Slender Man (2009)

About

The Slender Man is a mythical creature completely created on the Internet which has grown beyond its Internet Urban Legend status to become the target of pictures, fictional stories and videos about “him”.

He’s often depicted as a tall and thin silhouette, wearing black pants, a black suit with a white shirt, and a black necktie underneath. What is startling and creepy about this creature is that he is usually depicted with absolutely no visible face. Furthermore, he can stretch out or shortens his arms as well as he hides some kind of tentacles on his back.

You can read a complete explanation of what Slender Man is here.

Origin

Back in June the 8th 2009, a ‘paranormal pictures’ photoshop contest thread was launched on the Something Awful forums. This idea to create scary pictures, and even to use them to trick paranormal forums, became entertaining among users there who started altering pictures and adding fake ghosts and other strange figures, typically appending fake stories to make it look more realistic.

On June the 10th, user Victor Surge wrote this post. It was the first known mention of the Slender Man as a creature who seemingly stalked children. That was also where the first two altered photos of him were created.

Phenomenon within the website

Those stories gained attention immediately. The very next day, Victor Surge continued to improve his newborn myth by adding another picture and a fake doctor’s account.

A few posts below, he posted again two new images.

This myth was starting to get shape and was growing in popularity among users, encouraging him to do more.

The very first Something Awful user to reuse the myth was LeechCode5 on June 12, marking the intense popularity surrounding that strange creature at that time.

On June 13, Victore Surge added another picture and, on June 14, SA goon TrenchMaul, reused the Slender Man character for his own story as well.
That thread, still active today, extends nearly 46 pages.

On 4Chan

Slender Man became a well-known creature on the /x/ (paranormal) 4chan’s board. While there is no archive talking about its first arrival on the board, the first archive mentioning it is from the 24th of June:

[ Caution: 4chanarchive link with NSFW content ahead ]

http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=2185849&rss=1#2186492

As one can see, in this thread, one anonymous joked about Slender Man being bound with a creepy thread. That’s a sign that character must have been introduced there before.
While the trend continued to gather modified photos, it was then coupled with drawn pictures and fanarts as well:

It got its own appeal on 4chan because The Slender Man figure was really close, in its shape, to the Anonymous’ drawn character.

Elsewhere

From that point, stories expanded themselves, catching attention of many other websites:

• Fangoria.com
• Bungie.net
• Facepunch
• Wikibin
• /x/enopedia article
• Tvtropes
• Kongregate
• Deviant Art trend
• SlenderNation

The “Marble Hornets” Project

The 20th of June 2009, a youtube account named MarbleHornets started hosting videos called “entries” which are supposed tapes segments retrieved by someone named “Jay” (or also “J”) from one of his friend before that latter disappeared for no reason.

The first video named “Introduction” got a more or less clear explanation of what’s going on:

It turned out that it was some kind of series, created by film students (respectively SomethingAwful users “KicksYouInHalf” and “Ce gars”), as a part of the creepy ARG centred around the Slender Man myth.
It has got, as for now, more than 26 videos, in addition to the ones by Youtube user totheark who is some kind of active protagonist within the story.

Surrounding that series/game, many forums sections have been created in order for people to share their speculations and theories about the further outcome:

• SomethingAwful thread
• Unfiction forum
• Buzzfeed
• Reddit.com

Moreover, a complete Wikipedia-like page, as well as a Twitter account have been created to keep track of everything.

At the same time, a blog named Just Another Fool has been created. It’s a story about a man whose brother has been placed into a mental hospital after he came back from Irak, where he’s the only survivor of a team that supposedly met Slender Man. This is another story pertaining the Slender Man’s myth which inspired other blog-based stories like Seeking truth : Assignement or also Dreams in darkness.

Two Marble Hornets inspired projects have appeared on YouTube since: EverymanHYBRID and TribeTwelve.

Concerning Marble Hornets itself as a series project, a radio interview has been done with Troy Wagner (director/Jay) and Joseph DeLage (Alex Kralie) in the beginning of August. That interview, divided into 5 parts, is hosted on Troy’s own youtube account.

Here’s part 1 :

Youtube inspired videos

In addition to the Marble Hornets series, fan videos have been made concerning Slender Man:

Slender Man on music

The Slender Man

Most of the videos are either related to the Marble Hornets ARG or are music clips.
Nonetheless, there are some alterations from the initial myth, like a homemade film trailer:

Someone’s at the door

Slenderman and the Scout

Marble Hornets Sub-meme : $20 dollars parodies

On september the 30th 2009, youtube user brett824 made a parody video in reference to the Marble Hornets’ series. It was entitled MARBLE HORNETS ENTRY #6 MISSING AUDIO FOUND! related to the fact some of the entries were lacking audio, mainly to induce mystery and a peculiar horror style to it. It also featured 2009 song Gimmie $20 dollars by Ron Browz.

Getting small recognition as a joke among Marble Hornets fans, despite the Marble Hornets’ crew not really liking it, more people started making videos about it, describing the “$20 dollars” joke as the main reason Slender Man would chase people :

Interview with Victor Surge, creator of Slender Man

Tomberry : Please introduce yourself a little. Who is Victor Surge ? How long has he been a SA goon and how active is he there ?

Victor Surge : I’ve been a goon for about four years, but I’ve lurked in the forums since ‘99. I’m not a large poster, but I spent a few years in EVE Online’s goonfleet and spend a lot of time reading threads in the forums. I don’t spent a lot of active time on the Internet since I usually have a lot of real-life stuff going on.

T : Back In June 2009, the 10th to be precise, what motivated you to join the “create paranormal images” kind of contest on SomethingAwful forums ?

VS : It was pretty spontaneous. I saw some of the pictures in the thread and just decided to make something that I myself would find creepy.

T : What was your sources of inspiration in creating your first two pictures dealing with a strange figure that you called “The Slender Man” ? How did people react to it ?

VS : I was mostly influenced by H.P Lovecraft, Stephan King (specifically his short stories), the surreal imaginings of William S. Burroughs, and couple games of the survival horror genre; Silent Hill and Resident Evil. I feel the most direct influences were Zack Parsons’s “That Insidious Beast”, the Steven King short story “The Mist”, the SA tale regarding “The Rake”, reports of so-called shadow people, Mothman, and the Mad Gasser of Mattoon. I used these to formulate asomething whose motivations can barely be comprehended and causes general unease and terror in a general population.

The reaction was suprisingly good so I continued making pictures based on Slender Man.

T : What was your reaction when people started creating pictures and stories about your newborn myth, in parallel with yours ? Did you think it would get that much popular and spread to others websites (4chan, Kongregate, Facepunch…) as quickly as it did, gaining the status of “Internet Urban Legend” and a meme ?

VS : It was amazing to see people create their own little part of Slender Man in order to perpetuate his existance.

I didn’t expect it to move beyong the SA forums. And when it did, I found it interesting to watch as sort of an accelerated version of an urban legend. It differs from the prior concept of the urban legend in that it is on the Internet, and this both helps and harms the status of the Slender Man as one. In my personal opinion, an urban legend requires an audience ignorant of the origin of the legend. It needs unverifiable third and forth hand (or more) accounts to perpetuate the myth. On the Internet, anyone is privy to its origins as evidenced by the very public Somethingawful thread. But what is funny is that despite this, it still spread. Internet memes are finicky things and by making something at the right place and time it can swell into an “Internet Urban Legend”.

T : Do you know about users “Ce Gars” and “KickYouInHalf”, or overall, the Marble Hornets project itself ?

VS : There have been a couple of e-mails, but I don’t know them personally.

T : Did you help with their series of video (to these days, more than 26 episodes) ? Was it more of a tribute to your work ? What was your reaction toward it and their own popularity as a series on Youtube ?

VS : I had nothing to do with their series of videos or any other that may have anything seemingly to do with the Slender Man. I’m keeping my projects close to my chest (in a plastic bag with the rest of my organs). I hope other groups create new concepts and make series of videos. Not necessarily a horror series or somehing about the paranormal, but productions using all sorts of subject matter and in multiple genres. I think the Marble Hornets project’s strongest point is showing what you can achieve with this medium.

T : One year later, people still seem to continue to like the Slender Man character, enough to make the Marble Hornets crew consider about a new season. Do you still get recognition from time to time about Slender Man ? Has that character changed your way of browsing the web ?

VS : I do on occasion, but I like it to stay mysterious (does interview).

T : Do you have anything to add on what has been said, or any last word you would want to say to the readers ?

VS : Before you had angels and succubi, and then ghosts and spirits, today we have shadow people and inter-dimensional beings. The Slender Man, and other newly created entities, are just the newest addition in the progression of a long, and very real, human tradition.

You’ve seen him, now you can’t unsee him.

T : Thank you very much again for your time.