Zalgo is a legendary internet creepypasta and visual style characterized by chaotic, 'glitchy' text and disturbing imagery. It originated in 2004 when a Something Awful user named Shmorky uploaded modified comic strips, such as Nancy or Archie, where characters appeared with bleeding eyes and distorted limbs. The meme centers around the arrival of an eldritch, Lovecraftian entity known as Zalgo, who represents the end of the world and the corruption of the mundane. It popularized the use of combining characters (diacritics) to create 'zalgo text,' which visually overflows its line, appearing to 'infect' the surrounding webpage. Today, it remains a staple of internet horror culture, used to turn innocent media into unsettling, surreal nightmares.