A devastating and gripping account of an internet meme, two twelve-year-old-girls and a brutal stabbing

Terror strikes when four teenage girls in a small town perform a ritual to debunk the lore of a tall, thin, horrifying figure known as the Slender Man. They soon fear that the legend is true when one of them suddenly goes missing. Much like Eric Knudsen said, Slender Man is not so different from classic horror stories like Frankenstein. It’s yet another entry in a long line of spooks that creative people have conjured up to scratch that universal itch for fear.The two girls instantly hit it off. Geyser later described Leutner to police as “my only friend for a long time.” And Leutner remembered Geyser as her best friend, telling 20/20: “She was funny… She had a lot of jokes to tell… She was great at drawing and her imagination always kept things fun.” Slender Man suspect will plead guilty in stabbing". nbcnews.com. 29 September 2017. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018 . Retrieved 29 September 2017.

He wins over the confidence of children, but adults are repulsed by fear. This theory is one of few that paints Slender Man as a benign element, suggesting that he actually seeks friendship of some kind, and can only find it in children, who – unlike adults – he can get to trust him. The Waukesha stabbing and the negative media attention it generated irreversibly altered the Slender Man legend and the online community surrounding it. [46] [47] What had previously just been a creepy horror meme to most people suddenly acquired a new level of reality that most fans of Slender Man found horrifying. [46] [47] Meanwhile, by around the same time, the Slender Man character had lost much of his original popularity. [46] [47] Most of the original blogs that had once been devoted to Slender Man either shut down completely or became less popular. [46] Slender Man's presence in mainstream popular culture also contributed to a decline in how frightening he seemed to many people. [46] [47] What was once a harmless online bogeyman was now — according to the relentless TV news coverage — cause for serious parental concern. Whether he absorbs, kills, or merely takes his victims to an undisclosed location or dimension is also unknown as there are never any bodies or evidence left behind in his wake to deduce a definite conclusion. The two 12-year-old girls stabbed Payton 19 times and left her for dead in the woods on May 30, 2014.

The Online Origins Of Slender Man

Lauren is oddly obsessed with horror stories, gore, and creepypasta (the real-life internet phenomenon of user-generated paranormal stories, which spawned the Slender Man mythos). Mark is the one confidante who humors her dark interests, though they have little appeal for him. He’s just content to have a friend outside of the normal flow of his social life. Overall, this is a short horror story that would fit nicely into your Halloween reading list. It is thoroughly innovative and is definitely a contemporary tale that has all the makings of a future classic. These additions effectively transformed the photographs into a work of fiction. Subsequent posters expanded upon the character, adding their own visual or textual contributions. [11] [12]