Almost all of the American ones I've heard of are terrifying.

Seems like OP is not familiar with fae mythology.
- Could you offer what you know?
  
  You can’t trick me into giving you all my knowledge, faerie!!
  
  Off the absolute top of my head there's the redcap. Depending on the material it can be depicted as a gnome, goblin, or kobold with a jaunty looking red hat (generally long and pointy like a gnome hat or like Link's hat in Legend of Zelda).
  It keeps the hat red by dying and regularly re-dying it with its victims' blood.
  There's also a number of depictions of pixies as essentially flying piranha.
  But this sort of mythology isn't some deep secret, it's everywhere outside of the kid friendly/disney filtered stuff. I'm sure a simple search will net you tons of content.
  
  One of the best jokes I’ve seen is everyone with adhd accidentally answered yes to a fae asking “could I have your attention”
- Or basically any European mythology.
  
  Just the sea monsters ...
- Or the scissor man.

European cryptids can be creepy as hell if you look into older, non-disneyfied versions.
- They've (euro cryptids) have gotten nerfed over the centuries, and the especially nasty ones probably got wiped out during world War II.
  Our (American) culture is strongly combative, and our last giant local war was over a century and a half ago or so. The dark things that have crawled forth from our deepest nightmares and waking dreams are far hungrier, crueller, and have had much more time to proliferate than your feeble, mischievous survivors.
  Your cryptids crave petty things, like food, stealing names, or the occasional child. Ours crave the end of all things and the souls of the multitudes, to truck is into turning each hand against every other, and ultimately to drag our shattered remnants kicking and screaming into the dark places under the Earth.
  
  Honestly the disneyification fits in pretty well with old european folklore, the gambit for a lot of our mythological creatures was tricking you into thinking they're your friends and then a whole towns worth of people vanishes. We have some wendigo stuff style too and it tends to follow a similar style of moral lesson about don't do x or you will turn into the monster or the monster will come get you.
  
  It is what we deserve

European Crypitids
How europeans deals with them
- The only thing I vividly remember from this movie is the pretty lady just about sitting on Hugh Jackmans face.
  
  I love this movie. It's probably one of my favorite schlock fantasy movies. The casting was way better than it had any right to be - Hugh Jackman, sure, but Kate Beckinsale? Well, I guess she was fresh off Underworld, so she was still in that headspace. And Richard Roxburgh doing the perfect amount of scene-chewing for the villain.. introducing himself properly as Vladislaus Draculea.. and the opening scene, shot just like a 1920s Universal monster movie! I legitimately think it's the closest we'll ever get to a live action Castlevania. I could go on, but I'll spare you. Might be time for a rewatch.
- Waaay classier
- Nipple tassels?

Someone didn't play the Witcher

And then there's Norway.
- That brings me back memories of when is was ~5 years old and visiting my father's cabin in the forest, which had a copy of that painting on the wall. He would put hall of the mountain king on full blast and tell troll stories just to scare me from time to time.
  Nøkken was scarier though, kept me from going down to lake alone after dark, which I guess was the original intention of that creature.
  
  Fuck yeah Savatage! Rare to see referenced in the wild.
  Edit: wait I didn't click the link, did you mean this 80s metal classic or Edvard Greig's lol
  
  What is the name of that picture if you kbow perhaps?
- Scandinavian fairy tales be like
- That's Tony Tony Chopper. Don't be scared, he's a doctor.

Tbf, the Europeans have some pretty fucked cryptid lore, it's just that they're more chaotic neutral and less chaotic vengeance than the American variety. My favorite american cryptid is an old one you don't hear much of anymore, and was born from Pacific NorthWest loggers: the Hide Behind. Basically, this mf stalks your shit and will always duck behind a tree when you turn to look at it; it's fast enough to never be seen clearly, but you can just catch glimpses of it if you're fast/lucky. Eventually, it catches and eats unwitting loggers who let it sneak up on them.
Edit: I also like the deer stories. One of my all time favs was a free text about a deer stumbling up the street very clearly saying "BEEP BEEP BEEP" like a car being unlocked, followed by "Honey, I'm home!" over and over. That was the whole story, just a weird fucking deer stumbling up the street and talking to itself. 10/10 would gladly read again.
- I like Not Deer. Weird Birds are in a similar vein. I doubt they're established well enough to be considered a cryptid, but they're kinda similar.
- Gotta love Not Deer. I know it's just CWD or similar, but man when you're alone in the woods and come across one, shit is unnerving

I like that Japanese foot that slams into buildings and demands you wash it

That's definitely a bad idea to invite them to tea:
They know you saw them
They've got permission to enter you house
You are giving them food!!
It sound like a recipe to get your daughter stolen from you, or to have your house falling down on your head, or losing your mind or straight being skinned you and your family.
Carefully go back so they don't know you saw them.
Do not ever speak to this to anyone, not to your parent, your neighbour, your child not to your SO, not on the internet or your diary and lets hope you don't speak in your dream.
- Damn that’s intense.

America's got some goofy cryptids too. Like the hugag. A large, moose-like fearsome critter with a big floppy upper lip and no elbows or knees. Unable to lay down or kneel, it can only eat bark from trees around the height of its head, and it can't lay down to sleep so it leans against trees, sometimes causing the tree to lean.
- Can't forget Squonk. The gross pig thing that is so ugly it cries constantly. It can dissolve itself with its tears at will.
  
  These sound like Gen 1 Pokedex entries
- I'm disappointed by our lack of hot cryptids with tits.
  
  Mothman has a hella nice butt tho

why have I never encountered the word 'cryptid' until 2024, specifically in meme form, multiple times? Odd thing. tf are the kids up to these days
- Funny enough, the term was coined in the 80's
  
  I guess I've been getting all the goblincore posts, not enough cryptid action. I need to switch it up!
  
  Sure, but the fad about them among the kids is recent.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
  
  This is so stupid but I only sent that Wikipedia entry to my girlfriend yesterday.
- It's of course because these creatures came from crypto currencies. They just took a while to mature to a point where people started witnessing them
  
  All of the best creatures are on the block chain.
  
  well hell let's rip into these ripened bastards
- You didn’t watch enough trashy Discovery Channel shows from the 00s onward?
  
  Never saw the cinematic masterpiece that was Harry and the Hendersons?

Brazilians with our cryptids:
- Which one is the Brazilian?
  
  The chick, in this context.
  The Boto-cor-de-rosa, or river dolphin, is a real animal
  But the cryptid of the same name is a river dolphin that is actually a shapeshifting trickster, who will turn himself into an attractive man (often depicted wearing a fancy hat to cover the blowhole atop his head) and seduce and bang women.

- Manly Guys had a great comic about that particular spirit.

Jackalope: Am I a joke to you? I hope so. It's kind of my thing.
- Wolpertinger: I am your father!
  
  Wasn't me

Bigfoot doesn't seem so bad.
- This guy seems like he's up to no good though.
  
  Ah, fig boot

The squonk isn't scary, just sad.
- Like father, like son.
  Not flesh, nor fish nor bone,
  A red rag hangs from an open mouth.
  Alive at both ends but a little dead in the middle...

This stereotype is just based on Europeans exoticising native American culture
- Yeah exactly, the cryptids are kind but they hate colonizers

Americans with Cryptids:

I guess you've never heard of German cryptids... Or Polish cryptids... Oooor Nordic cryptids...
- I think Japanese cryptids can fit in either category.

MOTHMAN MOTHMAN

If any cryptid out there actually exists, my bet is on bigfoot just because it would be the most mundane, boring thing to be proven real. Just a big ape? Fuck that. I want the Dover Demon to be real because it's actually interesting.
- Bigfoot is just boring enough to be plausible. If they proved it, I would expect a good round of bigfoot memes than a solid meh.

I keep trying to make friends with skinwalkers but they run away when I try to hug them.

How about Australian cryptids?
- Most of them were killed by the non-cryptid wildlife.
- Hmm... Tell me more.
  
  Drop bears?
  
  Waiting patiently for this one. About to hear about leprechauns with bloody 8 legs and a pint of blood from the last person to go walkabout.

Translation: War it shall be, then

Wow. It's almost as if America was built on native American burial grounds with all the accompanying curses.

Wait until you learn about Japanese yokai...
https://japanobjects.com/features/yokai

nuckelavee enough said
- https://youtu.be/1JQpE7n6eUk?si=s7DuNIbHuSTS2FuW

That's why they say God Bless America

can you define cripids for me OP?

M14 with what looks like a 10 round mag using a cheap 10x60 optic? You are most likely a Californian or Canadian using an ineffective firearm against cryptids.
Real Americans use a drum fed semi-auto shotgun loaded P++ .50 caliber deer slugs or a 30-06 cal AR-10 with 25 round mag using a magnified Trijicon optic.
- 10 round mag? That's the stock 20 my dude
  
  That looks too small to pack 20rds of .308cal, so if it's a .556mm/223cal it's still insufficient to kill any cryptid.
- Stop it, you're reviving my Murica patriotism and I don't wanna.