Why Slenderman is still the best Creepypasta character.
I'm not the only one saying it; the internet and several people are. In fact, the first person I met to mention that Slenderman was the best Creepypasta in history was someone in my inner circle who has never actually been involved with Creepypastas, let alone in a community. Yes, he mentioned that for him "Slenderman is the king of Creepypastas". So, after several posts praising Slenderman, I've decided to dedicate a post solely to him and copy and paste when talking about him.
1. Direct Menace:
One of the things that made Slenderman stand out from most of the posts on the old Something Awful forum was the fact that he wasn't like the others. What I mean by this is that the photos usually uploaded there showed creatures or ghosts—you know, the typical things you'd expect from a paranormal story. Instead, you have Slenderman, who is not only a sentient and living creature, but also has some pretty strange things attributed to him, like burning down a library and inciting children to kill someone, and so on.
And while at that time the characteristics of teleportation and mind alteration weren't so obvious, the truth is, it was already clear that Slenderman was a single entity, and one powerful enough to be a direct threat. However, he wasn't a ghost, so he couldn't touch you, nor was he some kind of cryptid, so he didn't act on instinct. There was something within him that was malice, at least a thought that led to a desire, and that desire led to an action—an action that was generally terrible for those unfortunate enough to cross paths with him.
It's no wonder then that the forum suddenly stopped discussing ghosts and critics and people started making nothing but Slenderman images; it's simply a very appealing concept. It even stands out from the majority. While we have Creepypastas like the Rake, being more of a cryptid than anything else, Jeff the Killer, being a normal person who later became a monster, or Zalgo, who is technically a kind of demon, among the various interpretations made based on the original publications, Slenderman was something more. He wasn't a cryptid because he was unique, and at the same time, he didn't act in an animalistic way. He wasn't a person either; no one could be like that. But he also wasn't some kind of demon or something universally understandable; he was something else, and that's what made him special.
2. Multifacetic:
The creation of Slenderman as we know him is quite bizarre compared to others, since at least in most cases, several individual concepts were mixed together to create the form we know these characters. In contrast, what Victor Surge did when he created Slenderman was to release a hodgepodge of images, each with a different story and a different appearance of Slenderman. I mentioned earlier that the first two images of the character are quite bizarre in comparison, since in the first one he doesn't even wear a suit, and in the second he has hair, and the tentacles are more like branches sprouting from his arms.
But things don't end there. In the last image Victor made, Slenderman even has a face; in another, he has spider legs growing from his back or replacing his arms; in another, he has tentacles that seem to sprout from his arms; in another, he appears only on camera when a photograph or video is taken, but nothing else; in another, he is especially brutal, murdering people by impaling them on trees; in another, he makes people commit crimes in his name. In short, there are so many interpretations and so many variations that it's simply impossible to understand the character properly. And although this might be seen as a bad thing, the truth is that it came from a place of loss because then the people who were going to deal with the character in the future wouldn't just have to stick to a single interpretation, but to several. Therefore, it doesn't matter how people portray Slenderman; it still maintains a certain standard. This standard is so variable that no matter what you put in it, it can still be Slenderman.
Even with this ease of placing him in any situation you want, I don't consider the character to be anything like The King in Yellow or similar, since, with Robert Chambers' work, The King in Yellow is more of a metrical concept or idea, while Slenderman is a monster and at the same time adheres to certain standards; that is, he kidnaps children, wears a suit, is disproportionately tall, doesn't carry a load most of the time, etc. But as long as these characteristics are maintained, can the character appear in anything? The answer is yes. Even though I have a preferred way of portraying Slenderman as simply a kind of urban myth, the truth is that most of the time they are valid, and you can tell when something is moving away from being Slenderman when you realize it's eliminating some of the characteristics used as a basis. But these bases are so firm and so multifaceted that it's generally very unlikely that you'll run out of ideas even with a concept as simple as a modern-day boogeyman.
3. Balance in Horror:
You already talked about how the character can be maintained under a certain philosophy, yes, you respect some of his characteristics, and one of those is precisely his own design. It's so simple yet so effective that it should be studied more often. The more you look at Slenderman, the more you realize how terribly wrong his entire body is. Yes, he looks human, but he's too tall to be one. Maybe he's someone on stilts, but he's too thin to be on two platforms. Perhaps he's some kind of animal, but he doesn't have any distinguishable organs; that is, apart from his skin, he has no eyes, ears, mouth, nose, absolutely nothing. And yet he's sentient, he can understand what he's doing, he has plans, he can approach people, he can tempt them after attacking, and so on. Even worse if we consider the fact that he is dressed in something as simple as a suit, a suit that maintains a certain intentionality regarding his actions. Unlike what could be, for example, a completely black humanoid figure without any kind of clothing, the fact that he is dressed shows a certain intentionality about his actions; he is targeting human beings exclusively; we are his prey.
Furthermore, as someone who has studied character design, I love how simple Slenderman looks. We, as intelligent beings who perceive the color spectrum differently, can distinguish between what stands out and what doesn't. In this case, Slenderman isn't multicolored; he's purely monochromatic. Therefore, our brain quickly looks for something to focus on. Sometimes it might be the silhouette, but other times it might be a contrasting color, in this case, white, thanks to the shape of the tie, which acts like an arrow pointing directly at his head. And once you see his head, you realize he has no face, and that's where the horror truly begins. When someone says Slenderman isn't scary, I think about what it would be like to encounter this guy on the street, in the woods, or outside my house. I really wouldn't have a clue what to do.
Compare this to other internet monsters. The Rake is a humanoid creature, of course, but at the end of the day, it's still just a person in white trying to attack you. In fact, it doesn't have much to distinguish it from other creatures born on the forum, like the stereotypical Skinwalkers or other monsters whose names I honestly won't bother learning because they're not that different. Or, for example, Siren Head, which does have several aspects that characterize Slenderman, but the difference is that Siren Head at least seems to try harder. That's understandable, of course, because its creator is a master at detailing the macabre and gruesome, so it's not subtle at all. Instead, you have a gigantic skeletal body with two horns with teeth and other quite disturbing things to see. It's quite a shock and completely immediate. Slenderman, on the other hand, is tentative, subtle, and slow. So much so that the first time you see it from a distance, you probably won't even realize that the thing isn't human until you see it up close. You look at it for longer and before you know it you can't get it out of your head.
4. Blends classic with modern:
It is said that humanity simply repeats the same story over and over again, in this case with monsters. And this is not surprising; before Frankenstein, there was the story of the golem, a creation that spiraled out of control. After Frankenstein came robots, which, due to faulty programming, also went rogue, and so on, all the way to modern times. However, what interests me about Slenderman is not only that he seems like a modern version of the boogeyman, but that he seems like a modern version of several monsters in one.
Let's take as an example that Victor Arsue said that one of his main inspirations for Slenderman was the Lovecraftian mythos, that is, cosmic horror, and precisely one of those most famous entities is Nyarlathotep, a creature so chaotic that it even adopted the nickname "The Crawling Chaos." The curious thing about this entity is that it usually targets entire civilizations directly, at least in Lovecraft's writings. Most of the time, it spent attacking large populations of people at once, while Slenderman, although it maintains the characteristic of an extremely powerful creature, focuses on humans simply for his own entertainment. Its audacity is much more personal; it doesn't attack huge communities as if it were some kind of massacre, it targets the weaker ones.
We can also take Dracula as another example, not only because in some interpretations Slenderman feeds directly on the essence or consciousness of his victims like a kind of vampire, but also because of the proxies. Dracula had servants, and these servants were basically people who had been disturbed to a point of no return, to the point where they became obsessed with Dracula himself, sometimes through hypnotism and other times through trauma. Slenderman is curious, since the modern conception is that his proxies are generally mentally unstable people who had the misfortune of encountering his identity at some point in their lives, which led them to make the worst possible decisions. This is a modernization of the previous concept, which also warns about how a person in this situation can be manipulated.
I've already mentioned the boogeyman about three times by this point in this post, but I'd also like to include the many fairy tale characters who ironically also live in forests. These are classic stories that warned children not to go too far or listen to strangers because they could be taken away and never return. These stories are still relevant today, but while it's difficult for a person to go into a forest unless they want to, Denderman attacks in a different way, thanks to his memetic form. A memetic form that wasn't even the first, but certainly one of the most popular. I remember very well how in the early days of the internet creatures like Smiledog became popular because you barely saw the image and you were doomed. Similarly, Sadako from the Japanese Ring movies also had a similar characteristic in that she behaved like a kind of virus; simply watching the cursed video or knowing certain elements about it meant you were doomed. Slenderman takes all these elements and works them on himself to the point that, even at the time it came out, it felt like nothing similar had ever been seen before, something new, even though it's actually a mix of concepts already used to death.
5. The meaning behind the face
Personally, I'm not someone who likes to give Slenderman an origin story, especially considering how many there are in the stories formed in the Slenderverse or in bad Creepypastas. But one thing I do applaud is the fact that Slenderman can mean many things at once; just mentioning MH's the Operator as an example should already raise some red flags, since he is often interpreted as a representation of mental illness.
I had already mentioned how this is technically the boogeyman; this is the fourth time I've mentioned it. However, I also like to see it as a kind of manifestation of the dangers of the internet. Just think about it: most proxies are teenagers or target children, taking advantage of them and inciting them to do terrible things that threaten their own well-being because most of them are in a rather delicate mental state. Once everything has happened, we know there's only one person to blame, and yet this person has no face; their intentions are unknown. And just like some predator on the internet, they can simply delete their account and pretend nothing happened. Indirectly, anonymity is like not having a face or a real personality to blame.
However, it's not all bad. Although Denderman is obviously a fairly common misconception in our popular culture today, it has also been represented in other equally valid ways. It has been parodied, mocked, honored, romanticized, and even worshipped. I'd like to focus here especially on the romanticized aspect, because even though many people said it was stupid that teenagers back then wanted to go off with Slenderman, I can't help but think of it as part of the reason why we, as a modern society, like horror so much. Because at the end of the day, it's a safe space, relatively speaking. Yes, Slenderman has elements that can teach us a lot about real life and can be quite a good commentary on the subject. However, let's not forget the fact that the character himself is, consequently, something realistic, something that doesn't exist and won't exist in real life. I wish.
Therefore, although it began as a disturbing concept, many people have found refuge in it, and unlike other characters whose experiences with this type of change have been detrimental to how the internet and subsequent history view and revisit them, this hasn't happened with Slenderman. We can see part of this thanks to the small cult revival it has experienced in various circles. I myself was part of this; I hadn't touched anything related to it for years, but for the last four years I've practically dedicated myself to spreading the word because I truly feel it needs a worthy return.
So it doesn't matter if you portray him as a kind of sentient virus that has no remorse in manipulating its victims like a kind of unarmed monster, or even simply as a father figure. For those in Slenderman's mansion, at the end of the day, the character has grown so much that today it's impossible to move him from where he is, much less replace him, at least for several years in the future, perhaps when the internet dies and digital cameras cease to be relevant. But even then, I'm confident that the character can adapt. Because while he has been capable of it and can still do it, I don't think he needs to.
A toast to Slenderman! The internet and the world wouldn't be the same without him.
got a burning question you’d like to ask the creators, cast, or crew of marble hornets? visit bit.ly/mhqna26 to submit your question for a chance to have it asked this year!
General rules:
don’t be weird (self explanatory)
you can submit more than one question but don’t spam it
just be chill about it, generally
qnas will be hosted as part of the Hornetversary livestream June 20th, starting at 9:00AM est!
yousharknotpass
vaporwave
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
germansingergirl
origamiaround
gummygunk
