Zalgo text is ordinary text with extra combining marks stacked above and below each letter, so words look glitched or “cursed” but still paste as text. Choose a level in the box above — light, medium or heavy — tap a result to copy it, and keep heavy zalgo for short names.
The box is the FontFancy generator switched to its glitch levels; Shuffle rerolls the marks without changing your words. Below the levels you will find ready-made glitch names, error-screen symbols, friendly spooky decorations, and the reasons heavy zalgo gets trimmed, flagged or worse.
Pick a level before you paste
The three levels differ only in how many marks each letter carries, and that number decides both the look and how much space the text takes. Our generator adds one mark above and one below at the light level, three above and two below at medium, and six above and five below at heavy.
| Level | Marks per letter | “glitch” (6 letters) becomes | Works best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | 1 above + 1 below | 18 characters | Display names, bios, chat messages |
| Medium | 3 above + 2 below | 36 characters | Short titles, status lines, one scary word |
| Heavy | 6 above + 5 below | 72 characters | A single word or 3–4 letter name; posts where you control the layout |
Spaces are never decorated, so a two-word phrase stays readable as two words. If you need the look of a crossed-out word rather than a glitch, the same stacking trick with one straight line is what strikethrough text uses.
What zalgo text actually is
Zalgo text is made by piling Unicode combining characters — marks meant for accents such as the tilde in ã — onto normal letters until they spill above and below the line. Each mark is its own character with general category “Mn” (non-spacing mark), so the text grows longer even though you still read the same word.
All marks our generator uses come from the Combining Diacritical Marks block, U+0300 to U+036F: a pool of 50 marks that sit above a letter and 40 that sit below. A few of them, straight from the pool:
| On an “o” | Code point | Unicode name |
|---|---|---|
| o̍ | U+030D | Combining Vertical Line Above |
| oͣ | U+0363 | Combining Latin Small Letter A |
| o͛ | U+035B | Combining Zigzag Above |
| o̖ | U+0316 | Combining Grave Accent Below |
| oͅ | U+0345 | Combining Greek Ypogegrammeni |
| o̶ | U+0336 | Combining Long Stroke Overlay |
The name comes from an internet horror meme: according to Wikipedia’s article on Zalgo text, it traces back to a 2004 Something Awful forum thread where users posted distorted cartoons exclaiming “Zalgo!”. The text effect later took the name because it looks like writing being corrupted.
Glitch names at three strengths
Names are where zalgo works best, because the word is short and people only need to recognise it. Every name below was generated from the same mark pools as the tool; the label shows the level so you can match it to your own name.
Mixed levels (15)
Light glitch, still easy to read (15)
Glitched phrases for a status or caption (12)
Each tap copies a fresh string. Two copies of the same level look different because the marks are picked at random, which is also why no one else is likely to have exactly your glitched name.
Error screens, static and cursed symbols
Glitch is a look, not only a font effect. These strings borrow from broken screens and failed downloads — progress bars, “no signal” icons, the replacement character � (U+FFFD) that devices show when text is corrupted — and from the pre-glitched emoji people already share.
Already glitched (22)
These carry their own stacked or enclosing marks, so paste them as they are. The Thai string with a tower of tone marks is a famous example of stacking taken to the extreme.
Error, loading and static (35)
Friendly spooky decorations and kaomoji
Zalgo often ends up in Halloween names and creepy-cute bios. This set stays on the friendly side — ghosts, bats, pumpkins and moons rather than blood or weapons — so it suits a profile anyone might see.
Ghosts, bats and pumpkins (36)
Wide-eyed and spooked kaomoji (24)
Why heavy zalgo gets cut, flagged or crashes things
Heavy zalgo is heavy for computers too. Every mark is stored and counted, and the stacks spill outside the line they were typed on, so apps have reasons to trim, filter or refuse it.
| Text | Characters | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|
| “glitch”, plain | 6 | 6 |
| “glitch”, light | 18 | 30 |
| “glitch”, medium | 36 | 66 |
| “glitch”, heavy | 72 | 138 |
- Length limits. A field that allows 30 characters fits a 30-letter plain name but only a two-letter name at our heavy level. Many name and bio fields count marks as characters, so heavy zalgo is often rejected or silently cut off.
- Layout. Marks that stack above and below can cover the line above and the line below, which is why forums and chat apps may clip or strip them.
- Moderation. Heavy zalgo is a common spam pattern, so filters and moderators on many communities treat it as disruptive. Light glitch is far less likely to be flagged, which matters for server nicknames too (see our notes on fancy fonts for Discord).
- Crashes. Wikipedia notes that zalgo-style text has crashed some versions of Apple Messages and Gmail, and was used to disrupt iOS users. Current apps have largely fixed this, but it is why some platforms still limit combining marks.
- Accessibility. Screen readers may read out mark names, skip them, or stumble, so keep important information in plain text.
If a glitched name appears as a letter followed by empty boxes on someone else’s device, the font is missing the marks rather than the text being wrong — the same problem covered in why fancy text sometimes does not show. Sometimes a lighter level or a different app fixes it. Flipping a name upside down is a quieter alternative, and our upside-down text generator explains which letters flip cleanly.
Turning zalgo back into normal text
You can remove zalgo by stripping every combining mark and keeping the base letters. In Unicode terms, the text is decomposed (NFD) and every character in the “Mn” and “Me” mark categories is dropped, which leaves the original word — a quick way to rescue a glitched username or quote someone’s cursed message plainly.
The one thing this does not undo is a real accented letter: removing all marks would also turn é into e. Glitch styles that do not use marks at all — bold, script or this year’s trending styles — need no clean-up and are safer wherever your name must be searchable.
Questions about cursed text
What exactly is Zalgo text?
Zalgo text is normal text with many Unicode combining marks stacked above and below each letter. The marks make words look glitched or cursed, but the text stays copyable and the original letters are still underneath.
How can I create Zalgo text?
Type your words into the zalgo text generator at the top of this page, choose light, medium or heavy, and tap a result to copy it. Press Shuffle for a different random pattern of marks.
Why is Zalgo text banned in some places?
Heavy zalgo makes text very long, spills over neighbouring lines and is a common spam pattern, and in the past it crashed some apps. Communities and platforms therefore often filter or limit it.
Is Zalgo text just a meme?
The name comes from a 2004 internet horror meme, but the technique is real Unicode: combining diacritical marks designed for accents, used in large numbers. That is why it works in almost any app that accepts text.
Will glitch text work in my username or game name?
Light glitch often works in display names; heavy glitch is frequently rejected because of length limits or filters. Usernames that only allow plain letters and numbers will not accept it at all.
Checked on 14 September 2026: mark counts and lengths were measured from the generator’s own mark pools; character names and categories verified with the Unicode Character Database.
