Carmen Winstead: They Pushed Her

About

Carmen Winstead: They Pushed Her or Hi My Name Is Carmen Winstead refers to an urban legend and creepypasta about a 17-year-old girl named Carmen Winstead who is pushed into a sewer by five girls at her school and dies. Though the story is a hoax, the girls supposedly lied and said she fell in to avoid getting caught. In 2006, the story was passed around Myspace, Facebook and emailed as a chain letter that encourages readers to share the email or else they'll be killed by the vengeful ghost of Winstead, offering an example of a boy who didn't share the message and was found dead in the sewer days later. It also notably became a copypasta as it spread over the following years. In 2022, an audio clip of someone reading the chain mail from the perspective of Winstead became a viral original sound on TikTok.

Origin

In 2006, a chain letter started circulating through email and on Myspace telling readers a fictitious story about a 17-year-old Indiana girl named Carmen Winstead (sometimes Jessica Smith) who was pushed down an open sewer hole by five schoolgirls to embarrass her. She failed to emerge from the hole and the police investigated, finding her dead with a broken neck. The girls proceed to tell everyone she fell and get away with it. The post ends by describing how a 16-year-old boy named David Gregory read the chain letter and ignored it. He heard screaming from his shower that night then ran to repost it but was too late. The police find him in the sewer with a broken neck five days later. The letter then encourages readers to repost the story and write "she was pushed" or "They Pushed her down a sewer." Snopes debunked the chain letter as fake in October that year.^[1]

She was pushed

About 6 years ago in Indiana, Carmen Winstead was pushed down a sewer opening by 5 girls in her school, trying to embarrass her in front of her school during a fire drill. When she didn’t submerge the police were called. They went down and brought up 17 year old Carmen Winstead’s body, the neck broke hitting the ladder, then side concrete at the bottom. The girls told everyone she fell… They believed them.

FACT: 2 months ago, 16 year old David Gregory read this post and didn’t repost it. When he went to take a shower he heard laughter from his shower, he started freaking out and ran to his computer to repost it, He said goodnight to his mom and went to sleep, 5 hours later his mom woke up in the middle of the night cause of a loud noise, David was gone, that morning a few hours later the police found him in the sewer, his neck broke and his face skin peeled off.

If you don’t repost this saying

“She was pushed”
or “They Pushed her down a sewer”

Then Carmen will get you, either from a sewer, the toilet, the shower, or when you go to sleep you’ll wake up in the sewer, in the dark, then Carmen will come and kill you.

An audio recording telling the story from the perspective of Carmen Winstead in a text-to-speech voice has also circulated online and was sent to web users in a similar fashion. The earliest known reupload of the audio online was posted to YouTube^[2] on October 9th, 2014. A higher-quality version was uploaded to YouTube in 2018 (shown below).

Spread

The story has been discussed at length online, inspiring explainer videos, skits, memes, fan art and more referencing the story of Carmen Winstead. On May 11th, 2014, Deviant Art^[7] user SozaArt posted a piece of art inspired by the story, gaining over 2,000 views in eight years (shown below).

In 2017, YouTuber Channel Zero posted a video describing the urban legend, gaining over 60,700 views in five years (shown below).

The story is still occasionally spread as a factual tale on Facebook, typically among Spanish web users. For example, the Facebook^[6] page Camtube shared a long version of the story along with a supposed image of Winstead on April 16th, 2019, gaining over 32,000 reactions, 52,000 shares and 32,000 comments in three years.

On March 1st, 2020, YouTubers Jillian and Addie posted a horror skit inspired by the chain letter, gaining over 8.4 million views in two years (shown below).

On July 7th, 2020, YouTuber o p posted a video mashing the audio up with 100 gecs song "Money Machine," gaining over 15,000 views in roughly two years (shown below).

TikTok Original Sound / AUUUGHHHHH

On February 9th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @j6sse_ posted a 21st-Century Humor meme compilation video using an original sound consisting of the Carmen Winstead audio with loud, distorted sound effects cutting off the speech occasionally (shown below). The video gained over 71,000 views in six days.

The original sound, titled "AUUUGHHHHH," became popularized over the following days, inspiring over 11,000 videos by February 15th, 2022. The majority of the videos are 21st-Century Humor and ironic meme compilations set to the audio. For example, on February 11th, TikToker^[4] @vicky.gee posted a video like this, gaining over 2 million views in four days (shown below, left). On February 13th, TikToker^[5] @.ykiw posted a similar video, gaining over 3.5 million views in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References