Three ways to make text scary
The styles on this page use three different methods, and each has a different cost:
| Method | Styles | Readability |
|---|---|---|
| Stacked marks | Glitch Light, Glitch Medium, Glitch Heavy | Light stays readable. Heavy is mostly decoration. |
| Dark letter shapes | Bold Fraktur, Fraktur | Readable, with an old, gothic look. |
| A line through each letter | Slashed | Readable at normal sizes. |
The designs combine these with symbols: a skull and crossbones โ , a watching eye, cobwebs, a ghost, a wilted rose, coffins and bats. The emoji in them show in color, and the text symbols take the color of your text.
Pick the right amount of scary
- For a username or display name: Bold Fraktur or Glitch Light. They survive small sizes.
- For a caption or a story title: one glitched word inside a plain sentence is more striking than a fully glitched line.
- For a thumbnail or a reveal: Glitch Heavy on a single short word.
Glitched output is the same every time for the same text and level, so you can copy it again later and get an identical result.
Before you post
Some apps strip combining marks from names, or limit how many can stack, so a glitched name may lose its effect after saving. Moderation tools may also treat long Zalgo text as spam.
Glitched and styled letters are hard for screen readers. A reader may announce every mark or spell letters by their character names. If the words matter, keep a plain version close by.
For the mechanics and the exact cap, see the glitch text generator. For blackletter on its own, see the gothic font generator.