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The Slenderman

‘The Slenderman’ Blamed for the Attempted Murder of a 12-Year-Old-Girl

It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt: the modern mythological monster ‘Slender Man‘, a meme born on the Something Awful forum just short of five years ago (June 10, 2009), is today being blamed as being the inspiration for an attempted murder. Prosecutors say two 12-year-old(!) girls from southeastern Wisconsin took another girl into the woods, stabbed her 19 times, and left her for dead. The victim managed to crawl to a sidewalk, where a cyclist found her:

One of the girls told a detective they were trying to become “proxies” of Slender Man, a mythological demon-like character they learned about on creepypasta.wikia.com, a website about horror stories and legends. They planned to run away to the demon’s forest mansion after the slaying, the complaint said.

“I recognize their young ages but it’s still unbelievable,” Court Commissioner Thomas Pieper said during one of the girls’ initial court appearances Monday.

…Both girls were charged as adults with first-degree attempted homicide Monday in Waukesha County Circuit Court; they each face up to 60 years in prison if convicted.

Readers of our Fortean anthology series Darklore will be well-acquainted with the Slenderman, as in Volumes 6 and 7 writer Cat Vincent explored the mythology at length. His introduction to the topic, written some three years ago, seems eerily prescient now:

We don’t often get to see the birth of a monster.Just over two years ago, a new monster was born. Because it was born on the internet, we can see the exact moment of its conception. We can follow its growth from a pair of photographs into a full-fledged mythology. We can see the point where it crossed over from a merely imaginal creature into something that haunts the minds of many. And we can see exactly when it became a creature of true occult significance. Its path is clear and distinct. Its legacy is undeniable.

The monster’s name is Slenderman. And its influence continues
to grow.

Cat finished that essay by saying “On the internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog. Or a tulpa. And if enough people describe something as a thought-form…could this collective imagining actually make that form manifest?” If this horrible event is indeed some sort of ‘manifestation’ of the thought-form, let’s hope that it’s the end of it as well.

For those interested in learning more about the topic, both of Cat’s articles are available on-line: “The Slenderman” in PDF format on the Darklore website, and “Killing Slenderman” here on The Daily Grail.

Editor
  1. Something wicked…
    [quote=]Cat finished that essay by saying “On the internet, nobody knows if you’re a dog. Or a tulpa. And if enough people describe something as a thought-form…could this collective imagining actually make that form manifest?” [/quote]

    I believe so yes. It obviously manifested in the minds of these children, who are in need of some serious counciling or need to be locked away and left for dead because they sound like some evil shit! You don’t say “proxies” unless you are in a cult, brainwashed, or maybe they are Satanists?! I don’t know but WTF and where are their parents?

  2. No, it’s not the Internet . . .
    These girls are in many ways no different from other children conducting massacres on their fellow students with depressing regularity across the US and other parts of the developed world. They’ve just found a different justification for their murderous activity.

    The problem goes far beyond the Internet, or TV, or movies, or comic books, or graphic novels. It has more to do with the breakdown of adult responsibility in regard to what happens to children, that is, looking at society in developed countries on so many levels it’s become apparent that bad parenting has reached epidemic proportions.

    Adults are so obsessed with careers and money they often don’t even notice their children are going off the rails. And when someone tries to alert them to problems their children might be having that will almost always lead to “shoot the messenger” behavior on the part of parents. They will blame and denigrate whomever tried to alert them and get angry about being asked to divert attention away from career goals to give more time and attention to some of the hard work of parenting (such as teaching self-control and social and moral responsibility).

    Too many parents seem to think responding to warnings about their children means just plopping the kid down in therapy once a week and then considering the job done. What good did that do for the young man who went on a shooting rampage in Santa Barbara?

  3. Wow
    I think for the first time in the history of the internet…something that would normally be confined to sites like TDG…is all over the world news. All. Over. The. News. And they are reacting like parents with no clue what the hell they are talking about. I’m starting to think that these kids aren’t just evil and interested in a sacrifice, but stupid for not realizing it’s a fake creature (to a point).

    Kids, listen, if you can’t separate reality from a video game or something on the internet, you got problems and need help.

    Parents, I don’t care what you think is right or wrong, talk to your kids and learn about them.

    These 12 year olds are fucked up. It’s beyond bad or lack of parenting. This is some Omen shit right here (sorry for all the swearing). And I don’t mean they are possessed by the devil, I mean they are the devil. These kids are evil, pure and true evil. Real evil, not something you’d read in “The Good Book.”

    1. The Good & the Bad

      For sure there are many negative things, in both the internet & pop culture, which has the potential to 'manifest' into our everyday world; but I think the same can happen with positive things, as well.

       

      For instance take a look at what's happening in Thailand, where young protesters are using the Hunger Games salute as a symbol of peaceful rebellion against the coup.

  4. A lot of questions need to be addressed
    Were there others involved in this Sman group?
    Who was the initiator?
    Was the girl that was stabbed involved? – did she want out?
    Were there any other motives to the stabbing other than to serve as a proxy?
    Who’s computer or computers were they using? – separately or together.
    Was one girl very influential?
    Who did the holding and who did the stabbing?
    In any group there will be a leader, who was the leader and was she influenced outside of the
    triangle by any others – other than site information she was obtaining.

    Hopefully the recovering girl may be able to answer some of these questions.
    Blaming, finger pointing just complicates the problem.

    People are hurt and maimed every day in the name of their religion, but that’s justified insanity.

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