Creepy-pasta file 004: SlenderMan

The Slender Man (also known as Slenderman) is a fictional supernatural character that originated as an Internet meme created by Something Awful forums user Eric Knudsen (a.k.a. "Victor Surge") in 2009. It is depicted as resembling a thin, unnaturally tall man with a blank and usually featureless face, wearing a black suit. Stories of the Slender Man commonly feature him stalking, abducting or traumatizing people, particularly children.^[1] The Slender Man is not confined to a single narrative, but appears in many disparate works of fiction, mostly composed online.^[2] Fiction relating to the Slender Man encompasses many media, including literature, art and video series such as Marble Hornets. Outside of online fiction, the Slender Man has had impact on popular culture, having been referenced in the video game Minecraft and generated video games of his own, such as Slender: The Eight Pages and Slender: The Arrival. Beginning in 2014, a minor moral panic occurred over the Slender Man after readers of his fiction were connected to several violent acts, particularly a near-fatal stabbing in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

The Slender Man was created on June 10, 2009 on a thread in the Something Awful Internet forum. The thread was a photoshop contest in which users were challenged to edit everyday photographs to appear paranormal. A forum poster with the user name "Victor Surge" contributed two black and white images of groups of children, to which he added a tall, thin spectral figure wearing a black suit.^[3][4] Although previous entries had consisted solely of photographs, 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.^[4]

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.^[4]

These additions effectively transformed the photographs into a work of fiction. Subsequent posters expanded upon the character, adding their own visual or textual contributions.^[3][4]

In an interview with the website Know Your Meme, Victor Surge (real name Eric Knudsen)^[5] claimed that he was inspired to create the Slender Man by legends of the shadow people, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, Zack Parsons, and Stephen King (particularly The Mist), and the surrealism of William S. Burroughs. His intention was, he claimed, "to formulate something whose motivations can barely be comprehended, and [which caused] unease and terror in a general population."^[6] In an interview with the Slender Nation podcast, Knudsen cited the Tall Man from the film series Phantasm as an inspiration for the Slender Man.^[7]

Other pre-existing fictional or legendary creatures often thought to have inspired 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 named Victor Sage; a name very close to Victor Surge.^[7]

In her book, Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology, Professor Shira Chess of the University of Georgia connected the Slender Man to ancient folklore about fairies. Like fairies, Slender Man is otherworldly, with motives that are often difficult to grasp; like fairies, his appearance is vague and often shifts to reflect what the viewer wants or fears to see, and, like fairies, the Slender Man calls the woods and wild places his home and kidnaps children.^[7]