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Slender Man

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Artistic depiction of Slender Man

Slender Man is a fictional creature created by Eric Knudsen. He is a tall and thin humanoid, wearing a black suit and tie. Slender Man's face is usually blank, lacking any features. He is said to stalk, abduct, or scare people, especially children.[1]

Slender Man was originally created on the Internet forum Something Awful in 2009 by Eric Knudsen, under the online pseudonym Victor Surge. Since then, the character has transformed into an online urban legend.

Description

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Slender Man is described as a very tall and thin white creature with unnaturally long arms. He can extend his arms to scare people or capture them. His "skin" is pale and bone-like in appearance, and his head lacks any facial features. He also wears a black suit and tie. When photographed, the figure is often out of focus and blurry.[2] Slender Man is often found in deep forests and has the ability to teleport.[3][4]

Origins

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Slender Man was created during a contest on the Something Awful forum website in June 2009. The goal was to change photographs using digital manipulation so that the pictures showed something supernatural. On 10 June, a forum poster with the username "Victor Surge" uploaded two black and white images. They were photographs of groups of children, to which there had been an obscured figure added into the background: a tall, thin man with a blank face and tentacles.[5][6] Surge included short stories to go with the images, describing the disappearance of the children in the images. It gave the character the name, "Slender Man", and detailed mysterious events:

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 “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.[6]

Other users on the forum developed the character further, adding their own images or stories about "Slender Man". However, is it possible to find supposed records of a monster dating back to the 14th century, a notable example is a medieval German folktale entitled Der Ritter ("The Knight" in German). It tells the story of a brave knight appointed by the church to slay a great evil entity who had been stealing children from a local village near the Black Forest, Württemberg, in Southern Germany.[5][6]

Development

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Slender Man soon became very popular on the Internet. Many works of fanart, cosplay and fan fiction were created and spread across many websites.[7] The first video series involving Slender Man was published on YouTube,[1][8] called Marble Hornets, and is now one of the most popular Slender Man fan works.[9] Other YouTube serials about Slender Man followed, including EverymanHYBRID and Tribe Twelve.[1] In 2011, Markus "Notch" Persson, creator of the sandbox indie game Minecraft, added a new character to the game, named the "Enderman", and many users on Reddit and Google+ commented on how similar it was to the Slender Man.[10] A video game based on Slender Man was released in 2012, named Slender: The Eight Pages.[11] Several popular variants of the game followed, including Slender Man's Shadow[12] and Slender Man for iOS, which became the second most-popular app download.[13] The sequel to Slender: The Eight Pages, named Slender: The Arrival, was released in 2013.[14]

A horror movie about Slender Man, Entity, was released in 2013.[15] Another, The Slender Man, was released for free online.[16] On August 10, 2018, a theatrical movie about the character, Slender Man, directed by Sylvain White, was released. Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story was released in 2015.[9]

Slender Man was called "the first great myth of the web" by the BBC.[3] The success of the idea has been ascribed to the Internet's ability to connect people with one another, similar to real world folklore. Since there is no defined "canon", everyone is invited to build on the story and develop the character,[6] shaping it into whatever frightens them the most.[3]

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References

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  1. 1 2 3 Gail Arlene De Vos (2012). What Happens Next?. ABC-CLIO. p. 162. ISBN 9781598846348.
  2. ↑ Tye Van Horn (2013). "Behind You: The Cultural Relevance of Slender Man". The Elm. Retrieved 2013-02-20.
  3. 1 2 3 "Digital Human: Tales". bbc.co.uk. 2012. Retrieved 2013-02-20.
  4. ↑ Kristin Tillotsin (2011). "Tall, skinny, scary - and all in your head". startribune.com. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  5. 1 2 Shira Chess (2012). "Open-Sourcing Horror: The Slender Man, Marble Hornets, and genre negotiations". Information, Communication & Society. 15 (3): 374–393. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2011.642889. S2CID 143297005.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Patrick Dane (2013). "Why Slenderman Works: The Internet Meme That Proves Our Need To Believe". whatculture.com. Retrieved 2013-02-20.
  7. ↑ Aja Romano (2012). "The definitive guide to creepypasta—the Internet's urban legends". Daily Dot. Retrieved 2013-04-22.
  8. ↑ Peters, Lucia (14 May 2011). "Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren't: The Marble Hornets Project". Crushable. Retrieved 9 October 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  9. 1 2 Dave McNary (2013). "'Marble Hornets' flying to bigscreen". Variety. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
  10. ↑ "Notch reveals new mob, dubs them Endermen in reference to Slender Man". igx.com. 2011. Archived from the original on 2013-06-21. Retrieved 2013-02-21.
  11. ↑ Gary Marston (2012). "Slender review". Explosion.com. Archived from the original on 2013-04-16. Retrieved 2013-04-22.
  12. ↑ Lana Polansky (August 20, 2012). "Slenderman's Shadow "Sanatorium" Map Released". Gameranx. Archived from the original on August 23, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  13. ↑ Tom Senior (July 26, 2012). "Slender Man Source mod will let you scare the hell out of yourself for free, with friends". PC Gamer. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  14. ↑ Jeffrey Matulef (February 11, 2013). "Pre-orders for Slender: The Arrival are half-off, come with instant beta access". Eurogamer. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
  15. ↑ "First Trailer & Poster For The Jadallah Brothers' Horror Movie ENTITY!". FilmoFilia. 2013. Retrieved 2013-02-20.
  16. ↑ "Slender Man Movie Producer Steven Belcher Wants to Create True Terror with the Faceless Figure". GameTrailers. 2013. Retrieved 2013-02-20.

Other websites

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Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slender_Man&oldid=10945678"