There’s a point where online communication stops being normal and starts feeling like you’re trapped inside someone else’s weird little daydream. And that point? That’s where the creepy asterisk lives.
For the uninitiated, a creepy asterisk message is like a regular text, except it’s inexplicably narrated like a bad fanfiction. Maybe it’s a harmless shrugs or nods thoughtfully. But more often than not, it’s something shivers nervously while scooching closer to your warmth or licks lips and adjusts wolf ears. Suddenly, you’re no longer texting—you’re an unwilling participant in some stranger’s unsolicited roleplay.
To be fair, the asterisk has a long and complicated history on the internet. It wasn’t always a tool of cringe. It began as a way to describe action in text-based games and chat rooms before morphing into a kind of shorthand for emotional expression. But somewhere along the way, a certain breed of lonely internet user took it a step further. What was once a quirky punctuation choice turned into a social landmine. Now, when an asterisk pops up in your messages, you brace yourself.
And for good reason. These messages are rarely neutral. They’re desperate, vaguely unsettling, and almost always leave the recipient unsure whether to laugh, block, or call a friend for emotional support. They exist in the uncanny valley of human interaction, a linguistic loophole that lets the sender be weird without fully owning it. “I didn’t say I sniffed your hair,” they might argue, “I just described it.”
Which brings us here—to this lovingly curated collection of some of the worst, most spectacularly awkward asterisk-laden messages ever sent. A time capsule of digital discomfort. A monument to misplaced confidence.
Cracks knuckles and nods solemnly Let’s begin.
