Slender Man

Description

Since the Slender Man's fictional 'mythology' has evolved without an official 'canon' for reference, his appearance, motives, habits, and abilities vary across the different interpretations formed by creators. He is most commonly described as very tall and thin with unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms which he can extend to intimidate or capture prey. He sometimes appears with appendages resembling tentacles that appear from his back. In most stories, his face is white and featureless, but his face occasionally appears differently to anyone who sees it.

He also wears a black suit and tie. The Slender Man is commonly associated with the forest and abandoned locations, and has the ability to teleport. Proximity to the Slender Man is often said to trigger a 'Slender sickness'; a rapid onset of paranoia, nightmares and delusions accompanied by nosebleeds, as well as a TV static effect on devices with screens. Early stories featured the Slender Man targeting children and young adults.

Some featured young adults driven insane or influenced to act on his behalf. Others included the idea that investigating the Slender Man would eventually draw his attention. The web series Marble Hornets established the idea of proxies, humans who fell under the Slender Man's influence and were transformed into beings with similar abilities to him. Initially depicted as simply violently insane, they came to be portrayed as puppets of the Slender Man.

Marble Hornets also introduced the idea that Slender Man could interfere with video and audio recordings, as well as '⦻', a symbol which became a common trope of the Slender Man fiction and as a general representation for the character. Graphic violence and body horror are uncommon in the Slender Man mythos, with many narratives choosing to leave the fate of his victims obscure.

History

The Slender Man was created on 10 June 2009, on a thread in the Something Awful Internet forum. The thread was a Photoshop contest in which users were challenged to create 'paranormal images'. Forum poster Eric Knudsen, under the pseudonym 'Victor Surge', contributed two black-and-white images of groups of children to which he added a tall, thin, spectral figure wearing a black suit. Surge supplemented his submission with snatches of text—supposedly from witnesses—describing the abductions of groups of children and giving the character the name 'Slender Man'.

Subsequent posters expanded upon the character, adding their own visual or textual contributions. Knudsen was inspired to create the Slender Man primarily by Zack Parsons' 'That Insidious Beast', Stephen King's The Mist, reports of shadow people, Mothman and the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. Other inspirations were the Tall Man from the 1979 film Phantasm, H. P. Lovecraft, the surrealist work of William S. Burroughs, and the survival horror video games Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

Knudsen's intention was 'to formulate something whose motivations can barely be comprehended, and [which caused] unease and terror in a general population'. Other pre-existing fictional or legendary creatures similar to the Slender Man include: the Gentlemen from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; men in black; and The Question, a DC Comics superhero with a blank face, whose secret identity is 'Victor Sage', a name similar to Knudsen's alias 'Victor Surge'.

In her book, Professor Shira Chess connected the Slender Man to ancient folklore about fairies. Like fairies, the Slender Man is otherworldly, with motives that are often difficult to grasp; his appearance is vague and often shifts to reflect what the viewer wants or fears to see, and he lives in the woods and kidnaps children.

Folkloric qualities

Several scholars argue that the Slender Man represents a form of digital folklore despite having an identifiable origin. Shira Chess contends that the Slender Man exemplifies similarities between traditional folklore and the open source ethos of the Internet, and that his trackable mythos offers insight into how myth and folklore form. She identifies three aspects tying him to folklore: collectivity (created by a collective), variability (the story changes with the teller), and performance (the narrative shifts based on audience response).

Media scholar Andrew Peck attributes the character's success to the highly collaborative nature of his stories; because his motives are shrouded in mystery, users can easily adapt existing tropes to create new stories. This collaborative culture locates ownership of the creature across the community rather than with individual creators. Although nearly all users understand the Slender Man is not real, they suspend disbelief to become more engrossed in storytelling, blurring the lines between legend and reality.

This ambiguity has led to confusion about his origin and purpose. Only five months after his creation, the radio show Coast to Coast AM began receiving callers asking about him. Two years later, a newspaper article described his origins as 'difficult to pinpoint.' Knudsen has noted that many people still entertain the possibility that he might be real.

In popular culture

The Slender Man appeared as the antagonist in the 2013 Lost Girl episode 'SubterrFaenean,' where he was said to be the basis for the Pied Piper legend. The 2014 Supernatural episode 'Thinman' parodied the character. That same year, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit aired an episode inspired by the Slender Man stabbings. The character has appeared in Robot Chicken (voiced by Jason Isaacs), Big Mouth, and the Rick and Morty spin-off President Curtis.