- Anyone who knows anything about
Reddit has heard of r/NoSleep. - It's one of the most popular and successful subreddits on the site, and attracts readers and writers from all over the world.
- Writers have got book deals, careers in
writing for Netflix, and even movie adaptations out of their amateur stories for the subreddit. - It's a place for people to tell first-person
horror stories, which comes with the pre-agreed assumption that you treat everything on there as if it's real. - The beauty of
r/NoSleep is it can keep you awake at night in fear, but it's also one of the most friendly and welcoming places on the internet. - Insider spoke to two of the sub's moderators and some popular storytellers about why they love r/NoSleep, and how it really is its own special little horror bubble on the internet.
There was a long discussion on the r/NoSleep Slack channel recently about whether a particular horror story on the sub was convincingly true to life.
"At this point, most of the fingers on one of her hands are gone," Rog, one of the moderators, told Insider. "We kind of battled back and forth with that one because doesn't she need them to type? How is she posting? Does that violate believability?"
The whole idea behind r/NoSleep is that "everything is true here, even if it's not." Stories are written from a first-person perspective and everyone commenting underneath has to post on the assumption that they're existing within the realms and boundaries of the world the OP has created.
Internet writers with no professional experience have gotten book details, careers in writing for Netflix, and even a Steven Spielberg adaptation out of writing for the subreddit as a hobby.
To celebrate Reddit's 15th anniversary this week, we took a look at what turned a creepy little place on the internet into an online juggernaut, and some of the biggest success stories to come out of it in the last 10 years.
'Everything is true here, even if it's not'
In one series the mods were discussing, the OP is staying with an exchange family in Japan, and "something very wrong is happening" there. At first, they notice wet footprints at the end of their bed like someone has been watching them sleep, then people in the village start running away, as if alarmed by their presence.
Things gradually get worse and worse after the OP ventures into the family's grandparents room one night, and is subsequently overcome with an insatiable and unquenchable hunger that has readers despairing for them.
"This is beginning to stress me out. Ugh," one person wrote in the comments. "WTF is wrong with that family? It seems like they're always a step ahead of you."
Rog said he and the fellow mods had a humorous yet fairly in-depth conversation about whether an OP could really type up their story in real-time if they'd chewed their fingers on one hand right down to the bone, but ultimately decided it passed the test.
"We legitimately had that conversation in the chat," he said. "Has she still got fingers on one hand? Or are they nubs?"
Everyone has to play along in the comments
There are over 14 million Reddit users signed up to r/NoSleep. The sub began back in March 2010, and the distinct brand of horror has become its own
A group of moderators, led by Christine (cmd102), ensures every post is approved and follows the strict set of rules before it is posted. A story has to be believably within reason, be a first-person narrative, and the writer cannot die before the end.
Mods also read every comment made on the stories, making sure they are respectful and contribute to the discussion by playing along.
Rog doesn't remember when he first came across r/NoSleep, but he was sucked in and has been a long-time fan for seven or eight years. He's been a mod for about a year now, helping out with reading the stories and contacting writers if they need to make changes before being published or if they haven't made the cut.
He dedicates 10-20 hours a week of his spare time to the sub, yet still finds himself losing hours by falling down "the NoSleep rabbit hole," especially when it's a series with multiple parts that provides a slow burn with plenty of character development.
"It's not something I like to read at 3 a.m. because I will never sleep," he said, fittingly.
What Rog loves about the sub is the "creep factor" that really makes you feel terror for the person who is writing the story. It's a very specific brand of horror where the community gets involved and interacts with the writer, so they become part of the story.
"The whole goal of the story is to inspire fear in others," Rog said. "In some of my favorites, you can feel it. I don't know if they've actually experienced this in their lives, but they're either exceptional writers or they're just putting out what they feel."
It's like you are sitting around a campfire telling scary stories
Rebecca, another mod, said r/NoSleep has a campfire vibe, "where you help someone figure out something really horrible that happened to them."
"I know some people aren't as into the immersion rule, and having to stay in character, but I do think there's something really special about the environment that it creates," she told Insider. "Just having to pretend you are sitting around a campfire telling scary stories to people. I always really liked that."
The saying goes: if you want hate, post something on Reddit. But while the sub does get occasional trolling and mean comments, they are in the minority. Rebecca said she loves being a moderator because it helps protect that unique community aspect of it, where people's creativity is welcomed and celebrated rather than mocked.
It's vulnerable sharing something you've created, and r/NoSleep, for the most part, is considerate about that.
"Helping to maintain that role-playing for people makes it really come to life," Rebecca said, "And that way people really can just immerse themselves in it and enjoy that small little magical creepy world."
Caitlin, who goes by Cymoril_Melnibone on Reddit, was already an r/NoSleep regular when she wrote a series based on a drab seaside pub about four years ago, which remains a firm favorite among the sub's fans. It started with a beautifully descriptive short story about a youth-sucking yellow-haired demon-type woman called Mona who is a regular at a pub the OP works in.
Caitlin said she got the idea from a writing prompt about a waitress at a diner "where the patrons are starting to scare you," but thought it would be more fun to set it in a "shitty seaside British pub."
"As I'm a fan of British mythology, I thought I'd sort of mash together myths to make interesting supernatural creatures, and settled on the idea of a bar for supernatural losers and outcasts," she said.
She hasn't been very active on the sub in the last two years, but she used to enjoy the challenge of crafting a new tale "with horrifying elements that hasn't been conceived of before."
"I think there's a lot of wildly under-appreciated creativity and originality on r/NoSleep, but unfortunately due to the nature of Reddit, some of it never gets seen by a large audience," she said. "For the readers, I guess [they like] the nearly endless horror content being pumped out by the huge stable of authors.
"It's like an almost bottomless bucket of horror popcorn to munch on at your leisure."
r/NoSleep has taken on a life of its own
Since r/NoSleep began a decade ago, it has taken on a life of its own. There's the No Sleep Podcast, which isn't technically affiliated with the sub, where stories are read out loud and discussed.
Many authors have also adapted their stories into published novels, such as Dathan Auerbach with his now-legendary series "Penpal" where the OP is stalked by an ominous character throughout his childhood.
User The_Dalek_Emperor was hired to write for "The Haunting of Hill House" on Netflix, and Tony Lunedi's story "The Spire In The Woods," which he wrote under the username theboyintheclock, is being adapted by Steven Spielberg.
Ryan Reynolds revealed he was interested in turning a renowned story on the sub called "The Patient Who Nearly Drove Me Out Of Medicine" into a film in 2018.
"I'm pretty sure I scared the living daylights out of the girl I was dating at the time with the scream of triumph and delight I made when my manager called to tell me Ryan wanted to do it," the author Jasper DeWitt told Insider when asked how it felt to be recognized by a Hollywood star. "Does that answer your question?"
DeWitt now lives in Los Angeles where he has been working on his second novel and a screenplay. He said it still feels hallucinatory that he's had so much success because his "The Patient" series was "a little bit of harmless fun" he would have during periods of insomnia.
"I'd go to the local all-night IHOP, post up, get bottomless iced coffees, and just write through the night," he said. "In my wildest dreams, I thought maybe the titular patient would end up a creepypasta legend like 'The Rake,' or 'Jeff the Killer.' The idea that he and his story would catapult me into the entertainment industry never even occurred to me."
Before he started writing his own horror stories, DeWitt's literary skills only came out when playing gothic horror-themed Dungeons & Dragons campaigns with his friends. He took inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft and E.F. Benson when materializing his nightmarish worm-shaped monster, and from "Silence of the Lambs" for the mental hospital element.
He likes to think of his style as a modern take on the "Gothic-inflected, gaslit, pessimistic, dream-like type of horror" that was written in the late 19th and early 20th century, where authors would "build tension by drawing on the uncanniness of even seemingly mundane situations."
"What was particularly enjoyable about the stories written at that time was that they didn't require any blood and guts, or jump scares, or any of the unsubtle trappings of modern horror," he said. "Hell, sometimes the horror in those stories wasn't even happening to the protagonist; it was just something they were witnessing."
What made it work is something that is deeply entrenched in the r/NoSleep culture today — atmospheric prose that conjures up feelings of dread, even when nothing is really happening. The creepy feeling of being watched or a sense of impending doom isn't just for conventional horror junkies either. Fans of mystery and thriller novels often flock to r/NoSleep as well because they know there's no chance of something jumping out at them.
'It's comforting to think there are dark corners we haven't explored'
DeWitt didn't actually take r/NoSleep, or the creepypasta genre in general, seriously for a long time, thinking of it as "Slenderman" knockoffs and nonsensical memes like "Who Was Phone?" But his impression changed after he started reading some of the more immersive stories, and realized the potential of short, snappy writing.
He saw how the "everything is true" rule let people engage with the worlds he was building, which reminded him of the D&D worlds he used to carve out in his friends' imaginations.
"I loved screwing with the readership and seeing whether I could be unpredictable enough to out-think an entire forum's worth of commenters, all with theories on my stories," he said. "That element of playfulness and mutual escapism makes r/NoSleep an extremely attractive and welcoming place for a new writer, I think."
He thinks a lot of the popularity comes from people looking for "escapism and for catharsis in our very troubled modern era."
"It's comforting to think there are dark corners we haven't explored, or that the world could be so much worse than we know," he said. "Because that implies that however bad things are right now, at least we have something to be thankful for."
He said he can't think of another community that is so welcoming of "the shadows in other people's minds" and full of praise when a story is done well. There may even be a therapeutic aspect, given how horror movies have been shown to alleviate anxiety in some people.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the r/NoSleep community gives a lot of people a productive way to creatively engage with their own issues, while not feeling judged or held up to literary scrutiny the way they would on other hubs of creepypasta," said DeWitt. "And frankly, that's wonderful."
Where you should start
Rog thinks the sub isn't just a great place for entertainment, but also for writers to hone their craft and really experiment with their voice.
"The guidelines of posting forces you to be a better writer, honestly, because you've got to stick to within this certain parameters and then still craft something that's interesting and engaging," he said, "and I think that helps writers a lot."
Rebecca loves how much variation there is on r/NoSleep, which makes sense given hundreds of stories are submitted every day.
"I think the ones that make the most impact are the ones where there's more of a beautiful aspect to them as well, or something really grim," she said.
Some of her highlights include "Free Coffee with Order of Pie by /u/Deadnspread, the 8-year long "Correspondence" series by /u/bloodstains, and "The New Fish" by /u/Theworldisgrim. She said her favorite is probably "Let Me Introduce the Demon Inside of You" by u/ByfelsDisciple.
"It's really haunting because it's about the concentration camps, which is a really difficult thing to write about," she said. "But I think that's emblematic of what's so cool about r/NoSleep — it's not just
'It really is its own special little horror bubble on the internet'
More than anything, r/NoSleep is a feeling rather than something tangible. You'll read a story — whether it's a tale about a mysterious package, or a secret in an old hometown — and think that it has the creepypasta vibe, but you may never find the right way to put into words exactly what that means.
Reddit is probably the only place r/NoSleep could have transcended from being a niche creative forum into something so treasured by so many. That may be because, against all the internet odds, it has remained a largely pleasant place for something that exists purely to scare people. It's maintained a rare sweet spot of immense talent, fun, and thoughtfulness for a community of its size which is almost unheard of anywhere else online.
It could also just be the fact that people seem to have an endless appetite for snack-sized horror stories that keep them up at night.
Whatever the reason for its success, there is an almost endless supply untapped talent just waiting to be discovered on r/NoSleep, and the mods are defending and curating it as diligently as they ever have to make sure stories are treated with the respect they deserve.
"It really is its own special little horror bubble on the internet," said Rebecca. "It really couldn't exist in any other form other than the way it does."
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