Superman

Glitch Horror: BEN Drowned and the Fallibility of Technology in Game Fan Fiction

"Glitch Horror: BEN Drowned and the Fallibility of Technology in Game Fan Fiction" examines a emerging subgenre of horror rooted in anxieties about technological malfunction, using the 2010 4chan creepypasta BEN Drowned, a story about a haunted Majora's Mask cartridge, as its central case study.

• The report defines an emerging "glitch horror" subgenre whose dread comes from real, familiar technological frustrations such as corrupted saves, broken rules, and games behaving in unintended ways, rather than from supernatural invention alone.
• Its central case study, BEN Drowned (a 2010 4chan creepypasta about a haunted Majora's Mask cartridge), is analysed as a key example of how players' close identification with their avatars intensifies unease at malfunctioning technology.
• The analysis draws on Freudian and Mori-derived theories of the uncanny to argue that recognizable malfunctions provoke deep, involuntary unease in players.