Slender Man Explained

Slender Man The Movie sees release this month and as always the man-made monster of mystery has a lot of hype surrounding it. Created in 2009 the Slender Man has gained a huge internet reputation over the last decade and has gone on to star in Games, Documentaries and more.

Throughout this video I will be discussing the myth of The Slenderman in fiction as well as the real-life murder trial that was attributed to the character. There will be some content here that some younger viewers may find graphic, so please be advised.

With that out the way, I’m Deffinition and this is my Slender man explained video.

The Origins Of Slender Man

The Slender Man originated as a creepypasta internet meme in 2009. Created by Something Awful forums user Victor Surge in 2009. The Slender Man is depicted as a black suit wearing, thin and unnaturally tall humanoid with a completely blank head and face.  Often located in forests the Slender Man is known for stalking, traumatising and abducting people, mainly children.

Surge created the character when he contributed two black and white images to the forum that were made up of groups of children and the digitally added Slender Man over them.

Surge supplemented his submission with snatches of text—supposedly from witnesses—describing the abductions of the groups of children and giving the character the name “The Slender Man”:

The quote under the first photograph 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.

Surge attributed the character’s creation to inspiration from HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, The Tall Man from the film Phantasm and more.  Surge’s intention was to formulate something whose motivations can barely be comprehended, and [which caused] unease and terror in a general population. The Slender Man quickly became an internet phenomenon and went viral. This rise in popularity spawned numerous works of fan fiction, cosplays, online fiction and more. However, the character got his first real big break in 2013 with the arrival of the game: Slender: The Eight Pages.

Slender Man The Game

Slender: The Eight Pages is set in the middle of a dense forest during the middle of the night, and is played from a first-person perspective. The player’s objective is to collect all eight pages located in various areas of the forest while avoiding the Slender Man. As the player collects pages, the fog in the forest grows thicker, and Slender Man appears closer to the player’s character, though the character’s sprinting speed slowly increases as well. Slender Man moves by teleporting, creeping around the player, but only from a certain distance. If you gaze at the character for too long, static begins to fill up the screen and death eventually follows.

The game was given a full-fledged release in 2015 with Slender Man: The Arrival and it follows much of the same pattern as the aforementioned title but with improved graphic, expanded areas and a wider character roster.

Slender Man: Arrival received mixed reviews with many sighting it’s scares, atmosphere and sound design being standout in the genre. Whilst the character is mainly made up from media there is also a far more controversial thing that has come from it’s creation.

The Slender Man Murder Trial

On May 31, 2014, in Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times in an attempt to impress what they believed to be The Slender Man. The victim crawled to a road where she was found and after six days in hospital, made a full recovery. There was a long and lengthy trial for the two attackers but they were eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity and, by February 2018, convicted and sentenced to long periods in mental health institutions.

During the trial they both stated that they had believed Slender Man to be real, and carried out the stabbing to rove their loyalty to him. Desperately hoping to become his “proxies” they sought out to prove his existence, and prevent him from harming their families whilst taking them under his wing. They believed that the only way to do this would be to kill someone, after which they would become servants of the Slender Man and live in his mansion in Nicolet National Forest.

In the aftermath of the stabbing, the Creepypasta Wiki was blocked throughout the School District. On the Tuesday following the stabbing, a statement from the creator of the Slender Man was posted to the Creepypasta Wiki expressing condolences for all those involved. The site later held a fundraiser for the victim in order to showcase that the visitors to creepypasta were not bad people just because they liked scary stories.

The incident has went on to spark debate on child internet access that rages on still to this day and whilst we may never have an answer as to what the correct direction to take is, it’s clear that Slender Man has moved far beyond his original meme origins.

Your Thoughts

As always I’d love to hear your thoughts on Slender Man. Are you going to see the film and what do you think will happen in it?

Comment below and let me know and if you enjoyed this video then please like it and subscribe to my channel. I create content like this weekly and there will definitely be something on here that you’ll love if you’re a fan of film. Make sure you keep a look out for my Slender Man The Movie Ending Explained Video which is due to drop next week.

Thanks again for taking the time to watch this and I’ll see you next time. Take care, PEACE!