Slender Man and the Birth of Internet Urban Legends (Spooky Month #7) (#88)

It’s June 10th, 2009. A gentleman by the name of Victor Surge uploaded two black and white photographs onto an Internet forum – each depicting a group of children whilst there, in the background, stands a tall, thin, spectral figure wearing a black suit and tie.

Each photo came with a description, a quote from the original witnesses and photographers. The first read:

“We didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time…” — 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead.

The quote under the second photograph read:

"One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze. Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as "The Slender Man". Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence." — 1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986.

Creepy, right?

Apologies to anyone I may have just spooked out, but hey, it is spooky season after all! The forum in question was on a website called Something Awful, under a thread for a Photoshop contest in which users were challenged to manipulate real photos to give them a paranormal edge. The forum poster in question was actually named Eric Knudsen, and he is who we can thank for the creation of what has come to be known as one of the original Internet Myths, the urban legend that is… Slender Man.

He is most commonly described as very tall and thin with unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms (or merely tentacles), which he can extend to intimidate or capture prey. In most stories his face is white and featureless, but occasionally his face appears differently to anyone who sees it. He appears to be wearing a dark suit and tie. The Slender Man is often associated with the forest and/or 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.

Early stories featured him targeting children or young adults. Some featured young adults driven insane or to act on his behalf, while others did not, and others claim that investigating the Slender Man will draw his attention. Because the Slender Man's fictional "mythology" has evolved without an official "canon" for reference, his appearance, motives, habits, and abilities are not fixed but change depending on the storyteller.

At times his victims are solely children, becoming more reminiscent of traditional folkloric beasts and faeries, at other times he stalks teenagers in true urban legend style.

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 for the character 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."[16] Other pre-existing fictional or legendary creatures which are similar to the Slender Man include: the Gentlemen, black-suited, pale, bald demons from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush"; men in black, many accounts of which grant them an uncanny appearance with an unnatural walk and "oriental" features; 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".

Knudsen’s initial post was built on, as more details of the Slender Man’s nature and history were created by fellow users. From there, it exploded into a massive process of collective storytelling.

One of the earliest additions was added by a forum user named "Thoreau-Up", who created a folklore story set in 16th-century Germany involving a character called Der Großman, which was implied to be an early reference to the Slender Man.

The Slenderman’s origins can be traced back to medieval 16th-18th century Germany and a legend labeled “Der Großmann”. This legend is roughly translated to “The Tall Man”, “The Great Man”, “The Big Man”, and others. The legend is located from Schwarzwald, otherwise known as the Black Forest, a fair sized area in southwest Germany. This forest, is the central focus for the Der Großmann legend.

As the story goes, Der Großmann is a fairy who lives in the Black Forest. Parents would warn their children not to go into the woods late at night, or even stay up too late for that matter. They also added, that if the children did not do this, then Der Großmann would come and take them. How would he take them? Well, the stories vary.

For children who had gone into the forest despite their parents warnings, Der Großmann is said to have chased them in his forest. He would prolong this pursuit until he finally caught the children, stealing them away to a fate unknown. Or, the chase would also stop when the child returned home and confessed to their parents what they had done, or that they had disobeyed them and gone in the forest. At very least in this method, there is hope of escape. Other stories tell of less fortunate outcomes.

Some stories tell of how he lures in children by haunting them, and whispering voices in their head to come to him. Children who go to him are said to walk into him many arms and be taken away to yet again, a fate unknown. A few other stories also say, that Der Großmann will come tapping at the window of a child who stays up too late, and he will take them away. Their fate, cryptically and as the legend repeats, unknown.

Der Großmann himself is labeled to have many profound features. These include great height as implied by the name, incredibly thin, multiple upper limbs, and disfigured facial features. He is said to be tall as to hide amongst the trees of the Black Forest, and so his name was based off this most obvious fact. He is also described to be excessively thin along with his height, to further his camouflage amongst the trees of Schwarzwald, which include various pines and firs like norway spruce and white pine. His multiple upper limbs are described as handless, and they are often compared to tentacles. He is said to use these limbs to ensnare children so he can take them away. His facial features also vary by story. Some say he is void of any facial features what-so-ever. Other accounts describe him as having pearl-orb eyes and no face, and a few describe him to be faceless but have a gruesome smile.

The Slender Man soon went viral, spawning numerous works of fanart, cosplay, and online fiction known as "creepypasta"—horror stories told in short snatches of easily copyable text that spread from site to site. Divorced from its original creator, the Slender Man became the subject of myriad stories by multiple authors within an overarching mythos, giving it the potential to be endlessly manipulated and reimagined – a key ingredient in mythmaking – with one major peculiarity; because this is the internet, each of these retellings have been preserved.

Media scholar and folklorist Andrew Peck attributes the success of the Slender Man to its highly collaborative nature. Because the character and its motives are shrouded in mystery, users can easily adapt existing Slender Man tropes and imagery to create new stories. This ability for users to tap into the ideas of others while also supplying their own helped inspire the collaborative culture that arose surrounding the Slender Man. Instead of privileging the choices of certain creators as canonical, this collaborative culture informally locates ownership of the creature across the community. In these respects, the Slender Man is similar to campfire stories or urban legends, and the character's success comes from enabling both social interaction and personal acts of creative expression.

An urban legend or contemporary legend is a genre of folklore comprising stories circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or family member, often with horrifying or humorous elements. These legends can be entertaining, but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects. They may also be confirmation of moral standards, or reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties.

Urban legends are most often circulated orally, but can be spread by any media, including newspapers, mobile news apps, e-mail, and social media. Some urban legends have passed through the years with only minor changes to suit regional variations.

In 2014, the Slender Man broke out of internet culture, and into the wider consciousness, but only under the most tragic of circumstances. In Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls stabbed their friend 19 times, later telling police it was under the orders of Slender Man.

They were picked up by law enforcement as they attempted to trek to the Nicolet national forest, convinced they would find his home there. Both girls were sentenced to mental institutions, with one eventually diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia.

Since then, the Slender Man’s legacy has been a complex one. It’s an example both of the most wondrous and most destructive parts of our digital age: of how digital mythmaking has created a whole new collective force of imagination and ingenuity, while further blurring the line between fact and fiction, as has always been the danger of the myth’s hazy origins.