Online unease affordances on Tumblr - creating compelling internet narratives

Abstract

The age of the internet has spawned a unique platform for hosting various creative projects in a way that traditional methods cannot achieve. It has been especially popular as a medium for creations utilizing the themes of unease and horror, ranging from written content like creepypasta to extravagant alternate reality games. This has created a wide community of artists, writers, and editors dedicated to creating and analysing unfiction pieces, these being fictional media presented as real events, ranging from simple written stories to extravagant cinematic experiences.

As the realm of unfiction is sparsely documented and researched in professional settings, the objective of this thesis was to explore unfiction and the realm of online unease in a general sense and determine what makes them compelling forms of storytelling. Various pieces of unfiction were studied and analysed along with websites to pinpoint ways in which they created a sense of discomfort and even fear through a clever use of aesthetics, and the kinds of narrative elements they used to create compelling and captivating stories and unfiction experiences.

The results of these studies were used to create a blog and an accompanying website hosting a piece of unfiction for demonstration purposes. The project was initially published on the social media website Tumblr, which prompted further analysis to the site’s suitability as a host for unfiction projects. The creation process, challenges, and results of this project were discussed.