Creepy Hooded Guy / An Intruder

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Part of a series on The Mandela Catalogue. [View Related Entries]

About

Creepy Hooded Guy, also known as An Intruder and The Albanian, refers to a police sketch of a large-eyed man wearing a black hood. The image achieved prominence online several times, first shared on 4chan's /tg/ board in 2010, and later gaining meme usage on 4chan and then on the Russian 2ch imageboard in December 2015. The image again became popularized in 2021 after appearing as "An intruder" in the Mandela Catalogue analog horror YouTube series.

Origin

While the exact origin of the image is currently unconfirmed, it is assumed to be a computer-generated police sketch of a suspect. On June 11th, 2010, an anonymous 4chan^[1] user made the earliest known post of the image online on the /tg/ board of the site, with the image named "creepyface.jpg." The user wrote that they felt that there was something wrong with the image and that the person scared them on some primal level. They also wrote that according to an official source, the image was a "police crime suspect recreation drawing from witness description" (post and image shown below, left and right).

Spread

Prior to the first burst of virality in December 2015, the image saw minor spread online as a creepy image. For example, on April 19th, 2011, a 4chan^[2] user posted it as an example of a frightening thing to see on a TV screen when waking up in the middle of a night (post shown below).

The image did not see viral spread until December 10th, 2015, when an anonymous user from Albania posted the image in a /pol/ thread on 4chan^[3] (shown below). Starting on the same day, other users also started to use the image as a random picture and in an attempt to creep others out,^[4]^[5] with the image quickly being recognized as a meme on /pol/.^[6]^[7]

Following the viral spread of the image on /pol/ and other boards, on December 16th, 2015, an anonymous user of the Russian 2ch^[8] imageboard created a thread about the image on /sn/ board. Starting on December 18th, an anonymous 2ch^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12] user created a series of four threads on the /b/ board, suggesting manufacturing a creepypasta and accompanying videos based on the image and forcing it through means of posting the image, creepypasta and videos in creepypasta-themed VK communities. The character was given the name "The Albanian" (rus. Албанец) after the Albanian user who first posted the image on 4chan's /pol/.

ATTENTION, this is a police sketch of an Albanian man and a member of terrorist organization DAESH, banned in the Russian Federation. The person is assumed to be a member of DAESH's recently founded division which seeks to employ mesmerism to recruit new members in Russia. The person was last seen in Volgograd on December 2nd. Online spread of a video file showing a static image of the man, accompanied by an unusual audio sequence, has been reported. The purpose of the video is unknown.

During this period, the earliest edits of the image and videos based on it, both humorous and created for the purpose of forcing the creepypasta, were posted on 2ch (shown below).

Following the brief popularity as a creepypasta in late 2015 and early 2016, the image saw limited spread online among Russian users and on /pol/, mainly being used as an exploitable for photoshops. For example, on March 23rd, 2017, a thread for memes based on the image was created on 4chan's /x/ board.^[13] In April 2018, the image saw a surge of use in Russia, with Memepedia^[14] reporting on the meme. In 2019, a version of the image captioned with a nonsensical phrase "Выгу выгу" gained popularity as a post-ironic shitpost.^[15]

On August 4th, 2018, prominent Facebook^[16] void memes page Pains of Hell Wellness Clinic set the image as its profile picture. The group accumulated over 228,000 followers in three years.

2021 Popularity

On August 9th, 2021, episode three "The Mandela Catalogue Vol. 1" of YouTube^[17] analog horror series Mandela Catalogue premiered on YouTube. The episode included a static image of The Albanian captioned, "an intruder." The episode received over 1.6 million views in three months (shown below, image appears at 14:28 mark).

On October 22nd, 2021, TikToker^[18] lesbianpetergriffin posted a fan cam TikTok dedicated to the character (shown below). The video received over 167,100 views and 40,400 likes in two weeks (shown below). On October 28th, Facebook^[19] page Pains of Hell Wellness Clinic reposted the video, with the post gaining over 3,700 reactions and 1,700 shares in one week.

Starting in late October 2021, An Intruder achieved notable virality on social media, primarily on Twitter, with many users expressing adoration with the character rather than fear of it. For example, on October 31st, 2021, gimmick Twitter^[20] account @TheAnything_Bot auto-generated a tweet announcing the death of the character, with the post gaining over 700 retweets and 11,700 likes in one week, and with the creator of Mandela Catalogue responding (tweet shown below, left). On November 1st, 2021, Twitter^[21] user @Wendigoon8 posted a Boy and Girl Texting meme that gained over 1,700 retweets and 18,700 likes in one week (shown below, right).

More viral posts featuring the character were posted on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other social media in November 2021.