How YouTube & Five Nights At Freddy's Changed Modern Horror

The horror genre has held a prominent place in pop culture since the invention of the camera. In that time, the manner in which the masses consume such media and respond to it has changed here and there, with one of the most prominent changes to the horror landscape, specifically within the realm of horror video gaming, arriving in the 2010s. Within this decade, the "Five Nights at Freddy's" franchise gained a foothold online, and in doing so, it changed modern horror as we know it in more ways than one.

In this regard, the impact of "Five Nights at Freddy's" is undeniably tied to the video-sharing website YouTube. Though they were nothing new to the site, Let's Plays — videos that feature someone playing a video game and recording their reactions as they progress through it — focused on the "Five Nights at Freddy's" games led them to skyrocket in popularity. YouTube personalities such as Markiplier gave many fans their first taste of the games through their entertaining videos and commentary within them, prompting them to invest in the lore and try the games themselves.

While countless other horror games reached mainstream levels of popularity, "Five Nights at Freddy's" is among the first and most prominent to do so with the help of YouTube. Let's Plays were a new frontier for fans to use as a means of exploring their new favorite horror franchise without even having to play the games if they couldn't or didn't want to. Through this new avenue, the fandom grew at an exponential rate, thus contributing to another fascinating element of the cultural impact of "Five Nights at Freddy's."

Since the creation of the Internet, fan communities dedicated to just about everything have come to fruition. From "Star Wars" to lost media, there's truly an online fandom for any interest, though few are quite like that of "Five Nights at Freddy's." Coinciding with its meteoric rise in popularity, the fan community behind the games continued to grow online at a similar pace. In no time at all, the Internet became filled with fan art, memes, and theories, in addition to fan-made media that expanded on the franchise's narrative in unprecedented ways.

It took time, but eventually, this almost exclusively online phenomenon made it to the forefront of the pop culture scene. In the blink of an eye, "Five Nights at Freddy's" toys, tie-in novels, clothing, and numerous copycat games sprung up, courtesy of companies seeking to cash in on the fad before it burned out. Even Hollywood is getting in on the action with a "Five Night at Freddy's" movie from Blumhouse Productions and director Emma Tammi. To think, "Five Nights at Freddy's" is now a multimedia empire less than a decade after the first game released.

With all of this in mind, it's safe to say the "Five Nights at Freddy's" franchise is an interesting case study in how the dissemination and consumption of horror media has evolved in the modern era. Fans are finding new ways to get their horror fix and are contributing to the franchises they love on levels previously rarely, if ever, seen.