IMAGE HORROR
As the name suggests, image horror is one of the simplest types of early-internet horrors to make -- take an innocent looking image, photoshop it a bit and boom! You've got yourself a 10/10 scary image to post on forums to scare kids!
As mentioned in the Literary horror section, this is also one of the most popular forms of horror in the early days of the internet due to how easy they were to make and how fast they could spread around - especially via chain letter emails.
Many creepypastas and even SCPS originated from images before their story, but some images came with messages -- though they were not formatted as a story, rather a threat or warning.
What are Chain letters?
As the name suggests, chain letters are letters that are sent via mail ( digitaly or traditionally. ) that attempt to get the reciver to create copies of the letter and to pass it around to a certain number of people, usually said in the letter itself.
While chain letters are usually harmless, having goodluck and positive messages, many of these chain letters that were sent via Email were used to fear monger -- having threatening images with equally threatening messages that claim bad happenings to the reciever if they do not pass it around -- these are refered to as Copy pastas.
The ( mostly complete ) Origins
THE ORIGINAL JEFF THE KILLER
The most iconic image to ever come out of creepypastas, with his pale face, big eyes and wide smile -- looking back at it now, it looks goofy, but to a bunch of young children, no wonder it was so scary.
The true origin of this image is ... complicated, in fact, no one knows where it truly came from. The unphotoshopped, raw image of Jeff the Killer is lost media, but that didn't stop people from trying to claim that they ''found it''.
Even years later, until now, the original, true image has not been found, as is expected to never be found - being lost in time forever.
MOMO
Momo actually surfaced and reached popularity during 2018, but it seems too iconic to not include. She was created by a Japanese artist by the name of Keisuke Aso.
The Momo hoax gained popularity during 2018, similar to the Blue Whale Challange, it tried to get uses, usually children, to harm themselves or to put themselves into dangerous situations or else - while it convinced many children, there was no proof that Momo could actually harm users and was simply just a hoax.
Despite the image, Momo was not created to scare children - as she was simply just a statue that was shared around due to her unnerving face.
SMILE DOG
Smile dog is one of the most well-known Copypastas / Chain Letters out there, the image being said to be sent via email with nothing else but the sentence ' Spread the word ' being attached.
Out of every chain letter out there, Smile.jpg is one of the most effective ones -- having people make a 'non-haunted' version of the image to spread around due to the fear of getting followed by Smile dog.
SCP-173
Also known as ' The Statue ' or ' Peanut ' , SCP-173 is he first scp written and caught, according to in-universe SCP lore -- while the image itself may not be scary, the lore behind it may strike fear into some. SCP-173 follows what the internet calls the 'Weeping Angel' mechanic, named after the antagonists of the same name from the Dr.Who series -- which basically is: It won't move if you look at it.
Again, similar to Slenderman and Jeff the Killer, SCP-173 was the start of something great - as this post began the SCP foundation, otherwise known as SECURE.CONTAIN.PROTECT - though, the original creator of the statue, Izumi kato, has apparently asked to no longer use the statue, other sources claim that he is OK with the use of his work under non-commercial use.
OVERVIEW
Even if the stories are significantly more popular than their origin images, as well as the creators of said images, they still greatly impacted the creation of these myths and legends, and they would never have existed in the first place if these images were never a thing.
However these images came to be, we may never find out the real person behind them, or the real, raw image behind it - but personally for me, I think it adds to the myster of not just the images itself, but the stories that accompany them.
Peak the others!
Innocent-turned-scary / ''mascot horror ''