Zalgo Text Generator
The heavy end of the effect. Marks pile above and below each letter until the words start bleeding into the lines around them. Type, drag, copy.
One-tap styles that survive strict filters
Each of these adds a single combining mark per letter instead of a stack. They stay readable, they cost far fewer characters, and they rarely get stripped by a bio field.
- h̶e̶ c̶o̶m̶e̶s̶
- h̸e̸ c̸o̸m̸e̸s̸
- h̲e̲ c̲o̲m̲e̲s̲
- h̳e̳ c̳o̳m̳e̳s̳
- h̅e̅ c̅o̅m̅e̅s̅
- h̰ḛ c̰o̰m̰ḛs̰
What makes this zalgo rather than plain glitch text
Two things. The count and the direction. This page loads at intensity 8 with the Through group switched off, which is the classic recipe: heavy stacks going straight up and straight down, nothing cutting across the letter itself. That is why zalgo looks like it is dripping rather than crossed out.
Leaving Through off also keeps the base letters visible under the mess, which is the part that makes it unnerving. You can still read the word. It just looks like something is happening to it.
What each intensity level costs you
Every combining mark is its own character, so the effect has a price measured in characters.
The numbers below are averages from this generator, running the seven-letter word
haunted through 200 different randomizations at each level.
| Intensity | Characters per letter | Cost of "haunted" | Fits a TikTok bio (80)? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3.0 | 21 | Yes |
| 2 | 5.0 | 35 | Yes |
| 3 | 6.0 | 42 | Yes |
| 4 | 8.0 | 56 | Yes |
| 5 | 9.1 | 64 | Yes |
| 6 | 10.1 | 70 | Yes |
| 7 | 12.0 | 84 | No |
| 8 | 12.8 | 90 | No |
| 9 | 15.0 | 105 | No |
| 10 | 16.0 | 112 | No |
Read that table before you blame a platform for eating your text. One short word at full intensity can outweigh an entire bio field. This is also why the counter under the output box has a platform dropdown: it does this sum on your actual text, not on an average.
Zalgo, glitch and cursed are the same trick at different volumes
People use the three names interchangeably and then argue about it. In practice the difference is how far you push the same slider.
- Glitch sits around intensity 3 to 5. Damaged, still legible.
- Zalgo is 8 and up, marks above and below, letters barely holding.
- Cursed adds the Through group, which drives marks across the letters.
Same engine, same Unicode blocks, different dials. Nothing stops you generating a zalgo look on the main generator or a light one here.
Making zalgo that actually survives the paste
Heavy stacks are the first thing a text filter removes, so a few habits help:
- Glitch one word, not the sentence. A zalgo name inside plain text reads better and costs a tenth of the characters.
- Drop Through before you drop intensity. You lose the crossed-out look and keep the height, which is usually the part you wanted.
- Check the field first. Discord messages and Instagram captions have room to spare. Bios and display names do not.
- Shuffle if it looks lopsided. The marks are picked at random, so some arrangements land better than others. Shuffle rerolls them without changing your settings.
A short history, because it is a good one
Zalgo started on the Something Awful forums in 2004, where a member began posting image macros of distorted cartoon characters shouting the name. The character was written as an eldritch figure in the Lovecraft mold, and the corrupted lettering was part of the joke. When people realized Unicode combining marks could reproduce the look in plain text, the style escaped the forum and never went back.
The full history is here, including the school yearbook incident and the years when heavy zalgo could crash Apple Messages outright.
Zalgo text questions
What does zalgo text mean?
Zalgo is the name of a fictional entity from a 2004 creepypasta, and the text style is named after it. Writing associated with the character was drawn as corrupted, overflowing letters, and the Unicode version reproduces that by stacking dozens of combining marks on each character.
How many combining marks does zalgo text use?
At the top of the range here, each letter carries up to about 30 marks, drawn from the Combining Diacritical Marks block at U+0300 to U+036F. That is roughly ten times more than any real writing system needs.
Does zalgo text still crash apps?
Rarely now, but it did. Some versions of Apple Messages could not lay out heavily stacked text and crashed, and the same behavior was used to knock out iOS devices deliberately. Gmail has had its own failures with it. Modern text engines handle it far better, but very long zalgo strings can still stall an older phone.
How do I make zalgo text less intense?
Pull the intensity slider down or switch off the Through group. Marks that cut across letters destroy readability faster than marks above or below them, so turning them off is usually the fastest way to get something legible.
Can zalgo text be turned back into normal text?
Yes. The base letters are untouched underneath, so stripping every combining character returns the original string exactly. Some text editors do this with a normalize-and-filter step. Copying zalgo into a plain search box often strips it automatically.
Is eldritch text the same as zalgo text?
Same thing, different name. Zalgo was written as an eldritch figure in the Lovecraft mold, so people who came to the style through cosmic horror rather than through the forum meme tend to call the output eldritch text. The characters are identical.
Keep reading
- Where zalgo came from The 2004 forum thread, the creepypasta, and how it became a Unicode trick.
- Cursed text generator Adds marks straight through the letters as well as around them.
- Creepy text generator The restrained version, for when readable is scarier than broken.
- Zalgo not showing up? The four reasons it disappears after a paste, and the fix for each.