How did innocent ‘Mario Is Missing’ inspire this horrific creepypasta?

Back in 1992, The Software Toolworks released their own take on the Mario universe Nintendo had created, bringing out the game Mario Is Missing! Mario has been kidnapped by Bowser, who has an evil plan, and it’s up to Luigi to travel the world and save his brother.

But from this game rose a horrifying legend, a terror still whispered about by older internet users. How did an innocent education game for children inspire such a terrifying creepypasta? Let’s dive in and take a look.

The origins of Weegee

On August 11th, 2007, user MonkeyInCloset on the LUElinks forums saw one of the Weegee sprites in Mario Is Missing, and found the strange pose & dead stare to be rather unsettling. So they shared it online, and then made a vector version of the sprite. 

We know what you’re thinking: someone made a post, so what? But this isn’t the end of this Mario Is Missing story. Because from there, the image gained popularity, and quickly began to set itself a place in internet culture . . . .

Weegee begins to spread

Users of the infamous 4Chan site loved Weegee, and began using the image in a variety of memes. It got popular enough on the platform that the creator of 4Chan, Moot, said on multiple occasions Weegee was his favorite meme on the site!

It spread across the internet from there, going to Newgrounds (our favorite place for animation shitposts back in the day), deviantArt, and YouTube. On YouTube, Weegee was especially popular, becoming the subject of many “YouTube poop”, videos that were made for YouTube to have a quick laugh, usually tying into a meme.

So far, this Mario Is Missing meme seems like it’s all fun & games, right? Well, there’s a side to Weegee we haven’t mentioned yet . . . Hold on tight.

The dark side of Weegee

The most important thing you should know about Weegee is his powers. His “Weegee Stare” or “Weegee Virus” dictates that if you look into his eyes, you will turn into a Weegee yourself. The horror!

On the Joke Battles Wiki page for Weegee, he’s said to have a multitude of other powers. We’d be here a while if we tried to list all of them, but Weegee’s strengths include, “Curse Manipulation, Nightmare Inducement, [and] Resurrection.” So we’re not dealing with a small fry here.

User “Paper Mario bienshidoxd” on Amino also listed Weegee’s powers in a history article titled “Mario is Missing + Weegee’s Creepypasta”. They state the following (translated from Spanish and edited): 

“The creepypasta says: when the children played this terrible game at night the children dreamed of Weegee, a man dressed as Luigi with a creepy look. . . According to the legend, Weegee was a psychopath who, according to sources, if you look into his eyes for a long time, you become Weegee. . . And if you find and open a weegee.exe file, Weegee’s face would appear with a strange sound, and the PC crashed. . .”

Talk about terrifying! We can definitely see why this Mario Is Missing creepypasta spread so far, knowing all this information. Oh, and if you want to know all about Weegee’s exploits, go to “Weegeepedia”, which is a thing that does exist.

Look out for Weegee tonight. . . Or maybe not?

In conclusion, what can we say? Weegee is a cursed meme born in the same way the Tai’s Doll from Sonic R was: a one-note appearance in a video game that went viral and turned into a horror story.

However, it’s been a long time since Weegee was a prominent force in Internet culture. The creepypasta character from Mario Is Missing is long past his prime. We have to agree with EnnardTrap1987 from the Joke Battles Wiki, who left this comment that really says it all: “I remember the creepypasta Weegee. Good times.”

We miss him too, EnnardTrap1987. We miss him too.

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What are your thoughts on Weegee? Do you want to see him take over the internet again? Let us know!