What is zalgo text?

Zalgo text is text with Unicode combining marks stacked on it until it looks corrupted or "possessed." Mechanically, it's identical to what most people now search for as glitch text — the name is older and carries a specific origin story.

The meme

"Zalgo" traces back to a mid-2000s internet horror meme — a formless, reality-corrupting entity associated with the catchphrase "Zalgo is coming" or "Hail Zalgo," popularized on forums and image boards around 2004–2009. The visual noise of stacked combining characters became a natural stand-in for that idea of text (and by extension, reality) breaking down.

Same mechanism as glitch and cursed text

Whether a page calls it zalgo, glitch, cursed, or corrupted text, the underlying technique is the same: extra combining marks stacked above, through, and below each base character. The names just carry different connotations — zalgo leans horror/creepypasta, cursed and corrupted lean meme culture, and glitch is the more general, aesthetic-focused term that's become the dominant search phrase. See the full comparison on glitch vs. zalgo vs. cursed text.

Generate it

The zalgo text generator on this site defaults to a heavier intensity than the plain glitch tool, since "zalgo" searches usually want the classic, more extreme look — every slider is still fully adjustable from there.