Zalgo / Glitch Text Generator

Zalgo text is ordinary characters with large numbers of Unicode combining marks stacked on them. Combining marks are legitimate characters - the accents used to build letters in many languages - and each attaches to the character before it. Nothing limits how many can attach, so applying dozens produces the overflow effect.

Because the marks are real characters, the string is far longer than it appears. A 20-character word with 30 marks per character is over 600 characters, which matters against Discord's 2000-character message cap and against every other field limit.

The overflow renders differently everywhere. Discord clips it to the line height on some surfaces and lets it bleed on others, so text that looks dramatic on desktop may appear as a tidy blob on mobile.

Many servers filter zalgo in nicknames and messages, because heavy stacking can overlap neighbouring lines and interfere with reading the channel. Discord itself strips excessive combining marks from some fields.

It is also hostile to screen readers, which attempt to announce each combining mark and produce an unusable stream of speech. As with styled unicode generally, it is fine for a one-off joke and inappropriate anywhere structural.

Zalgo is an internet meme from a comic about a corrupting force. The text style mimics that look by using unicode combining marks intended for diacritics and tone markers but applied in far greater numbers than any language needs.

It remains popular in horror-themed servers, ARGs, and meme channels where users want their text to look unsettling or deliberately broken.

The slider controls how many combining marks are stacked above and below each character. Low settings add one or two marks for a faint glitch, while high settings turn every letter into a dense cluster that is nearly unreadable.

Because the marks are picked at random on every render, the same text and setting can look slightly different each time you generate it, which is part of the effect.