I read a reaction to my story yesterday on the “Slenderman” attempted slaying.. the author of another site had some valid points I wanted to mention.. Here is the site and here is what was said:
1) “Slenderman Slaying” implies someone was actually slain, which they weren’t.
2) Two idiots do not make up for the rest of the mature world. Parents who think their little monsters are stupid enough to pull something like that need to start doing their own jobs, not blaming the horror genre.
3) Horror has been around since the dawn of time. Horror did not drive a pair of stupid children to try to commit a murder, peer pressure and utter idiocy did. Give these dolts a Stephen King book and the dictionary and they might’ve just grown up weird like everyone else.
Valid points to all three..
I think it somehow also misses the point of what I was trying to say about Slenderman..
Slenderman is a fictitious character created on SOMETHING AWFUL in 2009. The website CREEPY PASTA is getting the majority of the attention since the stabbings in Wisconsin by two pre teen girls.. Today the creator of SLENDERMAN, Eric Knudsen, released a public statement expressing his sadness over the attempted murder..
What I am trying to say is this: Slenderman entered into the internet world as a meme. It has not become a part of our culture, our horror, and our paranormal tales. The fiction aside, people actually claim they see Slenderman. They think they saw him when they were children.. some claim that Slenderman is a symbol of creatures already created—memes of the past or tulpas from history, such as the men in black, or Jack from THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, or the gentlemen from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. In a sense, Slenderman does actually appear similar to mythological creatures that have been around for some time….
And enter this weird part: The attempted Slenderman slaying took place in a town called Waukesha Wisconsin. And there’s an interesting little factoid about what Waukesha means.. from the Loren Coleman blog COPY CAT EFFECT, this:
Waukesha: Over the years, many believed, incorrectly, that the origin of the name of the city was an Algonquian word meaning “fox” or “little foxes,” though it is actually an Anglicization of the Ojibwe proper name Waagoshag or the Potawatomi name Wau-tsha. Wau-tsha (sometimes written asWauk-tsha or Wauke-tsha) was the leader of the local tribe at the time of the first European settlement of the area. This is confirmed by accounts of Increase A. Lapham, an early settler and historian of the region. According to Lapham, the word for “fox” was pishtaka. Cutler also told visitors about Wau-tsha, who was described as “tall and athletic, proud in his bearing, dignified and friendly.”
(In appearance, Wau-tsha - without tentacles - sounds like Slender Man.)
Waukesha, Wisconsin has a long history of poltergeist, hauntings, and related stories. Also, the town was the epicenter for “phantom kangaroo” sightings in 1978, in Wisconsin.)
Yes, people who are experts in the occult or paranormal always have 20/20 hindsight.. they are able to put 2 and 2 together to equal 5, often ignoring logic and instead cutting through the veil that separates our reality from the esoteric reality around us.. But this strange paranormal history in this town gave me a bit of the creeps..
I also think back to Wes Craven’s NEW NIGHTMARE.. the plot being that Craven was nervous Freddy Kreuger was actually coming alive and entering into reality. While some may scoff at that idea, the notion is frightening to consider.
And now Slenderman has somehow come alive.
Yes, many are proclaiming that these two girls are using the Slenderman as an excuse for attempted murder..
But even if they are —or aren’t—what matters is that CNN, NBC, and other major news networks had Slenderman WITH HIS IMAGE as the top story for at least 12 hours yesterday.. The broadcast of Slenderman into the national conversation was done. He has entered the lexicon of our national conversation.
Monsters are just people.
Behaviors of monsters become known every day..
Even if Slenderman is fake, created, and a meme from 2009, the game seems to have changed. After all, Slenderman is now alive and darker than before—as the darkness gathers and we claim it is from the devil or evil, maybe the real fright is that we are just seeing humans for what they are. Dark and evil.. at the core diseased in moral, lacking faith..
Nietzsche claimed that GOD was dead. TIME magazine did, too.
Maybe someone needs to claim SLENDERMAN is alive.
Slenderman.. and every single evil bit of darkness that his tentacles represent.
The inner core of human beings exposed.. what are we? …slender in nature.. Dark in character.
Reality.
That is what scares me.
