“Haven't you heard of Five Nights at Freddy's?! Everyone is talking about it right now!”
That's what my sister said to me in the year of 2014. Admittedly, I’ve heard of the name a few times over the last week or so at the time. I didn’t really get what it was, though. I kept hearing about how “scary” it was or how “like Chuck E. Cheese” it was. Was it a haunted house? A maze? A scary cult activity? Perhaps even related to Nightmare on Elm Street, that movie series I was obsessed with several years prior? That had to be it, right? But I wasn’t sure until I found out…
Wait, a mobile app??
Oh.
Not really what I expected, but I knew I had to check it out. I loved horror after all and, as a little girl, I had to prove myself to those around me. I had to let them know that little middle-school me wasn’t a wimp.
I gave into my temptations and decided to download the app. I still remember the chill that ran down my spine when I first opened the game; the glitching head and bloodthirsty eyes of the iconic bear mascot staring back at me. The feeling the game gave me was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I mean, I binge-watched Nightmare on Elm Street as a child and wasn’t scared of it, so what made this mobile game so special?
Honestly, I probably couldn’t tell you today without going on a gigantic tangent. Perhaps that’s the reason this shrine exists. Maybe it was just my extreme reactions to the loud screams that came with each jumpscare? Regardless of the reason, I couldn’t refrain from playing over, and over, and over again…
While I loved to play the game, I (like many other kids in the 2010s) also loved to Google Search images of my favorite characters. Upon scrolling through the countless works made by fans just as passionate as myself, I realized something…
The animatronic characters were honestly… kind of cute??
I couldn’t believe it. I fell in love with how fans portrayed the killer animatronics. Freddy was the jolly leader, a perfect role-model any aspiring child could look up to. Bonnie was the hip and cool guitar-playing bunny and the best friend of Mr. Fazbear himself. Chica was the chubby, adorable pizza loving chicken who loved to cook. And Foxy? The troublesome yet rowdy outcast of the crew.
By then, I had already been hooked on the game for its unique and jaw-dropping gameplay, but I started to see it in a different light, too. These fan portrayals made me think of how the animatronics must be in the daytime, the fun-loving and kid-friendly characters they were made to be. As a girl who frequented Chuck E Cheese’s for nearly every birthday (much to my dad’s dismay), I loved these interpretations to death.
In fact, of all of the animatronic characters, Freddy stole my heart more than any other (... until the release of FNAF 3). I loved him so much that I even made an Instagram roleplay account based around him that I uploaded art, in-character captions, and my favorite images to. It was honestly such a fun experience and where I created my greatest memories as a young fangirl.
While I loved to roleplay, the Instagram account also exposed me to something entirely unheard of: the game’s lore.
I vividly remember stumbling upon images of the posters referencing the five missing children. To think that these animatronics weren’t mindless killing machines, but murdered children blew my mind. I thought it was one of the most groundbreaking details that Scott could add to the already-spectacular franchise!
At that point, I found myself crawling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. My love for Freddy and affinity for the mysterious lore turned my love for the franchise into an obsession; one I could probably even compare to my previous six-year obsession with Pokemon.
As my obsession took off, my life just felt so perfect to me. I loved the friends I made in the earliest days of the community, had so much fun chatting about each hot new game teaser from Scott’s website, and sharing all of our ideas and fan creations. Even if my time in middle school kind of sucked, this franchise gave me something fun and exciting to look forward to everyday.
Since these days, little else has ever been so special to me. Hell, I can’t even say that I like where the franchise is currently going (looking at you, Security Breach…), but I will always cherish the classic series, games, movie, and the special place they will always hold in my heart.