Candlejack

About

Candlejack, also known as Candle Jack, is a villain from the animated superhero comedy television series Freakazoid. Online, particularly on 4chan's /b/ imageboard, posters use the character as an interrupter in which they write the character's name in a post, and then make it appear as though the text was cut off, implying that Candlejack captured the poster (similar to Hypnotoad).

Origin

On September 16th, 1995, the episode of Freakazoid entitled "Candlejack" aired in the United States.^[1] In the episode, children tell ghost stories at summer camp. One tells the story of "Candle Jack," a Bogeyman-like monster that kidnaps children who say his name (clip below).

Spread

The popularity of the character grew online throughout the mid-2000s. On June 15th, 2006, YouTuber evanmcb posted a clip from the episode. The post received more than 54,000 views in less than 15 years (shown below, left).

Around this time, people online began to use the character as an in-text joke about ghost stories in which mentions of the character will result in the poster's kidnapping. On March 19th, 2007, Urban Dictionary ^[2] user miji defined the character "Candlejack is a villain from the TV show Freakazoid. If you say Candlejack's name, you get kind--." The post received more than 3,000 upvotes in less than 15 years (shown below, right).

The character also found fans on 4chan. On August 22nd, 2007, anonymous users on 4chan users posted the earliest available mentions of the character (shown below, left). However, their usage is not a reflection of how the character was commonly used.

This type of meme format could be found on other message boards of the era. For example, on November 2nd, sognadigitalmuseum.com^[3] forum user EnsignRyusei responded to an "introduce yourselves" thread, "What's up with all this Candlejack stuff, OH FU" (shown below, right).

More than a decade later, Candlejack memes were still shared on 4chan. On March 28th, 2019, an anonymous 4chan user on /b/^[4] posted a thread about the character. They wrote, "Each time i format my old hd i still find this pic of Candlejack, idk why it h--." Others shared variations of the joke, exhibiting their understanding of the format (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References