Down With Slender Man

Slender Man: We don't fear him, we don't admire/adore/crush on him, we don't encourage other people to do those things, and we also know he is not real.

Slender Man is a fictional character, a creepy pasta boogyman. He's a child slaver, torturer and murderer with supernatural abilities, many extra limbs and appendages, a blank face, and dressed in a black suit.

He was created on Somethingawful in June 2010 as part of a photoshop contest, and went wildly viral (chain letter) since.

Love and fear of Slender Man and all other creepy pasta is being strongly encouraged everywhere. everybody loves creepy pastas, and any kind of love for them is totally cool, including fans trolling to sites, asking if slender Man is real on Yahoo, fans writing and fantasizing on Quotev.com about love&sex with the same characters who kill victims in the most prolonged sadistic ways the meme originators down at 4chan/creepypasta can come up with. It's all good…

Right...

This absence of opposition has allowed the fandom to run rampant, unchecked, and the results are in.

A search for "Backlash against Slender Man" yielded me nothing in that way. The search comes up with backlash against anything and everything else from Twilight to Harry Potter to political rumour memes, but it seems no one dares or cares to give this Slender Man meme any opposition.

Searching for "I hate Slender Man" "Who else hates Slender" or anything along that line has turned up barely anything I was looking for, with a staggering number of results being a huge disappointment. Typically, I find stuff like: "I hate Slender Man, he scares me so bad!" "Jeff The Killer, Slender Man, who's hotter?" "I love Slenderman!" "Good creepy pasta" "Great creepy pasta" "I love creepy pasta" "Slendy VS. Laughing Jack" and since the crimes, "I'm sick of all the blame on Slender Man" "Moral panic" "Stop the moral panic!"

It's time to give the Slender Man meme a healthy dose of backlash it should’ve gotten all along because the sickening fangirls and other proponents of memes have been the only ones ever heard on the net with their trying to keep this meme going.

The rest of us seem to be unaware, indifferent, or even bowing to peer pressure for fear of breaking some sort of Slender pasta mystique and bringing the unparalleled wrath of the fans down on us.

Slender Man and other sadistic characters have received far too much adoration from fangirls and cowering from netizens, and those pretending to be between belief and disbelief in creepy pastas/chain letters to keep the creep-out factor alive and/or as an overkilled joke.

This page is for anyone out there who does not find sadistic killers, (real or fictitious), attractive, is unafraid of Slender Man, is annoyed by memes in the first place, and would like to see this meme die in a fire. Especially now after the depths to which some Slender Man fangirls went to prove their sickening allegiance.

It's one thing to like a horror movie or book because you just like a good edge-of-the-seat dramatic action-packed scary movie/read. That's normal.

It's another to get fantasy and reality confused and to have the hots for insanely cruel characters. That's fandoms gone wild.

Worse than the idea of fangirling for boy bands and characters from well established fiction such as Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings, is the fangirling for sadistic gut-spillers like Slender Man.

The real slender sickness isn't caused by the character itself, nor are Slender Man and the other fictitious pasta characters truly creepy, or capable of directly committing physical harm or death to real people.

The fans are a very different story.

Creepy pasta has an enormous fan base. The fandoms consist of people who are creeped out and/or crushing on very sadistic fictional killer characters such as Slender Man, Jeff The Killer, and Laughing Jack.

The Slender sickness is when fangirls take their obsession to such frightening levels that they would literally kill for him. And some have tried.

Thoughts and prayers go out to all who have suffered at the hands of the violent people who put them through these hellish ordeals, harmed and devastated by their unconscionable actions. Condolences go out to families who have lost their loved ones.

Chain letters tend to bring out some of the worst in people, and slender Man is no different. The extreme fangirls just took it to a whole new level of sick.

You have been shown various perspectives and opinions in the "More On Slender Man" section above.

"Stop blaming Slender Man!" "Oh no! Another moral panic!" and "Monitor your kids internet activities." are sentiments repeatedly preached and screamed out on various sites, especially after incidents like this.

But let's be realistic. You just can't monitor it all, nor should you have to when your kids are frequenting sites that are supposed to be aimed at their demographic.

unless a parent is curious enough to find out about the things their kid is into online, they won't likely get even a hint unless there is something telling in the name of the fad the kid is mad about. You might get a bit disconcerted when your tween is going on about "Jeff The Killer" but are you as an adult really going to be curious about a site called Creepy Pasta or some character called "Slender Man" or "Laughing Jack"? How many adults are aware of 4chan and the mischief it has caused?

Sure, the creepypasta community now finally has had to make a loud and clear statement that their content is not real, and their wikia pages have a link to a section for parents to read, but unless a child actually tells their parents about creepypasta, how is that parent even going to know the site exists, let alone how sick some of its content is? What child, for that matter, is going to bother looking at the section for parents and disclaimer pages?

So when the "talk" or discussion sections with comments after the pasta stories are full of people pretending belief in Slender Man or any pasta as possibly real, and this joking at best, trolling at worst, spills over to sites like Yahoo Answers, the line between reality and fantasy can apparently be easily blurred in the minds of some children. After all, if it's only people joking around on a fiction writing site, it's just kidding. But if "I'm so scared of Slender Man" appears on Yahoo Answers or ask.com, the kid might start to think there could really be something to what people are saying about Slender Man being real. The problem is that young kids may not realize there is a whole lot of bullcrapping on Yahoo and ask.com as well, and neither Yahoo nor Creepypasta informed them of this.

The site Scary4kids.com contains a collection of chain letters to brows and discuss, but it doesn't bury any disclaimers about untrue content in a mass of links, it takes a very classy approach, putting disclaimers on each story, reminding readers who click any link that the story they are currently reading is not based on fact and is just urban myth.

4chan is a troll hangout, where scads of memes are originated, so they are hardly known for responsible behaviour on the internet. But It is up to those creepy pasta sites to be a lot more careful of what passes for content on them. If they aren't making it clear enough their content is fiction, and their users are making arguments that might sound authoritative enough to other kids that Slender Man might be real, and some kids believe and start having nightmares/anxiety over it, or going the way of these murderous fangirls, then that site shares some of the blame in where those kids went wrong. I said some, not all of the blame. These girls have something evil in them, and if it hadn't been Slender Man, surely they would cause serious bodily harm or even death over something else.

Parents, puberty, electronics and the internet aren't to blame for the sick depths to which some fans plummet. misguided school anti-bullying programs that do more to make the bullies seem like victims and vice versa, or simply doing nothing at all, bad internet subcultures, lax site administration that encourage these subcultures, and most of all, those kids who get into these subcultures and fall in love with representations of evil and choose to act out sadistic fantasies are to blame.

Even if the creepypasta site and its associated sites such as 4chan are blocked, there are still sites aimed specifically at a young demographic that contain these memes and a vigorous replicating and promoting of them as well as doing nothing to discourage shallow, sadistic and even masochistic fangirl attitudes and behaviour. Sites like Quotev and Wattpad, where I've seen very disturbing, stomach-turning things. They are crawling with creepy pasta stories, including those filled with extreme violence, where serial killers are viewed at best with unnerving fascination, at worst, as romantic figures rather than the disgusting sadistic villains they are.

Along with infatuation and glamorizing of characters that torture and kill is fanaticism. If you are going to be on Quotev, you better learn to love creepy pasta and MLP, and the hippest anime and music. In that order. And the king of creepy pasta is Slender Man.

Jeff the Killer is a close runner up. Smile Dog and Ben Drowned are also popular, but they are more about going crazy than serial killing. Having said that, slender Man and Jeff the Killer are also about being driven insane, or going crazy. And that was exactly what one of the girls said to her accomplice just before the stabbing "Go crazy."

If the parents don't frequent creepy pasta sites, Fanfiction.net, Quotev.com or Wattpad, how are they going to know what goes on there?

I didn't even know about those sites until a couple of years ago, and I only found out about them by debunking creepy pasta and other chain letter stories on Yahoo, and because my own site was invaded and nearly ruined by fangirls who were really into creepy pastas, MLP, anime, boy bands, J&K-pop and quotev. And here's the kicker, I never even tried or wanted to attract them in the first place. I Had more than enough unpleasant experience by way of exposure to crazy internet fandoms/subcultures years before and want nothing to do with them, but will actively oppose them and show support for others against them too.

The VICE Canada article on what Wisconsin teen girls think is about the most sickening thing I have read besides the reports of the Slender crimes themselves. It paints an appalling picture of youth today, if it is to be believed as a fair representation.

But for all the disgusting attitudes from girls featured in that article, how many more were not represented because they showed too much humanity? After all, it is not unusual for reporters/journalists to look for certain things and leave others out for a specific slant or opinion to be enforced in an article. But if those girls are a fair representation of middle schoolers today, we have a big problem.

The girls in that article seemed resentful the victim of the attack survived, tried to excuse the actions of Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, made as if their attitudes were normal, and blamed peer pressure and puberty for it all.

That's a load of reprehensible garbage.

There is the unfortunate human tendency for meanness and peer pressure during school, which is why I wouldn't go back to my school days again for a million dollars, but even with all that, no one in my generation was so utterly farked up. (Messed up doesn't go far enough and there is another word that does but I don't use.) Horror movies were very popular, but we were creeped out or scoffers. I don't remember anyone lusting after killers as fangirls do today. We enjoyed the thrill of the suspense and scares, but we never dreamed of knifing so much as a live rat, let alone another human being, especially not our friends and family.

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So many people have gotten up in arms over the media "blaming Slender Man" for the crimes committed in his name.

Slender Man defenders and creepy pasta fans in general have been howling a lot more and a lot louder than they have a right to over the slightest hint that Slender Man is not held sacred or even liked by everyone, and has been turned into a bad influence that encouraged little girls to kill. They act as if they are very scared or angry that their precious Slender Man might be hurt or taken completely off the internet or something. They make as if Slender Man is some sort of poor tragic ultimate victim being blamed, misunderstood, yadda yadda.

Headlines like "Are Internet Memes Dangerous?" are meant to be eye-catching, but the news stories about the crimes themselves, are not actually blaming Slender Man for the murders. Please, give them a little credit. They are just pointing out how far gone the fandom has gotten by blaming a fictitious character for their own depraved actions. Things won't get much better as long as people feel they have to stand up in defence of a repulsive meme that trolls have deliberately encouraged belief in by pretending it has any basis in reality, while fangirls crush on it and lust after a taste of its fictitious power and approval of them.

Nobody in their right mind is literally blaming Slender Man for the crimes, only the criminals are doing that. Anyone over the age of 12 and in their right mind knows or should soon figure out that nothing from creepy pasta or associated sites is for real, those sites are repositories for memes, online gags and campfire tales, not news sources.

Put another way, anyone old enough to scoff at Santa, the easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, is old enough to know better than believe in Slender Man and the like.

Slender defenders argue that the attempted murderers got the mythos all wrong, that it doesn't say Slender Man requires anyone to kill for him in order to please him or become one of his slaves.

Who cares what the mythos specifically says on that point? That doesn't matter.

Why?

Because Slender Man is still the type of character who would be absolutely tickled all kinds of colours with glee at what these girls did. He wouldn't be all broken up about that particular apparent misstep or interpretation of his precious mythos. He would be laughing his bloody arse off, because he is all sorts of awesome like that…

Slender Man's not just ugly in appearance, he's got a far uglier character.

Slender Man is a slave-master. When the western world has worked so hard to get rid of slavery, fangirls are admiring some character who represents that very abomination. Those who attempted to kill people in real life actually want to be Slender slaves. Calling them "proxies" doesn't change what it is. Wrap toxic waste up in fancy packaging and call it something more pc sounding like "matter of unknown use" but it's still toxic waste. Slender Man's proxies are Slender slaves. There is something terribly wrong with people who think that's a cool thing to aspire to.

Slender Man is a sadist, a molester, and he eats children and leaves the body parts of his victims all over his woods. He gets his highs terrorizing people, stealing children, making families miserable, driving people mad, committing torture, mutilation and prolonged agonizing murders. Slender Man would tear his fangirls' stomachs open and watch them die in agony for kicks, no matter how much they proclaimed their devotion to him, or even because of it. Such easy prey.

Slender Man is no victim of any kind of travesty. Neither are the pasta fans.

The ones who need our understanding and support are the real people who have been harmed and devastated by the murderous Slendermaniacs who callously put a fictional character before human life.

So pasta fans can for once kindly shut it and suck it up.

'So how about some opposition to Slender Man via fan-created fictional rival?'

- the heck!?

Slender Man already has rival fictional characters in the form of Jeff the Killer, Laughing Jack, Eyeless Jack, Salt, Un-Slender Man and other creepy pastas. Those rivals also have fandoms, that pit one up against another in cyber death-matches, fanfics, games etc. Fanfics meant to celebrate/glorify rather than put these blood-thirsty characters down for the evilness they represent. They are memes just like slender Man. We don't need or want any more of those. Fighting one monster with another, one chain letter by starting another, warring one Mary Sue character with another is like trying to get rid of kitty litter odor with that of dog crap.

Enough already!

Instead of showing Slender Man any love, fear, or rivalry, let's do something completely different.

A gazillion reasons to hate Slender Man, ways to get Slender Man's goat, ways to bump Slender man off, different uses for Slender Man's tentacles and tendrils, reasons Slender Man is stupider than a tree branch, how to grill/fry/bake/cook Slender Man, etc. Just have fun with this in the comments, come up with ideas for trouncing Slender Man, and sound off about the meme and the fandom.

Foefiction throttling Slendy or any other creepy pasta/chain letter characters more than welcome.

Please don't be afraid to say:

Down with slender Man!