Credit: Dangerous Minds / Scarfolk Council

At the time of writing, it’s 3:17pm, on Wednesday, March 4th, 2026 – in Scarfolk, a sleepy little town on the north-east coast of England, it’s 3:17pm, on Wednesday, March 4th, 1976, this will be the fifth March 4th, 1976, in the history of Scarfolk, and in a decade’s time, a sixth one will come running around like cancerous clockwork.

This is because Scarfolk is a town trapped in the 1970s, not in the way that the rest of the UK seems to be trapped in the 1970s either, in this town’s case, the time loop is entirely literal – this isn’t a Groundhog Day-style time loop where everyone is unaware that they’re living out the same day over and over again. The citizens of Scarfolk are all too aware of the Lovecraftian nightmare they’re trapped in, and everywhere you look, you can see more barely disguised cries for help, even in the very motto of the town: “Visit Scarfolk today. Our number one priority is keeping rabies at bay.”

However, they’re not disguising their cries for help because of a devotion to Blitz spirit and stiff upper lip. They’re doing so in order to avoid detection from any of the nightmarish things that seemingly run rampant in the town. From the Infant Liberation Front and their (somewhat understandable) quest to eradicate all grownups, to the flocks of telekinetic owl-children roaming the skies with vengeance in their hearts and human faces on their heads. Most feared of all, though, is the tyrannical Scarfolk Council.

Honestly, nothing better sums up the sheer terror of the Scarfolk Council like a poster found by a blog collecting all records of Scarfolk’s terrifying history. In front of a collage of screaming faces, it reads “Feel hopeless and abandoned, like you’re going mad? Don’t worry, let us reassure you that everything you’re feeling is completely justified and proves you have fully comprehended the true severity of your situation,” before finishing with the Orwellian phrase, “Keep it to yourself, discontent is contagious.”

Like… I know this is a work of fiction, but it hits fucking close to home, doesn’t it?

What is Scarfolk?

So yes, nothing about Scarfolk is real, at least in the literal sense. Instead, it’s a multimedia comedy/horror project that’s the brainchild of writer and graphic designer Richard Littler, who actually turns up in the story of Scarfolk as an expy of himself in the form of Scarfolk mayor L Ritter. The idea first came to Littler when creating a set of birthday cards for his friends in the form of strange parodies of Penguin Classic book covers. Littler put these covers on a blog, and a few of them went viral.

After thinking of how to capitalise on this newfound attention, Littler took the idea of surreal takes on 1970s pop culture and combined it with a pitch for a screenplay he was writing at the time. Thus, the basic idea of Scarfolk and its local council was born. Within a few posts on the newly formed blog, Scarfolk became a sensation. One that, over time, became more than just an excuse to have a nostalgic laugh at the expense of the 1970s and instead became one of the most successful works of hauntology in the modern era.

If you haven’t heard of it, hauntology is a relatively new concept referring to works of art that reflect how the present is little more than a collection of broken hopes and dreams. That today was the dream of the past, and how no matter how much we live for the moment, we can’t help but reckon with the failures of the past that put us here. That’s what makes Scarfolk more than just a joke. There’s a sadness and a genuine fear to it that anyone who calls… Well, anywhere home can relate to.

Put simply, Scarfolk is a work of anti-nostalgia – what if we looked at the past with the same fear and anxiety we look at our current future with?