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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Jun 24, 2014 18:23:55 GMT 1
So lately I've been noticing a lot of chatter online about something called Slender Man... some spooky figure who people apparently worship... and I've tried looking it up on Wikipedia, but all I could find was that it's an Internet creation, and apparently a 12 year old girl was stabbed 19 times by two other 12 year old girls in an attempt to "impress the Slender Man".
So I put it to the Forum, hoping someone can answer me this: Who (or What) is Slender Man, really? Why is he apparently so compelling that people are committing crimes in his honour? And how on earth did he become so prevalent?
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Post by Cali on Jun 24, 2014 19:46:32 GMT 1
Slender Man (aka "Slender", "Slendy" or "The Operator") is a phenomenon/monster/boogeyman created by Something Awful forum member Eric Knudsen, aka "Victor Surge". Slender Man is part urban legend, (but mostly) part fictional character that's appeared in a bunch of indie film projects, short stories, and most recently indie video games. The urban legend part comes in regarding a 1986 incident where a library burned down in Stirling City, California. Knudsen edited some images and submitted them on the Something Awful thread "Create and post creepy images and stories" and tied them in with it, implying that a figure dubbed "Slender Man" burned down the building and abducted school children on a field trip there. Slender Man himself is portrayed largely as a Lovecraftian style antagonist in many mediums, with him terrorizing or haunting protagonists who have no way to stop him. He has several powers, such as mind control, memory wipes, telekinesis, teleportation, and even temporal manipulation. He commonly appears as a faceless man (no nose, eyes, mouth, hair, or ears) in a black two piece suit, usually with a red or black tie and a white shirt, with tentacles that protrude from his back. Other incarnations have him faceless with a black turtleneck sweater and long "Edgar Allen Poe"-esque hair and having tentacles where his arms should be. He sometimes appears as abnormally tall with unnaturally long arms, but no tentacles. The character's most famous/breakthrough appearance is in the YouTube video horror/viral alt reality series "Marble Hornets", which focuses on two film students who are haunted and terrorized by Slender Man (known as "The Operator" in the series) as well his members of a cult that worships him known as the "Ark" (some theories dictate that the "Ark" is actually anti-Slenderman, and think the main protagonists and somehow aiding Slendy and try to disrupt his efforts). The series is currently ongoing, nearly finished, and filmed in the vein of "The Blair Witch Project", scaring the hell out of people ever since 2009. Roger Ebert himself, was a fan of the series, claiming it was scarier than any horror movie put out in the decade. YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/MarbleHornetsTie-in Channel from the antagonist point of view: www.youtube.com/user/tothearkOriginal thread I made about it on this forum: masseffectfanfic.proboards.com/thread/823/marble-hornets?page=1He was further popularized by the indie video game "Slender" series, where the player has to collect pages and journals while being stalked by him. YouTube gaming channel owners and personalities famously played the game with "Scarecam" footage of them reacting to the scarier bits in the games. The most famous (read: annoying and unfunny) YouTubers to do this are Markiplier and Pewdiepie. Due to the popularity of these gaming videos, Slenderman became even more prevalent in media and entertainment, and Marble Hornets' subscriber rate on YouTube more than tripled. Most recently, yeah. The phenomenon with the two Wisconsin girls is extremely tragic. Slenderman stories are more or less told in a very lucid and believable way, so it's easy to see why the young and more gullible would believe it's real. This is why parents really need to monitor what their children read on the net.
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Post by Lily Ariel Linders on Jun 24, 2014 20:59:55 GMT 1
That is creepy...
But even believing it might be real (for the younger and more gullible crowd), one would think that the natural human instinct against committing murder or even harming others would override that? I mean, when I was 12, I was slightly more innocent than I am now - but I certainly wasn't gullible enough to go against human instinct and try to kill a person because some shadowy mythical being on the internet said so...
Then again, given how I was treated by pretty much everyone I encountered outside of my own family, I was a pretty cynical youngster... so I questioned pretty much... everything. The Slender Man thing would never have tricked me (or, I'd like to think) any other reasonably human person into killing people for sport or as a tribute to... whatever.
Wacky.
Thanks, Cali, for the explanation - I sort of understand it now... and you gave me more information than I was able to find in my own search, so, thanks!
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Post by Mister Buch on Jul 3, 2014 1:42:41 GMT 1
Cali - now that's a helpful answer!
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Post by A Normal Pathfinder on Jul 10, 2014 3:44:26 GMT 1
Something created from the darkest pits of the internet.
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