHM creature (I do understand that some fanboys would like this to be the case, though), those two messages imply that Zalgo escaped a wall and is thus a tangible thing AND not a physical being at the same time.
Oh, idiocy…
It is one thing to be all blurry and vague about something, but it is another to get confused within your own statements. (I mean, if you try to spread something as if it was actually true, at least make it sound plausible or something…)

tl;dr : that site is made of fail

Also, his (no girls on the Internets) use of the Doughboys is dubious at best. They are opposites. One wanted the creature to be free, the other wanted it locked so they themselves (the Doughboys) could continue to be free and not enslaved by the creature. It is silly to try and have them talk with one voice.

/rant

I'm leaving this because it is officially over.

Zalgo was originally created in 1998 as a Super Hoax/get rich quick scheme titled "Bawaji" by now defunct short-film studio Zeke and Ralph Productions (ZNR) in Portland, OR. The proprietors of ZNR, Robb and Nolan (last names witheld- Im sure you'll understand why) had originally decided on a UFO hoax but, later deciding UFO's were real, thought a more plausible hoax would be something leading to the end of the world hysteria surrounding 2000 and the Y2K. We were going to create and sell a product that "offered nothing, did nothing, promised everything and cost a fortune". Thus Bawaji was born. Unfortunately no one could spell it right so we had to change the name.

What we needed was a product that sold exclusively from word of mouth and had nothing to do with elegant code, shiny finishes, solid workmanship or quality merchandise- we needed mass praise for having done nothing and we needed referrals. We used to define the referral process as "That hive-minded zombie algorithm that sensible people have deep embedded in their psyche which allows them to abandon research and logic for the ease of simply taking someone else’s word for it".

Then we got jobs and raises and promotions at our real places of business and Bawaji/ZAlgo got put on the back burner.

Until late 2003, 2004.

As the internet became an entity more closely resembling what it is today we started working on Bawaji/ZAlgo as a hoax simply to mess with people more than anything else. There was no longer the Get Rich Quick angle because we couldn’t imagine how to actually do that without going to jail. We decided that religious cults are always fun and had set out to play at starting one based around the internet as an living entity and some darker overtones.

Our original idea was to found a cult based on Christian principles but later deduced that most Christianity-based cults go horribly wrong and usually end up with the leaders dead or in jail so we figured why not start with a doomsday cult and expect that it will go horribly right?

What we really needed, however, was more time and a clear deadline. Our original plans for Bawaji only gave us less than two years between the day we had the idea and 01.01.2000, not nearly enough time. What we figured- using Jim Jones, David Koresh and Heavens Gate as templates- was about a decade and the then-obscure Mayan Baktun calendar year 2012 was close enough as anything was going to get.

We decided on the date 4.04.2012 for three reasons- 12.21.2012 was taken, 2012 was as good a year as any and 404 was a popular number on the internet and the numerologist conspiracy theory nutjobs would have a field day with it.

Now all we needed was a deity. Originally going back to the intended marks as being "hive-minded zombie alorythm" types we decided a good deity name would be ZAlgo. (The “hive-minded zombie algorithm” was shortened to ZAlgo, as you may have seen it on the 'net.) We used a lot of typical "He Who Waits Behind the Wall" (referring to the mythical locked gate in Jerusalem that, when breached, will begin the End Of Days juxtaposed against Stephen Kings He who Walks Between The Rows from Children of the Corn) and "will sing the last song at the dying of the earth" which was inevitably shortened to "sings the last song of earth" which was plucked from Norse mythology. Those guys sang of EVERYTHING. Believe it or not some of the other stuff surrounding Zalgo we had nothing to do with at all. It did pick up a certain amount of its own steam for a while.

But to sell it all we had to do was say H.P. Lovecraft had written of ZAlgo.

Of course he hadnt. Ever. In none of his works has Lovecraft ever referenced anything named ZAlgo. We expected to get called out on that first and had even considered spreading internet rumors about a lost Lovecraft short story or letter or something but then "it must be true- I read it on the internet" took over so we just didnt pursue that.

Thus ZAlgo was born (admittedly without the capitalized "A") and he was to be the Bringer Of Chaos- neither good nor bad. He just WAS. Or was NOT as it evolved.

The first logical dropping off point for Zalgo was the internet bulletin boards because those kids will buy into anything. We expanded on ideas by Marilyn Manson of bringing hopeless disillusioned nobodies into the mix because they have an infinite amount of collective income and no common sense to spend it on but more so because they are an un-leadable group starving for a leader. Add to it the Anonymous freedom provided by the web and the kids like you find on 4chan's /b/tards rosters and you get an army of pliable minds wiling to disrupt and spam and create repetitive chaos simply because they have little else to do with their time.

ZAlgo was a forced meme before we even knew what a forced meme was.

Its important to point out that ZAlgo never originally was intended to be a "he" at all. ZAlgo just was, or was not, hence the black tendrils. I originally defined ZAlgo as "simply encroaching darkness" and had mentioned that if it could be seen then it would look kinda like Spiderman’s nemesis Venom and had drawn a quick representation on the funnies page during a rather dull sales meeting with a black Pilot G-2 gel-roller pen. Basically it was Venom kiling Ziggy… damn I hate Ziggy. I still have that cutout from a paper in 2003.

The rest is history, I suppose. The cult never even got close to getting started, the meme as it would be called today is dying out and the /b/tards are tired of the reference. Even Wikipedia wont carry the page anymore and google searches are all but nonexistent.

And we never made a dime from it.

/ZAlgo

If you're right not this is not bullshit, sir: wow. Just. Plain. Wow.

That didn't make much sense.
If you speak the truth sir, then, once again: wow.
*fix'd

Gridwerk,

This sounds like it's all great stuff for the meme entry. Can you give me the source of this information?

Thats where it gets rough, all I have are memories and ramblings of an old prankster. Of course dont think that I havent already imagined my credibility is a little tarnished having admitted to not only this starting as a hoax but to openly being a hoaxster. Like most memes these days these things get released into the wild and then flourish from there.

There is nothing that I can do to prove any of this, of course, so I imagine it will all have to be discounted. The only thing that went into making this anything at all was our original Bawaji stuff but nowhere in any of that does it mention ZAlgo. The only files I have left are old zip disks dated as far back as May 2002 which I suppose I could screenshot for whatever good that would do.

What can I offer?

Even if thats complete bullshit it was a great story.

And if not, heres some cleavage, so at least you come out ahead.

"What can I offer?"

You previously wrote: "The rest is history, I suppose."
But it isn't really. You decided to drop it on the Tubes and see what would happen, right? On what board did you let it go? 4chan and other boards of that kind, or real forums where the posts could eventually be located?
Also, how did you proceed? What were your own posts like?

There was a website called beatdevice.com used by a handful of ex AF security police to keep in touch after they all reassigned or left the military. That would be where I first sounded the idea off some ex-SP friends about hoaxing a cult. Then I would simply go to different website discussion boards about David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, Charles Manson, whatever and talk about the God Of Chaos. The original context was simple- interrupt a thread with nonsense and invented religious babble (kind of a text-based speaking in tongues) and then it would inevitbly devolve to random CharMap symbols- alt+ stuff. Z҉A҈L҉G҈O… etc.

Admittedly I never conciously decided to take it to 4Chan, I just think thats where it found a home. At the time 4chan wasnt big, it was just a minor place for images and trolling. Kinda like now. The whole concept was real guerilla- knock knock… who's there? Zalgo!!! kinda nonsense.

Interesting…
If it's true…

Yeah, I'm sorry but until we can get any little shred of proof to confirm your story, all we can say is that this guy has a plausible-sounding but unconfirmed story.

ROFL, Chris, thats exactly how I feel about religion.

…wtf?
Blind-sighted by a random topic.

I will say this, I am not trying to get notoriety or take credit for zalgo outside of the anonymous world of BBS- its why I havent dropped my real name here. Even the guy that owns ZalgoApproaches has admitted that he didnt invent it- "There are rumors going around that Zalgo was created by a group of individuals seeking to start a new religion or cult. They spammed message boards and forums with Zalgo and it eventually became an underground internet phenomenon. If this is true, than perhaps our collective counsiousness has brought Zalgo into existance."

Yeah, our collective consciousness' brought it into existance. That sounds crazy enough to work. Where was this guy when I needed mindless drones for the cult, ha ha.

Its like I said above, I havent dropped my name here on purpose. When I played World of Warcraft I used to have a saying and its kinda appropriate now: Playing WoW at 36 is like robbing banks- no matter how perfectly you pull it off you probably shouldnt tell anyone.

Like here, whats the point of actually getting the credit? It wont help me accomplish anything and I'll more likely be hated more for an annoying, short-lived meme than be hailed as a great writer of lasting fiction…

i liked it.

+1 internets to you my good man

!!!

Hey, originator of the Zalgo entry here. Fascinating stuff in this thread. I haven't even peeked at these boards yet.

It does appear that Zalgo has died off. 4/04 was not the great coming, but the great going.

A group of posters I'm familiar with all got taken with this meme around the time I created the entry for it, and I found it fascinating, so decided to submit it.

I enjoy the way it is a meme that eats other memes. There doesn't seem to be anything else like that out there, but it seemed interesting and relevant to have a 'force' which injected itself into the other popular memes of the past or the moment. An interesting concept at least.

I imagine this sort of thing will pop up again in some form or another.