Who or What is the Smiling Man?

Today we look into the long history of the one of the internet's most famous let's not meet stories. Who or what is the smiling man? Is he a ghost, an alien, or something far worse?

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The Six Realms - I Think I can Help You
Kevin MacLeod - Unnatural Situation
Kevin MacLeod - Awkward Meeting
Portal - Self Esteem Fund
CO.AG Music - Ghost
CO.AG Music - A Room with no View
Dark Music - Save Room

[dr.coomer]

Drugs. I’m a recovering addict, and the “meth smile” can be really uncanny and creepy. Add psychedelics to the mix and you get the bizarre dancing and acting possessed. It’s entirely possible the OG story is true and about a guy tweaking/candy flipping.

[Jaymic]

Reminds me of the Cheery Man from Fallen London. He only looks for crazy people plagued by Nightmares and collects them in his hotel. He also is known by his cheerful demeanor and his bright brass buttons on his coat.

[Bluepikmin]

I may have missed it, but I didn't notice anything super natural about the original post. OP just encountered a weird guy who was acting really weird. The Smiling Man subreddit seems in bad faith to me. Like OP might have actually had an encounter they found genuinely terrifying, and all these weirdos on the internet made it into a contest to see who could make the scariest version of this guy. If the original smiling man was real, this is basically people minimizing Op's experience, like "here's how he could've been scarier".

[snekeater]

I feel like the subreddit taking a relatively down-to-Earth and believable story and trying to create a cryptid and expand on it almost ruins the original story.
Glad the original author didn't really feed into it.

[joshuagraham]

A true classic. Glad it's held the fear factor

[daniurquhart]

As someone from seattle i can say i see ppl like this every day. OP saw a smiling guy on some form of hard drugs. I knew immediately where it was based on how he talked about the city and the behavior of the dude

[salrily]

This creepypasta scared the absolute SHIIII out of me whenever I was a kid. Still gives me chills tbh.

[kevingluys]

I feel like Keel has a tendency of taking a bunch of completely different encounters and hammering them all into the conspiracy narrative that sell his books.
I remember in the earliest encounters The Grinning Man/Indrid Cold was a very tall, very muscular hairless man in a skintight chrome-green onesy with a plunging Vneck with huge lapels. He wasn't ugly, and his eyes and smile weren't menacing or evil, it just was like he was really excited about literally everything.
The "strange questions" also weren't threatening. They were things like "are cars an animal?" And "did you make these roads/skyscrapers? Or are they a natural phenomenon?"
Dude then signed off with a "please do not use nuclear weapons" and flew away in a bean-shaped pod.
Then Keel decided that that wouldn't sell books to paranoid conspiracy theorists.

Same goes for Mothman. Was just a big ol bird that yelled at people and Keel Play-Doh pressed it into a psychic invasion prophet.

[zeliardforty-two]

From my own personal experience, some one acting strange in the middle of the night usually equals a lone wanderer walking off a high. Despite what people think it isn’t always obvious if someone is inebriated. They can also be a lot more aware so often travel in dark places in order to avoid interaction, police or otherwise. Despite being aware they are definitely not mentally sound. Encounters with such people can often be disturbing. Often moving in a strange way and making any sober person uneasy

That being said there is definitely encounters out there that push uneasy to the next level! Call it alien or supernatural, these experiences will leave a far deeper impact. This is the area these sort of creepy pastas sit in. Is it a mentally deranged man out to freak people out, or an out worldly person learning to human?

Sometimes, whatever happened, it just makes for great stories. Stories that continue to entertain and terrify even if it might be only partly true

[abcdef]

He is smiling, because he doesn't want to cry.

And you don't want to see the Smiling Man crying...

[KillerMoth]

One of if not the first creepypasta I ever knew about

[ProximaCentauri]

Mr. Nightmare's narration, Llama Arts's animation, and Michael Evans's 2AM short film turned this into a classic urban horror.

[joseybryant]

A man who just wants people to notice his teeth care routine. He clearly gets good results.

[Albino_Basilisk]

I personally don’t consider the smiling man creepypasta and Indrid Cold (the grinning man) as the same. All the similarities between them are more or less just common tropes in horror, like the creepy smile, which is a common visual because it’s twisting something that should look happy and innocent into something creepy.
In most stories, the threat is either noticeably big, or noticeably small, so both being above 6 feet is likely just a coincidence.
I guess both wearing a suit is the only thing I can’t explain away, but it should be noted that Indrid Cold’s suit had some sort of chrome look, or some other distinct pattern/color, meanwhile, for the smiling man, it’s just a regular suit.
The actions of the smiling man also seems more like a lunatic, while the grinning man gives me more like “I’m just here to inspect” vibes. I guess it’s possible the creepypasta could’ve been inspired by the story of Indrid cold, but I just don’t think they’re intended to be the same entity

[seafossil]

In Houston Tx there is a guy named Juan Carlos Restrepo who dances around on the side of the road in rollerblades and occasionally tight sparkly outfits around the Montrose/Allen Pkwy area. I haven't lived there for a few years so I don't know if he still does it or not.

[clout]

I'm honestly so happy he got all that money. He really needed it, and I haven't checked up on his videos recently. I'm still happy for him

[midnightdimensions]

These situations just sound like people dealing with those who are on drugs. It still is scary. You don't know whether or not that person wants to kill you.

[chronobretz]

Hard to believe it’s been long enough to look back on creepy pastas with nostalgia

[manifestationsofasort]

Honestly the fact that OP's story took place in Seattle sells it for me. It's very normal to see people on drugs acting strange up there and I've had quite a few encounters with people like that when I was at UW. I completely buy that some guy was smiling creepily and dancing down the street and freaking people out.

[maripostal]

Keel is hardly what I'd call credible, but man I loved The Mothman Prophecies so much, it's such a nutty read.