What is Zalgo text?
Zalgo text is the original “cursed” text. It comes from a 2004 internet meme in which comics and screenshots were corrupted with stacks of glyphs climbing up and down the page, usually with the caption “He comes”. The look is produced by Unicode combining diacritical marks (the block U+0300–U+036F) — characters designed to sit above or below a letter — applied dozens of times in a row.
How to make Zalgo text
Type your text above. The Zalgo (maximum) row uses the heaviest settings for the full meme effect; Cursed light / medium / heavy follow the intensity slider. Toggle the three mark positions to control whether the glyphs climb above, cut through, or drip below the baseline. Press Re-roll for a new random arrangement and Copy when you have one you like.
Tips for pasting Zalgo text
Heavy zalgo can overlap neighbouring lines in chat apps, which is exactly why some communities ban it — keep it to a word or two in shared spaces. On platforms with character limits, remember every mark counts: the length readout under each result tells you the true size. If a site strips the marks, the site is normalising text on save and there is no workaround other than a letter-swap style.
🤔 FAQ
Why is it called Zalgo?
Zalgo is the name of the fictional entity from the meme; “He comes” is its catchphrase. The text style took the name of the meme.
Is zalgo text safe to use?
Yes. It is ordinary Unicode text and cannot run code or harm a device. It can be hard to read and may be moderated in some communities.
How do I make the text less extreme?
Lower the intensity slider, or turn off the “through” marks — those cause most of the unreadability.
How do I remove zalgo text?
Use the Uncurse page: paste the text and it returns the clean original.