In 2020, a teenager and TikTok creator submitted the word "hamburger" in Zalgo text for his school yearbook caption; when the yearbook was printed, the text overlapped his photograph and that of the student below him.

H̵̛͕̞̦̰̜͍̰̥̟͆̏͂̌͑ͅä̷͔̟͓̬̯̟͍̭͉͈̮͙̣̯̬͚̞̭̍̀̾͠m̴̡̧̛̝̯̹̗̹̤̲̺̟̥̈̏͊̔̑̍͆̌̀̚͝͝b̴̢̢̫̝̠̗̼̬̻̮̺̭͔̘͑̆̎̚ư̵̧̡̥̙̭̿̈̀̒̐̊͒͑r̷̡̡̲̼̖͎̫̮̜͇̬͌͘g̷̹͍͎̬͕͓͕̐̃̈́̓̆̚͝ẻ̵̡̼̬̥̹͇̭͔̯̉͛̈́̕r̸̮̖̻̮̣̗͚͖̝̂͌̾̓̀̿̔̀͋̈́͌̈́̋͜

In addition to innocuous uses, Zalgo text has been used maliciously to crash or overwhelm messaging apps. Some versions of the Apple Messages app are unable to properly handle Zalgo text, and will crash if they try to render a message that contains such text. (See also "effective power" (bug).) This behavior has been used to perform denial-of-service attacks against iOS users. Similarly, Zalgo messages sent over Gmail have caused crashes.

Zalgo text has become a significant component of many Internet memes after its origin in a 2004 Internet creepypasta story that ascribes it to the influence of an eldritch deity, particularly in its overlap with surreal humor. The formatting of Zalgo text has allowed it to be used to halt or impair visual components of text as well as certain computer functions, whether intentionally or not.

Zalgo text is generated by excessively adding various diacritical marks in the form of Unicode combining characters to the letters in a string of digital text.