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r/nosleep
Subreddit icon
Type of site
Subreddit
FoundedMarch 2010
URLwww.reddit.com/r/nosleep/

r/nosleep is a subreddit dedicated to user-generated short horror stories. Rules of the community include that stories posted on the subreddit must be believable and that users must pretend that the stories are true. It has over 18 million members and is within the top fifty most popular subreddits. It has spawned an eponymous podcast called The NoSleep Podcast and multiple published novels, as well as film and television adaptations.

History

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r/nosleep was created in March 2010.[1] According to the rules of the subreddit, members must pretend that all stories are true in comments.[2]

r/nosleep has faced problems with copyright violations on the internet, particularly people who upload narrations of short stories without crediting or requesting permission from the original author. Moderators have created three other subreddits – r/NosleepWritersGuild, r/SleeplessWatchdogs, and r/YTNarratorsGuild – to educate narrators on copyright law and how to use content from r/nosleep as well as to report copyright violations on the internet and alert affected authors.[3] In February 2020, r/nosleep began a weeklong blackout that restricted access to the subreddit in protest of copyright violations.[3][4]

Impact

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Authors on r/nosleep have adapted their stories into published novels, such as Dathan Auerbach's Penpal (2012), which he originally published on the subreddit in September 2011.[5] In 2016, Amblin Partners acquired the rights to "The Spire In The Woods", a ten-part story posted on the subreddit.[1][6] In 2018, Ryan Reynolds was attached as a producer to an adaptation of an r/nosleep story.[7] In 2020, Netflix purchased the rights to Matt Query's six-part series "My Wife and I Bought a Ranch."[8] Also in 2020, Amazon Studios secured the rights to The Left Right Game, another r/nosleep story.[9][10] Jack Anderson will be writing the series and also serving as executive producer.[11] In 2022, Sony's 3000 Pictures purchased the rights to Nick Moorefox's story "My Mother-in-law was poisoning me then I found out why" with Jessica Knoll attached to adapt.[12] An anthology television series called Tales From the Void, based on stories from the subreddit, was released in 2024.[13]

In 2014, a story about a mysterious, fictitious epidemic in the small American town of Mammoth, Arizona, was published on r/nosleep. As the story spread online, many people began to believe that the story was true. Residents and the police department of Mammoth were bombarded with calls from people who believed the story, and multiple news outlets compared the incident to the hysteria which followed after listeners were convinced that a 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast was true.[14][15]

In 2017, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab created Shelley, a deep-learning artificial intelligence trained from a corpus of thousands of r/nosleep stories which creates its own horror stories.[16]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Dodgson, Lindsay (June 26, 2020). "Reddit's r/NoSleep is a special 'horror bubble' for internet writers that has born book deals and even a Steven Spielberg adaptation". Insider. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  2. ^ Selk, Avi (October 31, 2019). "Inside the horror website that's freaking out millions of people". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Hale, James (February 26, 2020). "Horror Subreddit r/nosleep Goes Dark To Protest YouTubers Stealing Their Stories". Tubefilter. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  4. ^ Peters, Jay (February 28, 2020). "Horror story subreddit goes dark to protest Youtubers ripping off writers". The Verge. Illustrated by Castro, Alex. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  5. ^ Barone, Matt. ""Penpal" Author Dathan Auerbach: From Anonymous Reddit Poster to Published Novelist". Complex. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
  6. ^ Eng, Jess (July 20, 2022). "How 'Old Country' went from a Reddit story to a novel and Netflix deal". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  7. ^ McNary, Dave (December 5, 2018). "Ryan Reynolds to Produce Horror Story 'The Patient Who Nearly Drove Me Out of Medicine' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  8. ^ Ankers, Adele (July 27, 2020). "Netflix Just Bought the Rights to an r/Nosleep Horror Story". IGN Nordic. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  9. ^ Evangelista, Chris (April 16, 2020). "'The Left Right Game' Podcast Becoming TV Series at Amazon". /Film. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  10. ^ Wiseman, Andreas (April 15, 2020). "Amazon Studios Wins Rights To Turn QCode Sci-Fi Podcast 'The Left Right Game' Into TV Series With Tessa Thompson Producing". Deadline. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  11. ^ Ingham, Alexandria (April 19, 2020). "The Left Right Game picked up by Amazon: Everything we know so far". Amazon Adviser. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  12. ^ Grobar, Matt (May 3, 2022). "Sony's 3000 Pictures Acquires Film Rights To 'I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying To Kill Me'; Jessica Knoll To Adapt Reddit Short Story & Executive Produce". Deadline. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  13. ^ Earl, William (March 1, 2024). "'Tales From the Void,' a Series Adaptation of Reddit Horror Stories, to Debut in Fall on Screambox (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
  14. ^ Dean, Michelle (October 27, 2015). "The internet's scariest place: NoSleep, Reddit's band of horror enthusiasts". The Guardian. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  15. ^ Van Velzer, Ryan (November 12, 2014). "Small Arizona town target of 'War of Worlds' Web hoax". USA Today. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  16. ^ MIT Media Lab (October 27, 2017). "Can artificial intelligence learn to scare us?". MIT News. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
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