Why do we obsess over Slender Man so much?

[RTK1576]

First off, Marble Hornets is good. If you like Blair Witch-style horror, give it a shot.

Second: the Slender Man is intriguing because in most stories that use him he seems to be something otherworldy and unknowable. He's not a conventional killer stalking you. He has a purpose - we just don't know what it is. He has the power to make you disappear, yet he more often than not lets you walk free. Is he a ghost, a byproduct of an insane mind, or something far removed from us?

They're going to make a movie about him someday, I just know it... and it's going to suck.

 

[Korolev]

Beats me. He looks like a basketball player turned IRS agent. Scary for millionaires with off-shore accounts, maybe, but I'm not scared of him one bit. He's just a tall guy in a business suit. What's he gonna do? Examine my bank-statement?

 

[Randomperson9999999]

slenderman is just agent 47 but people never see his face.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

when does the found footage movie come out?... im sure there will be one

 

[xshadowscreamx]

thanks to this thread i found creepypasta.com

 

[Mrsoupcup]

Googled him.

So, it's just some Creepypasta character some bloke thought up?

Meh, anything can be made into a horrifying figure if the story's told well.

He's some new mithos creature spawned on 4chan's /x/.

(Like most original content from 4chan, it is doomed for everyone to forget it's place of origin)

Except that this is just plain wrong. It's *not* original content from 4chan, it was created on SomethingAwful's forums. Fuck, the thread where the slenderman was created still exists so you can go SEE the very first incarnation of the slenderman.

Hell I know you were already too lazy to google the origins of the slenderman so you're definitely too lazy to google them a second time, so HERE

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3150591&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3

That's the original thread, and the original post (about halfway down), created by member Victor Surge As part of a "Create paranormal images" contest.

My bad, though don't hold it against me for never ever wanting to go on something awful.

 

[TheProfessor234]

He's a nice guy.

This was amazing. Would of been better if they never interacted with it but still a great a laugh.

As for the topic, the whole, "The more you think and know about it, the more powerful he becomes," is what I really like about it. I reminds me of my own opinion of Lovecraft, where if you see the monsters, you go insane but on the same side, you could just be going insane and you are just imagining things instead.

Same with the Slenderman, you could just be researching him, looking into things, and the more you know about him, why the more you see him in the shadows, the more he stalks you... and yet, he was never there.

 

[Gatx]

I think Slender Man works great as an urban legend/ghost story, and love reading bits and pieces about him. My particular favorite is the "Der Ritter" story, gives me goosebumps every time (though the way it ends is kind of "meh"). I think all the "Slender Blogs" are running it into the ground though. I mean, establishing rules on how to run or fight against him, and explaining his origins and what not kills the mystery.

As for Obsession, It's because it hasn't been sold to death Via Hot Topic products or anything else. The moment a movie ends up being made, Slender Man will have been too much.

Too late.

http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Windigo

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ajmeadows/the-slender-man-movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1658837/ (????)

The last link, the Tall Man, actually has nothing to do with the Slender Man. I mean the similarities might be intentional, trying to ride on the popularity of the Slender Man story, but the actually movie ends up being more of a thriller than horror movie.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Nice to know doors slow him down. lol Dont give a shit about the slender man. Only thing i saw was a year or so ago that was a documentary found footage type thing on him online. That was boring.

 

[Jumpingbean3]

Several reasons but here are the main ones (at least for me):

1) His appearance is simultaneously human and non-human. At a distant glance he appears to be an unusually tall human. Then you see his unnaturally long limbs and his faceless head and imagine what it might feel like to have that happen to your body, not to mention the whole Uncanny Valley effect.

2) His lack of a face makes him nearly impossible to read in terms of his intentions and emotions (if he even has any) and that leads into my 3rd reason:

3) We know almost nothing about him. We don't know what he is, what his intentions are, whether he is genuinely malevolent or simply acting upon instinct or even if he is a genuine threat. To take a quote from Batman Begins "You always fear what you don't understand".

 

[Right Hook]

Slender Man isn't scary, I could create something scarier than him on the spot...hmm...little spiders that crawl up your pee-hole while you sleep and eat your wiener from the inside out, you don't notice until it is too late because they secrete an anesthetic. That's like 6 billion times scarier...especially since they are real...

 

[nobodysomebody]

I don't think hes very scary, personally, but I do enjoy some youtube series regarding him, like Marble Hornets for example. That being said though, it does aggravate me that some people only know him because of the game, since there is so much to the "lore" that lots of people take time coming up with, but hey, whatever.
All of my friends find him scary though, like incredibly so- to the point where they vehemently refuse to look at/read anything regarding him.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

When I first found him and started looking into some of the stories (some of them are claimed to be european fairy tales including one about "Der grossman" or the tall man. He is pretty creepy.

 

[Whateveralot]

Obsessed over Slenderman?

Spoiler

WHAT DID I MISS

I like slenderman. I think it's derrived from the Enderman.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

Obsessed over Slenderman?

Spoiler

WHAT DID I MISS

I like slenderman. I think it's derrived from the Enderman.

No the two are unrelated.

 

[algalon]

Silence will fall when the question is asked.
Although, he may not be a man or alien. He could be a giant cockroach that has evolved to look like a man so he can lure children to feed to his queen. If you happen upon him, be sure and have 2 spoons to click together. The clicking easily confuses him into thinking you're a drone.

 

[Ix Rebound]

Hey I just found you
and this is crazy...
but this is my forest
so die maybe?

 

[NinjaRock]

For me, it's the way he gets inside your head. Sure, at the time of viewing you may laugh and scoff at his weird appearance. But if you continue watching Marble Hornets like I do you might start seeing him everywhere. I once watched one of the scarier MH clips when at home, alone, and at night. Needless to say I did NOT sleep well that night. And over a period of a few weeks it gets relentless.

In short, it's the best kind of horror, the tension building kind. He's not scary in himself, we make him scary by thinking about him.

So he's like the Dark at night. Oh god now I will never sleep.

 

[God's Clown]

He's no flaming clown spider, that's for sure. He is literally not even scary. If he was Cthulu I'd be scared. Well, I'd be insane, but whatever.