by J.L. Shioshita—
Picture this: you’re staring at your computer monitor, eyes glazed over, no clear purpose, just mindlessly surfing the endless waves of the web. You look at pictures of sea turtles swimming in the ocean, peruse shoes you don’t need and would never wear, look up articles about strange elbow protuberances and whether they’re something to worry about or not. It’s a maze, and you’re lost in it. All the while, unbeknownst to you, there’s a digital minotaur stalking you right around the corner.
Suddenly, a red pop-up appears on your screen. Without a second thought, you click the ‘x’ in the corner, closing it. It’s not your first rodeo. But seconds later, the pop-up appears again. This time, you take a moment to read it. It doesn’t take long. It’s only three words set against a crimson background: “Do you like…”
You were expecting porn ads, get rich quick schemes, or an announcement that you won a new phone, not this. This is different. Not different enough for you to fall for it though. You close the ad, but it immediately appears again, this time with more text. It now reads: ” Do you like the red room?”
You sigh in irritation and close the ad once more, but this time, instead of disappearing, a wave of the annoying pop-up begins cascading across your computer screen, filling every square inch with its crimson message.
“What? What’s the red room?” you ask.
The computer doesn’t respond
You try to close the entire browser, but it’s stuck. It won’t do anything, no matter how many times you click on it. The mess of red windows remains, frozen, taunting you in a vaguely threatening manner, its message burning into your mind.
“Do you like the red room?”
That’s when you begin to panic, worrying your computer may have fallen victim to a virus despite your recent investment in top-tier antivirus software. You smash Ctrl-Alt-Delete on your keyboard, praying you can regain control, but nothing happens. You’re getting desperate. You hold down the power button on your computer tower. The same result. Nothing.
You scramble underneath your desk and yank the plug from the wall. Everything goes dark. Alarmed, you stumble back to your feet. The power is out. Everything is off, everything except your computer monitor, its screen casting the entire room in an eerie red glow.
There’s a shift in the atmosphere, and you sense someone in the room with you. You spin, scanning each darkened corner for signs of an intruder. Nothing. Suddenly, you feel pressure on your right wrist, like it’s being squeezed. You glance down, heart racing, but there’s no one there. The pressure changes to a burning itch, and as you watch in horror, the skin of your arm begins to peel away like old wallpaper, revealing a glistening mass of red muscle fiber beneath. A scream erupts from your throat, primal and raw, as the rest of your body is unzipped like an old purse, and your contents are spread across the room in a vibrant shade of red.
The Red Room Curse is a Japanese urban legend that spawned from the early days of the internet, revolving around a sinister red pop-up ad encountered by unfortunate victims while browsing the internet. According to the story, while innocently surfing the net, a blood-red pop-up might suddenly appear, displaying the cryptic phrase, “Do you like…” Each attempt to close this intrusive window only results in another pop-up materializing, with the sentence gradually expanding. Eventually, the final version asks, “Do you like the red room?”
What happens next varies slightly based on the telling, but the most common version has the computer screen abruptly turning a deep red. A list of names appears, each belonging to a previous victim of the curse. As you scroll through the list, you will ominously spy your own name at the bottom as the newest addition. You will then suddenly sense a presence lurking behind you. Later, you will be discovered butchered in your room, the walls painted a garish red with your blood.
Unlike many mysterious urban legends, this one can be traced directly to an Adobe Flash horror animation from the late 1990s popular in Japan. The animation established the main points of the story, but it wasn’t until 2004 and the shocking murder of a 12-year-old by her 11-year-old classmate that the legend really exploded. This infamous murder was known as the Sasebo slashing, and one of the news stories the media picked up on was that the young murderer was a fan of the Red Room Curse animation and had it bookmarked on her computer at the time of the horrific crime. This true event lent a sense of reality to the legend, which began to blur the lines, similar to the Slenderman stabbing a decade later.
If you’re old enough to remember those annoying pop-up ads from the early days of the internet, you know they were a curse unto themselves. Trying to click off one only to have another appear in its place. You might even find your computer screen flooded with the awful boxes. When you add the element of a curse that can reach you through your modem, one that will literally paint the walls red, well, it makes you rethink your browsing habits. Luckily, pop-up ads are a relic of the past, replaced by newer curses like malware and trojan horses, and TikTok influencers. So I guess not too much has changed after all. It’s still a scary place, so be safe out there.
HWA Colorado 