glitch zalgo text

Zalgo text is one of the most recognizable glitch text effects on the internet, with those symbols that appear to "crawl out" of characters leaving a lasting impression. This unique visual effect is entirely based on Unicode's combining character system.

The Origins of Zalgo Text

Zalgo text was pioneered in 2004 by a Something Awful forum member who created image macros of glitched or distorted cartoon characters exclaiming "Zalgo!" The text in the images was often distorted, and the style of the distortion became popularised as "Zalgo text." The characters were often depicted bleeding from their eyes, and forum members interpreted Zalgo as an unimaginable, eldritch apocalyptic figure. This origin story has become deeply embedded in internet culture, making Zalgo text synonymous with creepy and surreal aesthetics.

What Are Combining Characters?

The Unicode standard includes a special class of characters called "Combining Characters." These symbols were originally designed to add diacritical marks or other decorative marks to base characters, such as é (e + acute accent) in French or ñ (n + tilde) in Spanish.

Normally, a base character is paired with only one or two combining characters. However, Unicode doesn't strictly limit the number of combining characters that can be stacked, which makes creating Zalgo text possible.

How Zalgo Effects Work

Zalgo generators achieve their effect by randomly adding numerous combining characters above, through, and below each normal character. These symbols include:

Upper symbols: Various dots, circles, accents, etc., appearing above characters
Middle symbols: Horizontal lines, slashes, and other marks passing through characters
Lower symbols: Various decorative symbols appearing below characters

When dozens of such symbols are stacked on the same character, it produces that signature "crawling" effect, making the text look as if it's been corrupted by some supernatural force.

Applications and Cultural Impact

Zalgo text has primarily been used in horror and creepypasta internet memes, where its seemingly improperly rendered or glitched-out characters create the illusion that a reader's device is malfunctioning. Over time, Zalgo text has become extremely popular in the world of "surreal memes," which are intended to come across as bizarre or absurd. As a common signifier of surreal memes, Zalgo text ties in with an overall aesthetic sensibility of the strange and impossible, including elements such as clip art and strange-looking recurring characters.

Beyond internet memes, Zalgo text has also found its way into mainstream culture. In 2020, a teenager and TikTok creator submitted the word "hamburger" in Zalgo text for his school yearbook caption, and when the yearbook was printed, the text overlapped his photograph and that of the student below him, creating an unintentional but fitting visual effect. This demonstrates how Zalgo text has transcended its original meme origins to become a recognized form of creative expression.