The TikTok horror and puzzle game that has hooked hundreds of thousands of people

On TikTok there are more than 300,000 people following a profile that has no name: user2819394837167. This account, which uses the generic name that TikTok gives the user automatically when creating a profile, has been posting horror videos with hidden codes and messages since mid-August. They include locations, help messages, recurring dates ... Thousands of users have tried to solve the enigma, both from TikTok and on Twitter, where a thread in which some of these hidden messages are resolved and discussed has exceeded 37,000 retweets in less than one week. 

@ user2819394837167

01010100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101

One of the videos posted by user2819394837167. This one, with a hidden message written in binary code in its description.

Karen Daniela, @scarsbloood on Twitter, was the one who published the thread in which, since August 20, hundreds of users have collaborated and debated to decipher the enigmas that this tiktoker's profile hides. First, through the only accounts that I followed, with disturbing names like "help me", "crack the code", "victim" or "flight from Malaysia" - all of them in English. Later, through hidden messages in their videos, some written in binary code, others with the letters jumbled and even some in Morse code. "A friend was the one who told me about this TikTok profile and I decided to investigate," says this 15-year-old Panamanian woman by private message to Verne . “It's just for fun, because I like mystery. I know it's not real, but I'm having a good time cracking the codes. " You can read Karen Daniela's full thread at the bottom of this article.

I open thread of a creepy case of tik tok (user2819394837167)

The messages hidden in the videos on this TikTok account are very diverse: some refer to the missing Malasyan Airlines plane in 2014, others seem to warn that some evil is on the way and others ask for help or show regret. Many of them refer to a specific date: August 27. These messages have no connection with each other, nor is there a narrative or a common thread that unites them.

And what happened on August 27?

Users who have spent more than a week solving User2819394837167's riddles were hoping that there would be some kind of resolution to the mystery or something would happen on August 27, the date that several of the hidden messages pointed to. After seven days investigating horror videos, the end of this story has turned out to be quite comical: this TikTok account has changed its description, for a few hours, to a link. When you click on it [this is it, in case you're curious], the video for Never Gonna Give You Up , by Rick Astley, appears.

Screenshot of User2819394837167's profile after changing his description on August 27. The link marked in red is the one that leads to the 'rickrolleo'.

This practice is known on the internet as a rickrolleo : publishing a link disguised as something of interest - in this case, a possible new clue or outcome of this mystery - so that the user clicks on it. The link, however, leads to Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up video clip . It was all a joke, although the rickrolleo has already been removed: after a couple of hours, User2819394837167 has deleted its description again.

Karen Daniela, who has not wanted to reveal her last names or the town where she resides, insists that she is not behind user2819394837167 on TikTok. "They have asked me hundreds of times and I have absolutely nothing to do with it," he says, "my Twitter account is personal and I was not dedicated to doing this type of thread, I did not think it would exceed 50 likes" . Verne has tried to contact user2819394837167 through TikTok, but has not received a response so far. The popularity of this story has also been helped by the fact that the youtuber specialized in mystery topics DrossRotzank, with 20 million subscribers, dedicated a video to it on August 21.

As if it were an escape room , user2819394837167 has been publishing different enigmas for his followers: every so often he changed the accounts he was following for new ones that lead to more hidden messages, or he published new videos for users to play detective: some hide audio messages in reverse - in English - and others use some kind of code to make life difficult for those trying to solve a riddle. To solve the different enigmas, many tiktokers have resorted to the option of TikTok to create videos with the same audio that the mysterious user uses in theirs, so that they are grouped in the same category (as happens with Twitter hashtags). The last one posted, for example, is this:

@ user2819394837167

Rn hgzigrmt gl ivnvnyvi. R dzh dilmt. R wlmg pmld dszg gl gsrmp zmbnliv

Using the same sound that appears in that video, the tiktokers who have tried to unravel the mystery have published hundreds of videos similar to these, which unravel a clue.

@spidertanjiro

## duo with @ user2819394837167 ## tiktok ## terror ## fyp ## fyp

## duo with @ user2819394837167 @ jorge_yt27 ## terror ## fear ## 27

Where do the videos of this game come from?

Although many are edited or manipulated, the videos that user2819394837167 is using for this game are not original: they are fragments of horror short films or scary home videos that have been circulating on the internet for years. The one you can see below, for example, is a horror short film called Dinning Room or There Is Nothing , published on YouTube in 2006 and has more than six million views.

@ user2819394837167 ♬ Iltodoyuontotdgitoedep - user2819394837167

The videos in which a young man with a clown mask appears in a house with hardly any furniture - like this or this one - are the work of another tiktoker, and most were originally published in 2019. They are from the user @ keanu0520_zombie, who has more than 400,000 followers.

@ keanu0520_zombie

目 を 離 し て は い け な い don't take your eyes off, or ... ## tiktok オ ー デ ィ シ ョ ン 2019 ## タ レ ン ト 大 賞 ## ホ ラ ー ## キ ア ヌ

Interactive games on social networks

In addition to placing the link to Never Gonna Give You Up , user2819394837167 has also included in his TikTok description an acronym: ARG. These (which come from the English Augmented Reality Games , augmented reality games) are used to name this type of stories or games, which blur reality and fiction and pose a challenge for the viewer. In Spain, one of the best known cases is that of #RedMonkey, the thread of Manuel Bartual and Modesto García that, in addition to telling a story, was proposing small missions to the spectators: from discovering keys to going to specific locations to look for codes or upload photos.

I see that in many photos there is a lamppost with a number: 361. pic.twitter.com/o4HzewLDdc

Two of the #RedMonkey tweets, in which the protagonist asked the followers of the story to go and take pictures.

On Reddit, the ARG sub-forum has more than 65,000 fans of these types of games, and user2819394837167's riddles have their own thread. Many of the ARGs that are discussed in this forum are developed on TikTok and mix the entertainment of solving the possible enigmas posed with the creepypasta : terrifying stories that the users themselves collectively create through different theories. 

Around user2819394837167, different creepypasta theories and stories have also appeared : some users on Twitter and TikTok argued that it was a manipulation experiment at a global level, others that they were hidden messages sent by a passenger on the Malasyan Airlines plane who disappeared in 2014 or even it was Pennywise, the star clown movies and books of it . After publishing #RedMonkey, Modesto García told Verne that some accounts had wanted to divert the story by adding apocryphal details or false information, and that it was "an inevitable part of the phenomenon."

You can read the full @scarsblood thread below solving user2819394837167's mysteries that have appeared to date:

On Monday (August 17) I was in my normal online classes and I see that I get a message from gaby (my best friend) telling me that she got a weird video on her tik tok fyp. pic.twitter.com/QhxsXDRDvR

Video that came out in fyp to gaby * pic.twitter.com/VndoyzBsCd

Then I'm going to stalk the subject again to translate the codes since I could not stay with the doubt (I did not take ss to all the codes but I have some xd tests) pic.twitter.com/Z2PZLR5nWX

pic.twitter.com/Ronmj8UtcP

As I said before there were 20 videos and 18 of them had binary codes. In one of the two videos that did not have binary code there was a morse code that I also translated with an online page that reads and deciphers them.

The translation of that Morse code said "the truth will be out son. They are unidentifiable, they communicate. We are lab rats. They are coming Boeing 777 200 ER. August 27"
In Spanish it would be "the truth will come out. They are not identifiable, they communicate we are laboratory rats +

On Tuesday (August 18) I got up and started stalking the account and I could see that this guy had deleted ALL the videos and had also stopped following all the accounts, however he followed one and when I entered that only one account that followed + pic.twitter.com/XNSxLjsv31

And it disappeared without leaving any trace (look for a documentary, it's worth it) until today we don't know what happened or where it is.

And in the other video there was a little noise (Morse code) that I also translated and were some coordinates, then I looked for it in google earth and I got this. pic.twitter.com/SssfYJtdcn

Maybe August 27th is a creepy day maybe not. I update in case the subject uploads something new

In addition to all that, he uploaded 3 new videos that I insert them here. pic.twitter.com/YO6sudOdld

In this video it caught my attention that he said something like "outside" and in his biography he has some coordinates pic.twitter.com/S8XlqyTRnd

I'm going to leave all the codes in case the subject deletes the videos again. pic.twitter.com/VbwyGAemTx

pic.twitter.com/vB3KQRrVzN

pic.twitter.com/ibz2ByofVZ

Which might mean "are they really helping me" and it's scrambled.
In Spanish it would be: they are really helping me.
Video insert. pic.twitter.com/seivCb4fBK

Also if you get into the audio it also comes out a little messy lyrics "heyter ongig ot ilkl su" osea "theyre going to kill us" in Spanish "they are going to kill us" pic.twitter.com/hTvvEbXhVA

UPDATE 2.2 the subject changed his biography and uploaded a new video where he left another binary code, also now he follows 4 accounts and it is obvious that he "tries to say something" pic.twitter.com/Ce5i250mY1

Draw your own conclusions and wait for what happens on August 27
I close the thread.

OIGANNN dross is going to make a video on the subject 🤯 pic.twitter.com/bqk4RZnsu9

And I don't think I'm smart or something like that because I'm not and I don't believe it.
I will stop updating but if you have new news you can leave it here in this thread. Bye 🙃✨

I update 2.3
On the days that I did not update, this subject uploaded new videos, new codes, followed different accounts etc. I am going to leave you the videos and the codes that some of my followers who decided to help with the matter deciphered.

And as expected it had another code (J OFFE JU SFNFNCFS) but this time using a code called "caesar cipher" a follower @ErCuatrista deciphered it and said "I NEED IT TO REMEMBER" which when translated into Spanish tells us "I need it remember". pic.twitter.com/mUuXWOWiIt

Apparently. According to many comments, if you played with the saturation of the profile you could see a face, but no matter how hard I tried, it did not work for me. pic.twitter.com/Qo29MHUOFn

"user935102650" (chicago) this account had 2 videos that we will be watching and deciphering later.

This video also had a secret code so to speak. It was "Xf bsf b dhsdmf" that using the caesar code means "we are circle" oben Spanish "we are a circle" pic.twitter.com/thBuY62boJ

I imagine we ALL know that video JAJAJAAJ pic.twitter.com/i1AnsuHxor

This is the second video of this account pic.twitter.com/7siJjLsbaY

Now we will go to the most recent of the main account. Starting with that now it only follows an account that is this. pic.twitter.com/Cj58BVpPUl

Well this time the code said "Rg * h zoo hgzigrmt gl nzpv hvmhv" which @ BLopez2020 translated and means "it's all starting to make to sense" osea "everything is starting to make sense" pic.twitter.com/xjaAqDM7gg

Now let's move on to the second recent video where there are also two codes in both the audio and the video description.
Insert video * pic.twitter.com/2SqpKFUOav

What else to think. (This was also translated by @ BLopez2020 😌

I update.
User935102650 (iamchicago) uploaded 3 new videos. pic.twitter.com/1VXPdtZSTs

Video insert. pic.twitter.com/9uP9YcvwQ0

After a short time the subject publishes the following video pic.twitter.com/BNVjQEChNi

I update thread.
The subject began to follow two accounts whose names were "be ready" and "August 27" (August 27) pic.twitter.com/RCdSj8MNL7

In addition to that, he places a video that has been there for a while (exactly he published it on 07-07-20) pic.twitter.com/gVYg1frKup

Moving on to the arizona account where we upload a new video with code in both the audio and the description
Insert video. pic.twitter.com/uMQRDLBysg

If we go to the audio we can see how it puts a code, which would be deciphered with the "caesar cipher" and would mean "i dont know what to believe" in Spanish "I don't know what to believe" pic.twitter.com/gnUwan0gNz

Credits to those who translated this: @ davidtrujilloj2 @ angelucho2012

I close the thread.

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