Bustronaut Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 IT IS NOT FOLKLORE, DUMBASSES~! IT WAS A PRANK~! It wasn't even a prank, right? Wasn't it apart of a contest specifically asking for people to create creepy photoshop pictures? This would be like if Lord Byron, John Polidori and Percy read Marry Shelley's Frankenstein, right after they decided to compete over who can make the scariest short story, and were like "Oh my god, someone has to put a stop to these madmen animating bodies after they're dead!" Well honestly, how do you think folklore gets started? It's just a story one person tells another until it's been told so many times the origin has become obscured and it takes on a life of its own. The internet allows that to happen at a much quicker rate, which is how you get all the conspiracy theorist idiots springing up over every tragedy. Just look at all the idiots who STILL think a 2 term president somehow falsified his birth certificate, and that the people seeking office against him would not be shouting that from the rooftops if it were even CLOSE to being true and somehow a couple of tweens believing some online folklore, which has exploded in popularity since its creation is a bridge too far? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I just hope they were not video game players or manga readers. Oh, you know they were, man. There is probably a stack of Naruto books a foot tall in each of their rooms. I think it is hilarious that I have had to do more explaining about the Slender Man to my girlfriend who is close to my own age than I have to my eleven year old daughter. I have NO idea who Slender Man is. I think I'm better off that way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Like "The Silence" from Doctor Who, basically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I don't watch Doctor Who. I'm not helping the dialogue, I realize. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 Think Men in Black, but aliens (for Doctor Who) or supernatural creatures (for Slender Man) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted June 3, 2014 Author Share Posted June 3, 2014 It wasn't even a prank, right? Yes and no. The whole point of the contest was to create something believably unreal. Anyone can photoshop an image of a ghost or something. It is a different matter entirely to create something so convincing that people believe it is real. As Victor started drafting images, others would chime in with backstory and before you knew it, you had a whole mythology. The guys knew that eventually Slender Man would be released into the wild and they would be on the ground floor of an inside joke once rumors started to generate spontaneously. The SA geeks would be in on the lolz while the rest of the world would be like, "Hey, did you hear about that kid that got taken away by that ghost thing?" Victor never really assigned any specific qualities or motive to the Slender Man. The emotionless child-stalking dimension bending creature we all think of these days when we see "Slender Man" is the combined creation of the ARG material from MarbleHornets, TribeTwelve, EverythingHYBRID, and the other collaborators but he is never referred to as the Slender Man in any of their work. He's alternately known as The Operator, The White King, Spider, The Tall Man and a crap ton of other pseudonyms.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spontaneous Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 It's sad these two could be facing prison sentences that would take away most of their lives over something like the Slender Man meme. They clearly need some mental health treatment, no sane mind plots over six months how to appease an online fictional character. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 I'll have to admit that until today I had no idea who/what "The Slender Man" was. From what I gather, it sounds like the Tall Man from Phantasm without a face. I probably haven't been on SomethingAwful in over a decade, so... Anyway, these kids are obviously very deeply disturbed and need help rather than long-term imprisonment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I think the fact that these girls were so eager to escape reality that they were willing to sacrifice another child and entice the Slender Man to physically spirit them away speaks volumes. Those kids were fucked up and Slendy is a symptom and not the root cause. They need shrinks, not laywers. I'd also love to sit with the parents and talk to them. I'm sure I'd end up slugging someone before the interview was done. I know this sounds snarky as hell, but I'm quite serious when I say that I think one of the main reasons a lot of mature people dislike social media is that it's exposed how many parents are failing/did fail at some pretty basic things. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greggulator Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I read the DA in this case is running or sort of higher office and the like. That explains part of the adult charge.The other is that it's leverage. Adult charges for 12-year-olds can become something more fitting with some litigation and negotiation once the initial shock of the headline and the Nancy Grace's of the world move on to the next murder. I also understand what none of what you're talking about means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 When i saw Gregg had the latest post, i was wondering if we were going to hear about the Slender Man's stand up career. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 So the Slender Man is basically a variation of the Bogeyman or Pied Piper, grabbing some children while they sleep and luring others to the dark side. At least, that's what he's morphed into. Sad. Children usually learn that fantasy characters--Santa, the Easter Bunny, the six-legged carnival lady who lives by the railroad (that one circulated in my area)--are just figments. Perhaps as a non-parent I don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems all this helicopter/over-attached parenting has created a large group of children who never wake up from childhood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaedmc Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 I wouldn't be surprised if these parents were the exact opposite of helicopter parents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muhammedboehm Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 To charge anyone as an adult where just a year or two ago they were still liable to believe in Santa is so absurd. Believe in Santa...what are you trying to say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antacular Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Hez still reel to u? Dammnit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted June 4, 2014 Author Share Posted June 4, 2014 So the Slender Man is basically a variation of the Bogeyman or Pied Piper, grabbing some children while they sleep and luring others to the dark side. At least, that's what he's morphed into. Yeah. The orignial backstory drafted in the Something Awful forums during the contest presented the Slender Man as some sort of harbinger figure like the Mothman, La Llorona, the Banshee, or the Woman in White. Not necessarily malevolent per se but a bad omen. Most of the evil omni-dimensional being stuff was prescribed to future variations like The Operator, The Observer, Spider, and the rest of incarnations from the various ARGs from groups like MarbleHornets.. ARG = Alternate Reality Game. Think of it as a Choose Your Own Adventure book only for grown-ups and with a large group of people deciding what happens next in the story. The concept of proxies (humans under telepathic control or mentally subsumed by another being) mentioned by the girls was pulled straight from the MarbleHornets stuff. Ths protagonist in the MarbleHornets videos gradually discovers that nearly everyone he talks to about his feelings of paranoia is either under the psychic influence of or is under the direct mental control of The Operator. Hence the tagline of "He has no face, but he always watches" now attributed directly to The Slender Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Does anyone else think J.T. knows way too much about this thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burgundy LaRue Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 As he said himself, J.T. is the Secret Keeper. Figure out the rest for yourself, friend. Oh, and it's been nice knowing you. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Who knows what Army IT guys can and cannot find on the internet, which after all was originally an intra-govt thing in the 1970s? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Who knows what Army IT guys can and cannot find on the internet, which after all was originally an intra-govt thing in the 1970s? Yes, it was a Govt thing first. Army IT guys have more access to the Deep Web than us Corporate IT guys do. And that's all I can tell you for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muhammedboehm Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 @HuffingtonPost: Chilling 911 call released in "Slenderman" stabbing case http://t.co/gP1sKfOJZF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Who knows what Army IT guys can and cannot find on the internet, which after all was originally an intra-govt thing in the 1970s?Yes, it was a Govt thing first. Army IT guys have more access to the Deep Web than us Corporate IT guys do. And that's all I can tell you for free. Certainly more than us contractors. We get dinged for going to non-work sites now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swift Posted June 5, 2014 Share Posted June 5, 2014 So, this Slender Man is a tall, skinny, pale dude who preys on children? I believe this mythical creature once lived at a secret, faraway place called the Neverland Ranch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted June 5, 2014 Author Share Posted June 5, 2014 So, this Slender Man is a tall, skinny, pale dude who preys on children? I believe this mythical creature once lived at a secret, faraway place called the Neverland Ranch. Yeah but the Slender Man has no face and Michael... Wait a sec... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted June 5, 2014 Author Share Posted June 5, 2014 Does anyone else think J.T. knows way too much about this thing? That information is classified and I know nothing of this Dark Web thing that Raziel speaks of nor can I confirm or deny that most of my contacts prefer payment in bitcoins.. Seriously though, I just think it's important to understand the evolution of the meme. If you read the Comments sections of the various news stories covering the incident, there are already people out there ready to put Victor Surge and the MarbleHornets gang on trial along with the kids and that blows goats. There is a lot of ignorance out there, not that it should surprise anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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