The Origins of Jeff the Killer: Where Did One of the Internet's Weirdest Images Come From?

The internet has always been full of disturbing or unsettling images and videos, though what qualifies as truly disturbing has changed over time. There was a time when Tara the Android singing “I Feel Fantastic” was considered to be the height of internet terror, though now it is just an innocuous art project that wouldn’t warrant a second look. Our threshold for horror has increased, and the internet has responded in kind by ramping up the brutal nature of content.

Various topics on this channel have led me to the dark web, and it is there that I saw the single most horrific thing I have ever seen. Don’t worry, Simon, I’m not going to describe it. All I’ll say is I described it once to someone who is absolutely obsessed with horror, the macabre, and intense gore. After explaining what I had seen, she calmly replied, “Yup, that is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

However, it was her next statement that I wasn’t really expecting. She said she found it fascinating, and wondered who these people were and what their lives were like that led them to that point.

It was something I obviously hadn’t considered, but a desire to uncover the origins of frightening materials is a pretty common reaction across the internet. The original DVD with “I Feel Fantastic” was found and posted online years after the creepy video went viral. Internet sleuths have tracked down the artist who created Momo, the original photo of a doll behind the “Make Me Cute” meme, and even the man who posed for Goatse (though you don’t want to know how they confirmed his identity).

Maybe uncovering the origin of these seemingly disturbing images takes away some of the magic they have, like Scooby and the gang pulling the mask off a ghost pirate. Despite all their many successes, there is one image that internet detectives have been trying to track down the origin of for over 14 years.

Who Is Jeff the Killer

Jeff seemed like an ordinary kid, but deep inside he was nothing but hatred and rage; a protagonist we can all relate to. After moving to an affluent new town, he and his brother were the target of severe bullying. In one such instance one of the bullies pulled a knife, but Jeff was able to disarm him and turn the knife back on his attacker. Unbeknownst to Jeff, his brother kept the knife and brought it home.

When police came to question the boys about what had happened, Jeff tried to confess and save his brother from any trouble, but his brother produced the knife and took all the blame himself. This left Jeff extremely depressed, and he sulked in his room for days until his mother came in one morning to remind him about a birthday party he had been invited to.

Jeff hadn’t wanted to go to the party in the first place, but upon being forced to go by his mother he once again encountered the three bullies that had previously attacked him. How all three of them were in attendance and doing fine despite one of them having been brutally stabbed only a few days earlier isn’t very important.

What was important were the events that took place that day. While the parents were all busy socializing with one another, Jeff and his three bullies once again got into a fight. This time he beat one of them to death before his face was covered in bleach and vodka and set on fire. After a long recovery in the hospital, the bandages were finally ready to come off of Jeff’s face.

When the bandages were removed, his parents were horrified by what they saw. Jeff was given a mirror, and he examined his face. It was a ghostly white, and his eyelids were almost completely burned off. He laughed and said that he loved his new face. The doctors thought his behaviour was just because of the pain medication he was on, so Jeff was allowed to go home with his family. Why he wasn’t held in custody for murder isn’t important, nor is why his brother had been released.

That night, Jeff’s mother walked in on him to find Jeff carving his mouth into a permanent smile and burning off what remained of his eyelids. Then he killed his parents and brother, and disappeared into the night to continue his killing spree, preying every night on children that refuse to go to bed, or something to that effect. He also had superhuman strength or something, who knows.

This is the general gist of the God awful creepypasta that is Jeff the Killer. It is a poorly written piece of fiction with no real logical consistency. To be fair, most creepypasta is pretty bad so it’s not a particularly egregious example. The story dates back to at least 2008, which was a time when creepypasta was popular not only in corners of reddit but on YouTube as well.

However, this story that was otherwise an ordinary example of the genre had one thing that separated it from the rest which would endure its longevity. It was one of the very few creepypastas of the day that was accompanied by an image.

Early Authorship Claims

You’ve probably all seen the image at some point online, even if you were unfamiliar with the Jeff the Killer story or name. It didn’t take long for someone to claim ownership of the photo. A user posted to 4chan and shared a picture of her sister, Katy Robinson. The user explained that she walked in on her sister crying, and when asked what was wrong Katy told her that she had uploaded her photo to 4chan and everyone made fun of her for being overweight, then beginning a photoshop battle where they altered her face until it eventually became the image we know as Jeff.

The user went on to explain that later that night, Katy killed herself because of the torment she had received. This became the accepted origin of the Jeff the Killer image, largely going unchallenged for about seven years. It was also total and complete bullshit.

It was a believable enough story at first. The types of photoshop battles described were absolutely a thing that happened, and sadly Katy wouldn’t have been the first or last person the internet bullied into suicide. Despite it being a plausible story, the cracks should have been apparent immediately rather than years after this story became canon.

To start, no one ever found the actual photoshop battle with the original photo of Katy. Sure 4chan may be a big place with lots of posts, but if someone really wanted to find it they absolutely would have. Second, with the image of Jeff the Killer already having risen to prominence thanks to the creepypasta, surely whoever created the photoshop would have taken credit for the image and its level of fame, right?

Maybe, and maybe not.

Cyberbullying laws didn’t really exist yet, but the first court case in which people were tried for bullying a girl to suicide online began in 2007. They were eventually acquitted, but it may still have been a larger risk than the creator wanted to take if Katy’s story was true. Still, with everything having been so recent at the time that her story came out, the original thread almost certainly would have been found.

Even without any proof of the original bullying, it wasn’t until years later when the image Katy’s sister posted online was found that the story would finally be debunked. Katy’s name was never actually Katy, it was Heather. Her image had been stolen from the website TrueChristian.com, which in turn had stolen pictures of her off of MySpace.

TrueChristian is widely believed to be a parody Christian website, and considering the content they posted I really hope it was parody. The site is gone now, but it can be found on the Wayback Machine. A lot of the insane rhetoric is good for a laugh if you feel like it, especially the kids section featuring helpful life advice for young women such as, “You see girl, God loves you and wants to do whatever He can to be your Master, but you need to submit to Him and and men. You are nothing!

Yay!” Unfortunately, after these comments surfaced God was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

Anyway, Heather did a short interview on the topic in 2019. She is very much alive, the image of Jeff is not based on her, and she would like all of this including her old MySpace photos to go away. Sadly word hasn’t traveled far enough as there are many who still report this as the origin of Jeff, but we’ll have to keep looking.

The original creepypasta was posted to Newgrounds by a user named Sesseur. In a 2015 interview, he claimed to have taken the photo himself. He said it was done by wearing a white latex mask and placing plastic eyes on top of it. Allegedly he had taken two or three photos, but only the one was ever uploaded. By this point he had also moved so he could not take a new photo in the same location, the mask was gone, and he didn’t own any of the same clothes that appeared in the closet in the picture.

That’s all a bit convenient for my liking, though it was seven years later so it’s also totally possible. In the interview, Sesseur does allude to his belief that the original latex mask would be worth a lot of money if he still had it, so perhaps he was trying to play the long game and miraculously discover the mask later. I find it highly doubtful it would have been worth much of anything, but even if this was Sesseur’s plan he was never going to get the chance.

NNN Special Broadcast

NNN Special Broadcast, which has nothing to do with No Nut November, is an old urban legend from Japan that became a popular creepypasta on 2chan, the original Japanese image board that 4chan was modeled after. We had similar stories in America and I’m guessing the UK had some as well.

The story originated in the olden days when television stations would go offline for the night. In the story, a child had their TV on late at night after the broadcast day had already ended. Suddenly, a message labeled “NNN Special Broadcast” started playing. The type of broadcast was similar to the emergency broadcast system in America.

There are variations on the story, but it was usually something along the lines of a scrolling list of names accompanied by creepy music, finally ending with the message “These will be tomorrow’s victims. Good night.”

It’s a scary enough story for kids. My circadian rhythms have always been fucked, so before cable TV introduced me to “USA Up All Night” and its endless supply of B movies, I was no stranger to the end of the broadcast day on network TV. I’m sure at some point as a kid I was scared shitless by exactly this type of story.

So why are we talking about a completely unrelated creepypasta? At some point after Sesseur’s interview, a YouTube video surfaced that was titled NNN Special Broadcast. It was about 5 minutes long and had all the usual creepy stuff you would expect. Images of a junkyard, empty shots from inside a school, something that looked like a dehydrated human body, and the list of names of tomorrow’s victims.

However, at 4 minutes and 11 seconds into the video, the image of Jeff the Killer flashed on the screen. This video was from 2007, meaning that not only were the earlier claims both lies, but the image may have been popular on Japanese parts of the internet long before anyone in America ever saw it.

This was a huge new lead, as it led investigators to start searching corners of the internet they had not previously searched before. In 2018, someone from 4chan found the image on a website called pya.cc. It had been posted there in late 2005. By searching through the website, they also found another image that had been posted only a couple months earlier by a user named Mr. Mulholland.

This is the only other version of the Jeff the Killer image known to exist. There are rumours of a third version, but nothing has ever been substantiated. Obviously there is also the original image somewhere, but that’s what we’re trying to find. There are a couple key things to note about this image.

First, this is obviously less edited than the image people are more familiar with. The mouth hasn’t been distorted and stretched out like Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the eyes are completely different.

There are many iterations of the source material so I was unable to find the version that fits this image exactly, but it is widely accepted that the eyes used in this original edit of the image came from this little guy.

That’s right, it’s Mr. Potato Head. The internet sure is a weird place. Continued searching on sites like 2chan, 5chan, and other Japanese websites revealed that the image was used very frequently in 2005. It seems that Jeff may have been Japan’s version of Tubgirl, a jump scare image that unsuspecting users were directed to as a joke. However, of all the places that the images appeared, none were more interesting than pya.cc for one simple reason: pya left the images’ original metadata intact.

Digital Forensics

The first thing that was learned when the image was found on pya was the title of the image. The more famous Jeff image was originally known as “PrettyFACE”, and the earlier edit was known as “White Powder Part 2”. This implies the existence of a White Powder Part 1, but such a thing has never been found.

We also know that the images were edited in Photoshop 6. This was released in 2000 and Photoshop 7 was released in 2002, so some people like to use this to date the image as being even older than has been found. However, Photoshop was a roughly $700 piece of software back then, so the much more likely answer is that in 2005 when the image was created, Photoshop 6 was the version that had cracked copies readily available for pirating.

A much more interesting piece of evidence comes from the fact that the image is a jpeg file. The way jpeg encoding works, images are divided into non-overlapping blocks of 8x8 pixels each. Each time the image is encoded, which means after each time it is edited and saved, it will be divided into a group of blocks like this even if such a grid of blocks already exists. The image of Jeff is fairly low quality so it is no surprise that there are three sets of these blocks visible.

First is a set of 8x8 blocks. This is to be expected since that’s how jpegs are encoded. Next is a set of 21x21 blocks. Through the power of long division, that means the image was scaled up to 2.625 times its original size, which is a weirdly specific number, but a very important one that we’ll get to in a moment. The other set of blocks is 40x40 pixels each, meaning that the final image is five times the size of the original.

So what does all of this mean? The original image was tiny at 130x111 pixels. It was then resized by a very specific amount to be 244x209, and finally resized a second time to the final 640x548 image we see today. This begs the very obvious question of why was it resized twice? If it started as a very tiny image and the goal was just to make it larger, what purpose would saving a smaller, intermediate step serve?

Thumbnails. The maximum width of a thumbnail image on 2chan and 4chan is 250 pixels, meaning that the image found on pya likely originated on one of these image boards. The metadata also reveals that the image was created by “gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG jpeg V62).” This is a form of image processing utilized by PHP, and shows up in all thumbnails on these sites, providing further evidence that one of these image boards could be where Jeff was born.

They aren’t the only websites that would result in that specific created by line, but it’s another indication that it could be the case.

Analyzing the more edited version, you can also see brush strokes in the image. This means that, unlike the original edit that potentially used Mr. Potato Head, the eyes for this image were drawn on by hand. That isn’t necessarily a lead that points in any specific direction, but it could still be useful to know.

Finally, there is a line on the bottom of the image. Thanks to the multiple edits it is not entirely clear across the entire length of the image, but it is still clearly visible, especially on the left side of the image. An identical line can be seen on image captures of Stickam videos.

For those of you too young to remember what Stickam was, it was a free webcam streaming site. As best as I can remember, it was a lot like old AOL chatrooms, except people could stream themselves instead of just typing. Maybe AOL isn’t the best analogy if I’m trying to explain this to young people. Let’s say it was like Discord, but you could only find people though public servers and everyone’s camera was total shit.

Most importantly, the low camera quality and internet speeds available at the time meant the resolution of streaming websites back then was tiny, probably around 130x111 pixels.

Theories: Who, Where, and Why?

There are a lot of theories about the origins of Jeff the Killer, not just where the unedited image came from but why it was edited the way it was. Also, there’s the matter of where it was first posted. Based on the evidence, it is almost certainly from an image board, most likely 2chan. Some people want to push for it originating on 4chan, because ‘Murica, but it’s almost certainly from Japan based on why it was made.

And to that end, why was it made? There’s a lot of speculation, but the two versions of the image were likely made for completely different reasons, both pointing towards Japanese origins. The final Jeff the Killer is believed to have been made by the user that posted it to pya. No copy of the image has been found that predates that posting, so it is believed that the user created it, posted it to pya, and then they and others began using it elsewhere.

They may have also posted it elsewhere before putting it on pya and we just haven’t found it yet.

The filename PrettyFACE leads people to believe that it may have been inspired by the Japanese urban legend Kuchisake-onna, or “slit-mouthed woman”. The legend is about a masked woman who asks people if she’s pretty. If they answer no, she kills them with her medical scissors. If they say yes, she removes her mask to reveal that the corners of her mouth have been slit from ear to ear.

The woman once again asks if she’s pretty and if they say no, again she kills them. If they still say yes, she uses her scissors to cut their mouths to match her own. It seems like a lose-lose situation, but apparently you can avoid the blades of her scissors either by saying she looks average, or by distracting her with candy.

This urban legend matches not only the PrettyFACE name but also the way the mouth in the second edit of the image is manipulated to extend the corners of the mouth far up the cheeks. The strange eyes that were drawn on also match the unrelated CV Wakamoto meme that was popular on 2chan at the time. It’s a very strong case for the location of origin.

As for the original edit, White Powder 2, it is speculated that it was part of the Obake no Q-Taro trend that was going on at the time, referring to a Japanese cartoon character. At least one instance where the image was posted referred to it as a live action Obake no Q.

If all of that is to be believed, it just leaves the question of where the original image came from. There are a lot of different answers to this. One comes from Mr. Mulholland’s messages on Twitter.

He claimed that the image he edited came from a video of a middle aged Japanese woman he saw. Because it was just a screenshot from the video, he did not have the original image and that video allegedly is no longer online anywhere. He also claimed that the person in the video was already edited, so it was not the original.

This would not be the first false report from the creator of an image, and we can’t even be sure that he really is the creator. There were instances of the image being found that predate his posting on pya, so it’s hard to be sure. There do seem to be posts from 2005 that lend some credibility to this, stating that the original image was of a middle aged Asian woman, but this is not the only current theory.

Another theory is that the original image was a screen capture either from Stickam or another streaming website based in Japan. Allegedly the girl streaming was labeled as being “ugly as sin”, mentally impaired, or both. The screen capture was then posted to an image board where members had a photoshop battle, with a few members deciding to edit the image to make it as terrifying as possible. In this theory, the basis for making the face completely white was that either the camera had a flash that was stuck on or there was a light directly on the girl’s face, resulting in it already being brighter than normal.

There are some more outlandish theories such as this being from a dressing room on a Japanese variety show, but nothing that has any evidence.

Wrap Up

Based on all the evidence that exists thus far, it seems clear that the original Jeff the Killer image has to have come from Japan. There are people actively working together on Reddit and Discord to track it down, and if it came from 2chan or one of the other boards that they are searching, the original image will almost certainly be found. It just may take a while.

The good news is that the Japanese boards tend to be extremely well archived, so nothing should be lost. The bad news is that means there is a metric fuckton of stuff to search through to try to find some random thread that probably wasn’t even that popular in the first place.

According to some reports, the thread that spawned these edits was pretty boring and generic, as photoshop battles were common. Allegedly a lot of internet users in Japan don’t even remember that the image was passed around as a jump scare on their forums, only remembering it as the Western horror story Jeff the Killer.

It will be interesting to find the original picture if only to see the true nature of it. There are a lot of people who claim to have seen the original, unedited image, and their reports vary wildly. Some say that the mouth on White Powder 2 isn’t edited at all, even going so far as to say that the original image is far more terrifying than either of the edited versions. Others say that the woman in the original picture isn’t even smiling, and the mouth was just added onto the image similar to the way the eyes were.

Until the original can be found, we won’t know for sure. I’m certain the true origin of Jeff the Killer will eventually be found, it’s just a matter of time. And for as much as we think we currently know, this mystery has already been solved then debunked twice, so without the unedited photo, nothing can really be known for sure.

In many instances, like the Voynich Manuscript, I root for the mystery to remain unsolved because the truth is almost always far more boring than the search and the speculation. However, in this case I think it’s probably for the best if it remains unsolved for a different reason entirely.

When the original picture for the “Make Me Cute” meme was finally identified, it was just a doll. However, the original Jeff the Killer picture was a real person. I’m generally misanthropic and revel in other people’s misery, but normally it’s because they somehow deserve it. Despite the Katy suicide story having long since been debunked, the use of Heather’s image both in this story and on TrueChristian caused her nothing but torment through no fault of her own.

With countless people searching through old image board archives, I have no doubt that the truth of the original image will be found eventually. I just don’t see any good coming from it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the origin of the Jeff the Killer image?

The Jeff the Killer image originated from a photoshop battle on Japanese image boards, likely 2chan, around 2005. The image was edited from a screenshot of a middle-aged Japanese woman, but the original unedited image has not been definitively found.

Who is Katy Robinson, and what is her connection to Jeff the Killer?

Katy Robinson is a fictional character created to explain the origin of the Jeff the Killer image. The story claimed that Katy’s sister uploaded her photo to 4chan, where it was photoshopped into the Jeff the Killer image, leading Katy to commit suicide. This story was later debunked.

What is the story behind Jeff the Killer?

Jeff the Killer is a creepypasta character who was bullied and suffered a disfiguring accident, leading him to become a serial killer. The story is poorly written and lacks logical consistency, but it gained popularity due to the accompanying image.

Who is Sesseur, and what is his claim regarding the Jeff the Killer image?

Sesseur is the user who posted the original Jeff the Killer creepypasta on Newgrounds. In a 2015 interview, he claimed to have taken the photo himself using a white latex mask and plastic eyes, but his story is considered doubtful by some.

What is the significance of the NNN Special Broadcast video?

The NNN Special Broadcast video, uploaded in 2007, features the Jeff the Killer image at 4 minutes and 11 seconds. This video suggested that the image was popular on Japanese parts of the internet before it gained notoriety in America.

What is the Kuchisake-onna legend, and how is it connected to Jeff the Killer?

Kuchisake-onna, or ‘slit-mouthed woman,’ is a Japanese urban legend about a masked woman who asks if she is pretty. The Jeff the Killer image’s filename ‘prettyFACE’ and the manipulation of the mouth are believed to be inspired by this legend.

What is the Obake no Q-Taro trend, and how is it related to the Jeff the Killer image?

The Obake no Q-Taro trend refers to a Japanese cartoon character. The original edit of the Jeff the Killer image, known as ‘White Powder Part 2,’ is speculated to have been part of this trend, with at least one instance referring to it as a live-action Obake no Q.

What is the significance of the metadata found in the Jeff the Killer image?

The metadata in the Jeff the Killer image revealed that it was edited in Photoshop 6 and resized multiple times, likely originating from an image board like 2chan or 4chan. The metadata also includes a line at the bottom of the image similar to captures from Stickam videos.

What is the current status of the search for the original Jeff the Killer image?

The search for the original Jeff the Killer image is ongoing, with people actively working together on Reddit and Discord to track it down. The Japanese boards are well archived, but the search is challenging due to the vast amount of content to sift through.

What is the author’s stance on finding the original Jeff the Killer image?

The author expresses concern that finding the original image may cause harm to the person in it, as the use of Heather’s image caused her significant torment. The author suggests that it might be better if the mystery remains unsolved.

Sources

• Original Decoding the Unknown video: The Origins of Jeff the Killer: Where Did One of the Internet’s Weirdest Images Come From?
• Hero image source by thegetty / openverse, cc0.