The Melancholic Princess / Sonee

About

The Melancholic Princess / Sonee refers to an internet urban legend about a painting of a girl. Though the legend has different variations, the most popular variation is that a Japanese girl painted a portrait of herself, scanned it to the internet, and killed herself, imbuing the painting with her spirit, and that if you stare at the painting for long enough, it will start to change. there are also unverified reports that those who looked at the picture killed themselves. The painting, actually titled "The Melancholic Princess," is actually of a character called Princess Ruu from a screenplay titled Tellurian Sky.

Origin

"The Melancholic Princess," was drawn by Robert Chang. The girl is Princess Ruu,^[1] the main character in his screenplay called Tellurian Sky. On February 18th, 2002, the picture appeared on Epilogue, posted by a user called "lunatique."^[2] There, lunatique wrote:

"This one was done 50% in Photoshop 6 and 50% in Painter 7. I've developed the strange habit of keeping both open and switching back and forth between them as I see necessary. I know many people think her neck is too thin, but I was going for an idealized reality--one that bends to my personal preference. I love long/slender necks. I switched out the old version with the jewelry, since I prefer this version without the jewelry more."

Spread

It's unclear when the urban legend first got attached to the painting. On May 31st, 2006, Chang wrote a blog post saying he had been "getting emails for years" about the legend, adding he suspected "it started in China," as "the earliest email I got about the urban legend was from China a few years ago."^[3] In the blog, he linked to another post that told the legend and called it "The Ring in picture form."^[4] On June 11th, 2006, YouTuber sonee posted a video which stated that when one stares at the image for five minutes, they can see the picture change (shown below). The picture does not actually change. The video has gained over 8.6 million views in 13 years.

In 2010, The New York Times^[5] covered the video as part of a look into creepypastas. That year, YouTuber tye tygon posted a clip in which he photoshopped the image to make it appear as though it was changing, gaining over 900,000 views (shown below, left). On March 14th, 2011, YouTuber Lisa Marie posted a video debunking the myth (shown below, right).

The image remained an urban legend throughout the 2010s. On April 8th, 2015,^[6] it inspired a thread on 4chan's /x/ board. On April 26th, 2017, YouTube channel Scare Theater covered it in a video that gained over 1 million views (shown below, left). On November 15th, 2019, YouTuber ReignBot posted a video about the urban legend and other similar internet urban legends (shown below, right)..

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References