Ever since the inception of the incredibly divisive and indubitably cringeworthy genre of Creepypastas, one story has stood out in particular: Jeff the Killer. His 13 year old fans worship him as some kind of twisted idol that murders people, but is somehow still good, not unlike Watchmen's Rorschach, except Rorschach is a well-developed character who is (arguably) the "hero" of one of the most critically acclaimed books in literary history. His denizens claim his gory tale is the best one that has graced the Internet, despite there being ones that are superior in every aspect.

But despite this, I believe that the opposite is true. Jeff the Killer is a conceited story that has countless plotholes in it, an absurdly unrealistic storyline, and an unimaginative, unscary character whose very origins are rooted in an (alleged) tragedy that happened in real life.

And I shall explain why.


Reasons Jeff the Killer is a bad story:

Reason 1: His character doesn't really make sense.

From the very start, the story doesn't fit together. After he and his brother got into a fight with a bunch of two-bit bullies and plead guilty for some stupid reason (despite it was out of self-defense), Jeff's brother, Liu, gets sent to Juvenile Detention. Jeff is upset about this, and for some unforeseen reason, loses his sanity after he has a smackdown with Randy's "gang" during the neighborhood birthday party (in which none of the adults intervene in, might I add). After Liu gets home from juvenile detention and Jeff gets home from the hospital, our titular character is happy that everything seemingly worked out. But when he kills his mom and dad, he decides to kill Liu as well.

Why the hell would Jeff do this?

Liu was Jeff's best friend, and he doesn't have any just justification to do this. Yes, he may be "insane", but why would he kill the person that he is closest to? In a sense, Jeff is actually offensive to those with mental illnesses, since he indiscriminately kills people because he needs to be "edgy".

Reason 2: He's far from invincible.

Unlike similar stories like Slenderman or a good chunk of SCPs, Jeff isn't a supernatural being who is indestructible. He's a young kid who's just a complete screwball, has a kitchen knife, and has burned and lacerated skin that's white rather then brown or blood red for some reason. So, if he would break into your house, and you have a .45-70 Government lever-action, a jackknife, and/or a black belt in your closet, Jeff's done for. If Vasiliy Khamotiskiy slapped him, Jeff wouldn't really have a face anymore.

Reason 3: His story isn't well written.

It reads like a 12-year-old's fanfiction about Jake Paul and Ninja meeting Mia Khalifia. There are also several grammatical issues, like sentence structure. It's not unbearable, but enough for a casual reader to spot it and not to take the story very seriously after a short amount of time. Also, several situations, like Jeff getting burned and having white skin and killing his beloved brother, is very unrealistic, considering that burned skin always turns into a red/brownish color, and Jeff has a strong bond with Liu throughout the story.

Reason 4: He can be easily spotted.

A big element of horror is fearing what we can (or rather, cannot) see in the dark, or even in plain sight. But Jeff can not blend into either of those things. He wears a blood-stained hoodie, has ice-white skin, has no eyelids, and his face is carved up. Most murderers can blend into such a crowd, but Jeff? Nope.

Reason 5: Technically, Jeff should be dead/in prison/handicapped.

He burned out his own eyelids, dammit! And if one were to do that in real life, they would get third degree burns on their eyes and they would be blinded for life. And even if he could burn out his eyelids, his eyes would be in appalling shape, because blinking (which Jeff isn't capable of) brings fluids to the eyes, not to mention the smile he carved onto his face would've easily A) resulted in massive blood loss and B) most likely severe infection. Without these fluids and without proper treatment of his wounds, one could go blind and die, respectively. So if he's blind, how in God's name can the man see, and how's he not dead if his face is a biological colony?

Reason 6: It is offensive.

I realized far too late that the original evidence for this point is false; the original photo wasn't photoshopped from an obese girl who commited suicide after she posted on /b/. Still, though, this story is an absolute diarrhea dump; very much like Sonic.exe, I think it's one of the worst pieces of pop literature written within the past century. It IS offensive in the sense of what it asks of it's audience, in the same way that Doug Walker asks you to take his 3-hour-long science fiction-oriented circlejerk as serious cinema.

Regardless, I think there are far better Creepypastas out there than Jeff; I think the only reason why he got so much attention was because it was one of the first widely-shared pastas out there. I've never met anyone online, let alone in real life that thinks that Jeff the Killer is well-written, emotional, and riveting story. And there are good reasons for that: it's derivative, tasteless, poorly-written, exploitative, and-the biggest possible failure of a Creepypasta-unscary. There's no care put into the story, apart from an asinine attempt to ramp up the shock factor. It's a joke of a pasta, which is only taken seriously by fake depressed preteen girls that are on the cusp of puberty.

To basically sum up this entire article, just go and read The Showers instead.