There's nothing like having a younger generation around if you want to learn about current culture. In this case, not even so current...I had never heard of creepypasta until yesterday. Sarah used the term in reference to 'Slender Man', of whom I'd also never heard, brought up at random because a tall and slender friend of ours was about to drop by.

Out of context, it is completely unclear what 'creepypasta' might be. The word has vague connotations of pasta laced with insects. However, creepypasta turns out to be horror-related legends which have been shared around the internet (the sharing on the internet, as opposed to physical form, being critical) –  'creepy' is relevant but 'pasta' not at all. How out of date I am is evidenced by the Wikipedia article on creepypasta – websites dedicated to creepypasta started to appear before 2010, e.g. creepypasta.com in 2008. Creepypastas have been seen as digital manifestations of legends and also anti-legends, which is confusing. Anti-legends are apparently similar to legends, except they purposely subvert legends by challenging audience expectations of what legends are.

Slender Man is a thin, extremely tall, humanoid with a featureless white head and face and wearing a black suit. Stories about Slender Man commonly feature his stalking, abducting, or traumatizing people. Slender Man hit the news in 2014 after a near-fatal stabbing of a 12-year old girl in Wisconsin by two similar-aged girls who said they did it to "appease Slender Man".

So, how come horror stories on the internet are called 'creepypasta'? Turns out, its a fusion of 'creepy' and 'copypasta'. 'Copypasta' is derived from 'copy and paste' and refers to blocks of text going viral through being copied widely around the internet. This type of fusion is called 'portmanteau'; the formal meaning of the word being a large travelling bag typically made of stiff leather and divided into two parts. 'Portmanteau' is itself a word formed from two French words: 'porte' = to carry and 'manteau' = cloak. Internet is another portmanteau word – interconnect & network.

I love the interconnectedness of words and people – peepspeaks?