Zalgo — Glitch Text Generator

How does Zalgo Text work?

Zalgo text uses combining diacritical marks stacked on top of one another to create a creepy glitching effect.

Diacritical marks are symbols added to letters. They’re mostly used to describe how a letter should be sounded, but have other uses too.

In English diacritical marks appear most often in words borrowed from other languages…

• Accents in words like résumé, fiancée, and Pokémon.
• Tildes in words like jalapeño, piña colada, and El Niño.
• and diaeresis in words like naïve, Noël, and sometimes coöperate.

There are more possible combinations of diacritical marks and letters than atoms in the observable universe. So, it’s safe to say it would be impractical to come up with a separate character for each combination.

Instead, Unicode—the standardized system for computer characters—allows us to combine these marks and stack them on top of one another.

We can take advantage of this hot mess to create zalgo text.

Who is Zalgo? 👹

Zalgo, like Slenderman and Momo, was an internet bogeyman. Just not a particularly scary one.

Zalgo first showed up in subverted comic strips, then as a demonic clown child, or sometimes a tentacled demon.

Most importantly Zalgo would be accompanied by creepy glitchy text, and that’s where the name comes from.

Zalgo plus

Lonely dorks have been making Zalgo text generators for decades, so to celebrate their dorkiness, I’ve added new features. Including, glitch shapes, different character sets, and fancy fonts.

Where can you use Zalgo Text?

You can use it all over the internet, though it renders differently on different websites. In some text inputs, including instagram bios, the diacritical marks overflow the box.

If you spot anything like that let me know.