recordings that have the power to raise the dead

Back in the younger adolescents of the internet, we had a habit of solidifying certain corners of the web to be the “creepier” places. Oftentimes, people amongst the internet shared horror stories of their experiences online and would go about even sharing the fictional stories that came with its arised, untapped potential.

Consequently, when the internet graced our minds, we immediately went to see what sort of fictitious narratives could be weaved about a terrifying scenario yet to be told.

When 3dwiscr begins to tell its story, we view it from the lens of someone seeing it for the first time. Our perspective is constantly shifting, and there's so much happening in the first few seconds of beginning to read it; maybe you can start to surmise that within these seconds, 3d Workers Island is vast. That you’re barely scratching the surface of the monolith it holds. And truth be told, that can be said about most creepypastas.

This isn’t an essay trying to prove to you the story of 3d Workers Island is a creepypasta. Far from it, especially since the roots of the word don’t really align correctly by definition in comparison.

Rather, what I want to accomplish is two things. To make a point that the narrative structure is affected by telling the story of 3dwiscr through the lens of an urban legend… and also how that narrative structure changes the story for us as the reader. 

To begin, I believe that it’s easy to find when reading 3dwiscr that there’s a huge influence of old and new fandom culture in the text. Whether this was intentional or not, it stuck with me throughout all of my rereads. The way the forum posters create designative dialogues that gush about the screensaver, like finding yourself stuck in the beauty of something purely of its time and yet still captivated by its charm. If 3dwiscr was a real thing, the fandom would have been huge is all I am saying. Old 90s magazines and dated fanart were made to be had. 

Theoretically though, this could have to do with the rise in Petscop’s fandom as well. When Petscop had begun to be seen through the lens of theories and speculation through sudden popularity, there was this air of mystery surrounding what was considered true to the fandom; it sparked countless debates on the subject. Then, peering over to 3dwiscr, we see a similar pattern in that of the stories presentation.

We see the forums' arguments, displays of good and bad, the miscellaneous, and in-jokes of the “fandom”. Now you can begin to piece together that through telling the story of 3dwiscr like an urban legend– or maybe even a tall tale, it reflects that in its personality at its core. The influence of creepypasta stories begins to frame the narrative, shift the dialogue as that of retelling a fable, and show the grotesque nature of what truly lies beyond the screensaver.

As the forum page shifts to “Inside 3dwiscr”, we see an almost comical with edgy rhetoric version of what we were familiar with. While simultaneously this page is almost disturbing in its own right. The accounts of people's experience with the screensaver creates tension while you read, a dread of interest that's laced with dramatic irony. That all of this is almost too fluffed with edge to be about what we could presume an in story real life brutalization of someone. That is, if you can believe any of it is true. 

The story intentionally leaves out images, sound effects, or anything that could prove to be hard evidence other than “she-said-he-said” accounts of horrific sightings. While it isn’t to diminish the reports of others, as the sequence is one of my personal favorites, I do find it interesting how little we actually know what's happening at this point. Everyone seems to be in the know and are actively becoming into said know, like looking inside a world that is a little too familiar to one we may already know. 

During a read through of 3d Workers Island, page #153 comes out of nowhere for some and later will continue to prove their point in that scenario. It’s an ambiguously labeled HTML website on geocities with starkly bad grammar. It’s also, as we learn, never really brought up again. There are a couple of theories that are capable of rectifying any confusion in place, however something that juxtaposes so heavily from the rest of the story deserves proper understanding as everything else. In my opinion, the “Computer Philosophy 1. Windows” is one of the first pieces of parallel we get to brace ourselves for throughout a narrative of confusing shifts, twists, and turns. 

Around the time I got to this point in my initial read through, I was puzzled but intuition told me at first glance the grammar would be a callback to a character with similar syntax. That by viewing this, we were peering into what was essentially a later reference, we would be given more clarity then what we first were met with. Which, was a little assumptive of me. Considering that throughout most of 3dwiscr we aren’t given many direct answers, this wasn’t going to be an exception. 

However, I want to break down this short two page sequence, something that lingered on so little that it couldn’t help but catch my attention. It’s easy to surmise that the metaphor here is alluding to our workers. We are looking in at them, and we don’t know what we’ll find or expect. When reading the very first opening line though, we are met with the introduction, windows are perceived as scary here. The writer is showing us abstract ideas and concepts that we haven’t really been personally introduced to ourselves. That plus the grammatical errors, give off a childish atmosphere. The babbling of someone with little to no understanding of what they’re talking about. 

With little elaboration, this still stands to be recognized as something important enough to be added to the whole of the narrative. If you subscribe to the theory that we are viewing from PLawler’s perspective, her access to the internet, is she the one viewing this? Why is she looking at this? It doesn’t match anyway she has written before, so how are we to assume she wrote it? 

I believe that everything we are viewing on this page is a part of the direct obsession we see PLawler have. To grab a little from blog posts she has created, we know she has an unhealthy attachment to the stories that unfold in the plethora of computer screens she owns. Each having a portrait to tell that she is a witness of. It really makes you wonder what her initial obsession was to begin with. Did PLawler know about the horrors beyond the screen? Is that what we’re made to connect, the “part that makes them scary”? It is quite the item to delve into.

Back when I mentioned parallels, this is exactly what I meant. This website, a seeming red herring to the grandiose tale unfolding, could be read as the true back to back of PLawlers story. She finds something, something bad she finds herself responsible for throughout these screensavers, these workers' lives. PLawler does nothing to stop it. Perhaps, even multiple people see it and do nothing to stop it. 

The last phrase and then imagery we are met with is truly the metaphorical kicker here. What maybe drives someone away from looking further into this, yet leaves a haunting memory of it.

“I’m trapped here, and I may never return home.” 

What do we mean? What we can gather begins to form sparse strings of thread at this point, but I believe what this means is a more mental, metaphorical image. Constantly throughout the story we are given the idea of looking, peering in. To be trapped is a statement from multiple angles, such as the philosophical essay suggests. Whether it’s looking in or out, one could be trapped, isolated, or maybe even ignorant. This gives us a lens of multiple characters then. 

Amber, trapped in a repetitive cycle. The forum users, trapped and confined by the rules of the owner. Or maybe even PLawler, trapped with the guilt or even consequence of her failed responsibilities. As a forum moderator, as a witness of the island, or as a mother. All of which, becomes a downfall to everything that was her discovery pages. When do we think about never returning home? Do we think about it when it’s gone, as a form of escapism for something that is out of grasp or may never return to us? Or maybe, we become dependent, paranoid, for when it does. Does PLawler fall into the former or the latter? 

All of which proves to be interesting. And as a last note, the imagery that is the computers at the bottom of the page, including the link to “Back Home” all are interesting as well. Typically, when we see a “Back Home” link, we default to the idea of being sent to a home page of a website, but It should go without saying why in this context, especially of which the last sentence of the page is given, the connotation changes here. While the picture slowly changes, allowing the perspective to shift through itself.