Urban Legends, Tall Tales, and Creepypastas (Short 3dwi.scr analysis)
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
Sequences show off a multitude of happenstances, that of which we familiarize ourself with as the structure of a urban legend. We learn that by treating the mundane with horrific coats of paint, we start to see the world of 3dwiscr as something horrific itself. Though it never shows it to us, it never begins to frame what is actually scary other than the forums retellings, we still begin to feel scared. Through the mastery of shifting the angle, an appalling story is told and we fall in the same trap the forum posters do. We are scared.













