The first Urban Dictionary definition was submitted on October 12th, 2010. The creepypasta image was submitted to FunnyJunk on September 25th, 2010. Even then, it would often take months until they were ready to discard their fantasy world and PLEASE WAKE UP. It would tell them about their condition, and tell them to WAKE UP. The only way that they realized they needed to WAKE UP was a note they found in their fantasy world.

In this catatonic state, the victim lived in a world just like their normal one, except they weren't being tortured. It has been reportedd that some victims of torture, during the act, would retreat into a fantasy world from which they could not WAKE UP. According to Minecraft Wiki, the page's source had the following secret message:

In another stream, Copeeland's friend Patimoose faked a game crash, then put up a page with a default Minecraft face with actual human eyes photoshopped on. The Herobrine story was popularized with a hoax that was staged on Augon the Minecraft video stream 'Brocraft', now called 'Ghost in the Stream.' Copeeland, the stream's creator, showed Herobrine, suspected to actually just be a retextured painting or iron door, near the end of the stream at 20:45.