Red Room Curse
The Red Room Curse (Japanese: 赤い部屋, Hepburn: Akai heya) is an early Japanese Internet urban legend about a red pop-up ad which announces the forthcoming death of the person who encounters it on their computer screen.[1] It may have its origin in an Adobe Flash horror animation of the late 1990s that tells the story of the legend.
Legend
There are several variations of the Red Room Curse urban legend.[2] According to the most common one, while browsing the Internet the victim will be presented with a red pop-up with a black text saying "Do you like — ?" (あなたは〜好きですか?). After trying to close it, the pop-up will reappear, this time the text saying "Do you like the red room?" (あなたは赤い部屋が好きですか?). Then, the screen will turn red, displaying a list of names of the Red Room's victims. The target will sense a mysterious presence behind them, after which they will lose consciousness. They will later be found dead in their home, with the walls of the room in which they are discovered "painted red with blood".[3][4][5][6]
Origin and spread
In the late 1990s, a Japanese interactive Adobe Flash horror animation, considered to be the origin of the Red Room Curse urban legend, was uploaded to GeoCities.[7] It told the story of a young boy who was cursed and died after seeing the pop-up.[8] The legend of the curse gained notoriety in 2004 due to the Sasebo slashing – the murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by an 11-year-old classmate referred to as "Girl A" at an elementary school in Sasebo.[9] "Girl A" was reported to be a fan of the Red Room Curse animation,[10] having the video bookmarked on her computer at the time of the murder.[8]
In 2016, a short film titled The Red Room Curse inspired by the urban legend was released.[11]
Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv
Mereana Mordegard Glesgorv is the title of a twenty-second-long video uploaded to YouTube in 2008 by a user called erwilzei. It depicts footage with a red filter, of a man silently staring into the camera. A slightly longer version was later produced, depicting the man suddenly smirking towards the end; this was accompanied with a short story which claimed that several viewers who saw the footage in its entirety, which ran for approximately two minutes, were driven insane by what they saw, cutting out their eyes and mailing them to YouTube's headquarters. The man seen in the video was later identified as Byron Cortez, a citizen of the United States Virgin Islands and the video in the story was re-created many times on YouTube.
References
- ^ "The Terrifying RED ROOM Curse That AimsTo Kill Netizens". Medium. 2017-04-09. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ "Encyclopaedia Of The Impossible: The Red Room Curse". The Ghost In My Machine. 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ "The Red Room". scaryforkids.com. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ "「あなたは好きでしたか？」2020年で消える？かもしれない都市伝説『赤い部屋』". リアルライブ (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ Carnevale, Veronica (2021-10-12). "Japanese Urban Legends". JapanTravel. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ Baggett, Aaron (2021-08-11). "7 Terrifying Japanese Urban Legends Based on True Stories". GaijinPot. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ "「インターネット普及とともに出回った都市伝説」『赤い部屋』【ホラゲレビュー百物語】". 電ファミニコゲーマー – ゲームの面白い記事読んでみない？ (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ a b Joy, Alicia (2016-08-23). "Japan's Spookiest Urban Legends And Myths". Culture Trip. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ "Girl says internet spat prompted slaying". www.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
- ^ 殺害手口、参考の可能性 ネットの物語掲載サイト. Nagasaki Shimbun (in Japanese). June 9, 2004. Archived from the original on June 18, 2004. Retrieved 2022-02-06. Wayback Machine copy.
- ^ "Sunday Scares: "The Red Room Curse"". PromoteHorror.com. 2017-05-28. Retrieved 2022-02-06.
