Vaguebooking: A Creepypasta

I call forewords “paraphrased plagiarism.”

I call jacket copy “a game of Hangman in which proper names are very much allowed.”

I call blurbs “letters of monetization.”

— Joe Milazzo, April 2020

“Society is finally at a point where openly discussing mental health is more accepted, but it took decades to get there. Vaguebooking has the potential to erase every positive step forward that’s been made, for if society starts to associate the mentally ill with whiny attention-seekers who post annoying updates on social media, it’s over. The conversation is done and the mentally ill are going to be left out to suffer.” (TJ DeSalvo, “What Is Vaguebooking, and Why Is It Bad for Mental Health?”)

“Creepypasta resembles rumor: generally it is repeated without acknowledgement of the original creator, and is cumulatively modified by many hands, existing in many versions. Even its creators might claim they heard it from someone else or found it on another site, obscuring their authorship to aid the suspension of disbelief. In the internet’s labyrinth of dead links, unattributed reproduction and misattribution lends itself well to horror: creepypasta has an eerie air of having arisen from nowhere.” (Will Wiles, “‘Creepypasta’ Is How The Internet Learns Our Fears”)

“Teenagers, far from oversharing, now take an active role in safeguarding their privacy by ‘dirtying their data’ with ‘social coding’ such as in-jokes, false personal data or, yes, vaguebooking, all so their messages are understood only by their intended audience.” (Daniel Nester, “In Defense Of ‘Vaguebooking’”)

“Most interestingly, copy and pasting a creepypasta is now generally frowned upon in the community, as it’s essentially become seen as stealing. A lot of authors are now trying to make their names known through the creepypastas they write, rather than trying to make people believe the stories are true through randomly spreading them around online.” (Darcie Nadel, “A Brief History of Creepypasta”)

“Creepypasta fans agree on one simple, inviolable rule: assume that every story is true.” (Kiona Smith-Strickland, “The Best Creepypasta Stories To Give You Nightmares Forever”)

“The objective of an attention-seeking vaguebook seems to be to get people to respond without revealing anything about the situation. The objective in this acceptable vaguebooking is to ask for support.” (Carol Cassara, “How To Vaguebook”)