Red Room Curse

### WARNING!

This article contains mentions of suicide, which may be triggering for some people. If you are in crisis, the US suicide prevention lifeline can be found at suicidepreventionlifeline.org or by calling 1-800-273-8255. Other international lines can be found on Wikipedia's list of suicide crisis lines.

### Circulated since

Late 1990s - Early 2000s

*Red Room Curse* or *The Curse of The Red Room* is a japanese urban legend about an internet pop-up circulating around the web in the late 1990's all the way to the early 2000's. It is said to be cursed and it is alleged that whomever is unfortunate enough to receive the pop-up is doomed a horrifying fate.

## History

It unknown what or where this mysterious internet pop up originated from, however, it made waves in 1998 but was originally thought to be an adware however, the urban legend is initiated with the flash animation of a boy being cursed after facing the internet pop-up and from there many people have been alleged to have either commited suicide or committed acts of murder and ended up incarcerated at mental asylums.

## How does the curse work?

The cursed internet pop-up consists of a red window with Japanese writing, “Do you like ……..?” along with an ominous and deep voice reading it aloud. The pop-up window cannot be closed at all, no matter what is done to prevent it. It gets worse with each and every click of the mouse and/or keyboard which unveiled more letters until the message says, “Do you like The Red Room?” The computer screen is enveloped in red and lists the names of the previous victims of the Red Room.

All of a sudden, the victim senses an unknown presence in the room and is slowly driven to commit suicide by the supernatural forces and the walls of the room are painted with their own blood. Those who survive are driven insane and are most likely incarcerated at mental institutions or at a regular prison. However it is widely believed that the pop up is real in the form of an adware/prank and that the curse is false.

## The Nevada-Tan Incident

On June 1st, 2004, an 11-year old girl known as "Girl A" brutally murdered her classmate Satomi Mitarai by slitting her throat with a box-cutter. Reactions to the incident included Internet memes and a discussion of lowering the age of criminal responsibility in Japan. The killer's name has not been released to the press as per Japanese legal procedures prohibiting the identification of juvenile offenders.

After being taken into custody, Girl A was reported to have confessed to the crime, repeatedly apologizing to the police. She spent the night at the police station, often crying, and refused to eat. Girl A initially mentioned no motive for the killing. Shortly afterwards, she confessed to police that she and Mitarai had quarreled as a result of messages left on the Internet. Girl A claimed that Mitarai slandered her by commenting on her weight and calling her a "goody-goody".

When the police raided her home and scavaged through the family's computer, it is alleged that the Red Room pop up was present amongst the tabs, hence the resurgence of the urban legend. There are currently no reports of the Red Room adware popping up anywhere and is unlikely to resurface again