Herobrine is a community-made creepypasta rumored to be the ghost of the dead brother of Notch (the game's original creator) in Minecraft.
Herobrine is NOT in the vanilla game, never has been and never will be; furthermore Notch does NOT have a brother, dead or alive.https://twitter.com/notch/status/206375074608054273
Herobrine's origins date back to August 30th, 2010, with a post on 4chan, with a description giving context, talking about how he posted his experiences on the forums but apparently they were almost instantly deleted, and was directly messaged by Herobrine to stop, with Herobrine's user page 404ing. He later claims to have received an email from another forum user who stated that he and some other users had also seen Herobrine. Later somehow finding out it was Notch's dead brother, he supposedly asked Notch in an email if he had a brother, who apparently replied he had one, but he had passed away. File:1283223082465.jpg, probably zoom in on relevant quotes (e.g., "The emailer claimed . . . mystery player too" during "He later claims . . . also stated to have seen him")
Some Minecraft community members would soon make streams faking Herobrine using tactics such as retexturing things like paintings and doors. Players often credited world generation errors then common, such as trees with no leaves, dirt pyramids in water, 2x2 tunnels, and more, to Herobrine... this was worsened due to Minecraft's bugs and glitches, particularly terrain ones, being less known of, especially with world generation being changed frequently in the earlier Minecraft updates.
Mojang Studios decided to "go along" with the creepypasta, with several developers tweeting things about him, and including him in artwork. Herobrine#Cameos for artwork Notch even mentioned they may add him. However, this was in 2010, and he left Mojang Studios in 2014, so it's extremely unlikely we'll see Herobrine added. Since 2012, all major update changelogs (or of subsequent minor updates) have said "Removed Herobrine" as a continuing trend.
Any and all sightings of Herobrine are fake, they are either another player, a texture/resource/data pack, or a mod (possibly installed by another person to troll the primary player of a world). The community has made many mods and animations with Herobrine, and is remembered as the original Minecraft creepypasta. Anything that previously would be credited to him is now known to likey be glitches and world corruption... and so the Herobrine creepypasta is just that... a creepypasta (Shows pixel art of creepy pasta). As stated, Herobrine is not in the vanilla game, never has been, and never will be. https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/360005029872-Previously-Considered-Suggestions with "Please don't make new . . . for various reasons" and "No creepypasta. You know the ones we mean" showing simultaneously
Herobrine Jumpscare, little/no audio