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arethereanyoriginalusernames · 4 years

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Laughing Jack: When the joke gets old

A Creepypasta analysis and critique

Requested by @eclecticcoyote

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Disclaimer and Warning. This post will contain mentions of death and gore. Anyone sensitive to this subject matter may want to skip over this. Also, I will be writing this from the perspective that anyone reading this has already read the following stories: Laughing Jack, The Origin of Laughing Jack, and Mr. Widemouth. If you have not, I advise you read them first. The stories can all be found online. Finally, keep in mind that this post is opinion based. You are not obligated to agree with me, and this post should not be taken as an invitation to start conflicts over. Debate is fine, as long as you remain civil to everyone involved. Thank you.

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Like most things involving creativity, writing a good story involves going through a learning curve. We will all make clunkers, and we can always be better. Even stories that you may adore may very well be disliked by their creator. Such is the case for Laughing Jack.

Laughing Jack (a name I'll replace with LJ for brevity's sake) has become a fan favorite since his conception, which an impressively large fanbase behind him. It might seem odd that the creator would go on to say that the LJ's titular Creepypasta stories weren't that good. Well, at least until you consider that the stories, in spite of their popularity, weren't actually that good.

To explain what I mean, let's look at both LJ stories individually, then at the character of LJ himself.

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Let's start with Laughing Jack, the story that started it all.

If I were to name any positives about this story, it would be its concept. The idea of having this dangerous "imaginary friend " endanger the life of a mother and child, and having the be in the POV of the mother sounds like a decent idea on paper. However, what works in theory doesn't always work in execution.

The most dire problem this story has is a problem that drags down both LJ pastas, and is a fairly common issue in Creepypastas: unnecessary death and gore.

In this story, it's not enough that LJ kills the son, James, and the pet dog. Oh no, he has to go the extra mile and go over the top, pulling out organs, etc. I've seen some people even argue that the deaths were completely unnecessary, and I agree with that to some extent.

Unnecessary gore is something you'll usually find in lower quality Creepypastas. While I can't say for certain, if I had to guess, I think people use this in an attempt to scare people by disgusting them, or to show how powerful their monster is. The issue is that over the top gore can unfortunately become borderline cartoonish, and it can make the story unrealistic to the point where nobody's going to buy it.

The gore and death are especially unnecessary in this story. While you could argue that the death of the dog was meant to build some kind of suspense by letting us know what LJ was capable of, why did we need the death scenes we got? I understand that LJ, being a clown monster thing, will probably integrate circus related things into his kills, which could make for some "unique" deaths. But why does he need to kill people in such gruesome ways?

The gore also kills any ambiguity the story could have had. The mother is convicted for the death of her child, but what if the story itself made it seem possible that she could have actually done it? Was it really the gay nightmare clown, or is she actually insane? Wouldn't that be more interesting? But no, it's obviously the evil clown, and ambiguity can go fuck itself.

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The Origin of Laughing Jack is so much worse in this regard.

Again, the concept of an innocent imaginary friend becoming corrupted sounds like a good idea, but the execution fucks over any potential it could have had.

The gore issue is even worse, as almost half the story is comprised of Issac murdering innocent people in terrible ways. Of course we couldn't just have one kill, and explain that he's a serial killer. Oh no, we need a drawn out scene of every. Single. Victim. Being. Killed. And I swear to the coffee overloards, the death scenes actually become boring. By the time LJ was killing Isaac, the scene dragged on and on. It was like if you were forced to watch the same scene in a movie again and again.

Once again, there's no need for the gruesome actions here. There's no reason for why Isaac has to kill people in such a way, much less LJ. Seriously, answer me this. Why couldn't Isaac just strangle someone, poison them, stab them, or bonk them on the head really hard? I mean, Isaac is given little to no motivation for what he does, so I really don't see why he couldn't. Oh, it wouldn't make it scary? We need the gore to be scared?

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Unnecessary gore is Creepypasta's version of jump scares in horror movies. You don't need it. If you don't believe me, let's talk about the character of LJ himself, and why he doesn't need to be this over the top when it comes to kills.

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Once again, the concept of LJ himself is a good one. An evil imaginary friend as an antagonist could make for a unique, creepy story. Unfortunately, LJ is turned into just another Jeff the Killer, a bland monster that just kills you.

You know what story does something similar to LJ, but better? Mr. Widemouth. Like LJ, Widemouth is an evil imaginary friend that kills children. But here's why Widemouth works;

Widemouth does not kill the children himself. Rather, he tries to trick and manipulate them into killing themselves. He tries to convince the protagonist to jump to their death, and potentially hurt themselves by playing with knives.

He's also a more believable imaginary friend. Remember how LJ looks like a fucking nightmare clown with razor sharp teeth and claws? What child is going to want to trust him or be around him? And while Widemouth has a... wide mouth, he looks like a furby. He's small, furry, and you could probably pick him up and yeet him if you wanted to.

Finally, you know how in LJ's stories, we apparently needed these long, drawn out death scenes?

Widemouth's tale still sends shivers up my spine to this day. At the end of the story, the protagonist, older and no longer a child, visits Widemouth's house (they had moved to another house a few years ago with their family). While wondering around, they find a path near the house that they've never seen before. Following it, they come across a graveyard. The protagonist notices the dates on the tombstones.

Everyone buried there was a child.

When they return to the house, they glance up at the uppermost window of the house. They spot Widemouth staring out at them, who then smiles, and waves at them, a knife clutched in his paw.

Nothing is outright stated. Nothing has to be. We don't need any more information. We don't need to be shown or told anything. We have a clear idea of what the story is implying.

Compare that to Laughing Jack. The gore feels like it's there in a desperate attempt to make itself look scary, like a child covering their Halloween costume with fake blood to impress their friends.

It doesn't help that LJ's motivations don't line up with the things he does. His supposed origin story tries to make it seem that his friend Isaac being a murderer was what twisted him, but does LJ have to murder people in such gruesome fashion? Does he need to murder at all?

Here's a suggestion. Since Isaac basically left LJ trapped in a box for years, upon being released, LJ could simply kidnap children, bringing them to his "Wonderland ", where they all can "play forever and ever". He could murder, sure, but perhaps it could be limited to anyone who gets in his way, or tries to save "his friends ". What is his Wonderland? What happens to the children there? That's up to the reader's imagination...

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Now, I realize that LJ's pastas have more issues in them than just the gore. My friend Coyote, who's pretty knowledgeable on history, would have a field day if I asked him to find every historical inaccuracy in the Origin of Laughing Jack. Nonetheless, the issue I talked about here is an issue that not only extends to many Creepypastas, but also stories outside of Creepypasta. This desperate attempt to seem edgy and interesting by throwing in something cheap that will get a reaction. Weather it be jumpscares in horror movies, contrived misunderstandings in romance stories, over dramatic and tragic deaths in adventure stories, this writing technique is cheap and not nearly as effective as one might think.

Laughing Jack and his stories are examples of instances where something such as gore is just turned into an expected staple. However, much like how a joke becomes less funny the more you hear it, frequent attempts to be edgy and shocking can reveal how lackluster your story really is.

I apologize for wasting your time

-Spooky S Skeletons

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