What Was Old Is New Again: Slenderman

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What Was Old Is New Again

One of America’s most revered authors, Mark Twain, once stated, “There is no such thing as a new idea… They are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” While he was likely speaking of writing at the time, this general thought can be seen across the globe in almost every field: science, music, visual arts- right down to the core of societies: myths. Even within one of the most modern American myths, that of Slenderman, comparisons can be drawn from some of the oldest religions and plays on humanity’s oldest fear.

Myths have been around since the beginning of human awareness in order to explain the unexplainable phenomena surrounding them in a complex world. Psychologists like Doctor Alex Lickerman have devoted their lives to the study of why humans must know why. In his book, The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, he calls humans “meaning-seeking creatures” on multiple occasions and justifies that title by explaining that people, in general, are more likely to accept change if they can understand the reason for the change (Lickerman). It is this coping mechanism that has stemmed a multitude of myths. 

Merriam-Webster defines a myth as a story that “serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon” (Myth). But when science then defines what was once an enigma, the previous interpretation is disregarded as an outdated reasoning. As such, many ‘explanations’ have been relegated to the realm of myth and fiction. However, mythology is not a stagnant field of research. Science has explained how the planet Earth came into existence, why creatures on the planet experience day and night, how bolts of light split the sky during a storm, and so much more. But new questions constantly arise and there is the ageless fear of the unknown.

Xenophobia, a psychological diagnosis of an incomprehensible fear of foreigners, is derived from the Greek word xenos, with a direct translation meaning “stranger.” The base term, however, can be used to convey divergent concepts such as “enemy” and “unknown” as well as “guest-friend” (as seen in Sophocles’ tragedy Philoctetes). Therefore, xenophobia is actually the clinical term for a fear of the general unknown (Xenophobia). Researchers believe this to be among the six fears with which humans are hardwired and lead to our over-arching purpose: to explain everything. Slenderman is the personification of mankind’s innate xenophobia. 

Birthed in 2009 on a forum dedicated to altering photos, Slenderman is the brainchild of Eric Knudsen (known by the username of “Victor Surge”). Knudsen posted two photographs that he had manipulated to display the previous subjects of the picture being loomed over by a tall, think, faceless man in a dark business suit. While the visage of such a creature gives rise to curiosity and suspicion, it was the cryptic captions Knudsen wrote to accompany his creations that began the rockfall of horror. This first picture he posted was of a large group of teenagers walking toward the camera within a forest with a cabin in the background and a man easily twice their height following behind with arms out as if to herd them away from the cabin. The accompanying caption read:

“we didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time…”

-1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead.

The second photo Knudsen altered for his first post showed younger child on a playground surrounded by large trees and a tall figure with multiple arms in the shade with several children sitting around him. Beneath this, he wrote another vague explanation:

One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze. Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to at “The Slender Man”. Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence.

-1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986.

From humble origins, the Slenderman myth then caught the attention of other creative minds and spurred an entire mythos including Slenderman, his brothers and cousin, and a realm of creatures that hide in the dark places in every room. He began a narrative on the internet where the vague believability was reinforced by the blurred lines of reality and fiction generated fragmented evidence relating to the Slenderman myth having been uncovered rather than created. His powers evolved from obscurity to the uncontrollable: those who see Slenderman become his targets of his attentions. He will stalk his victims and bad things start happening to both the watched and those surrounding them. The prey will often have blackouts that often coincide with the perpetration of violent crimes in the areas. Their friends and family will often become ill, mentally unstable, or simply disappear.

The documentation of Slenderman has become an obsession for some and has even caused misguided attempted murders on multiple occasions. The most infamous crime purportedly inspired by the manipulations of Slenderman occurred in 2014 when two twelve-year-old girls lured a third girl into the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin and stabbed her nineteen times. The victim, Payton Leutner, survived and the two assailants were charged with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. Experts who testified at the hearings stated that one attacker had schizophrenia and an oppositional defiant disorder that would require long-term mental health treatment. The second girl was then diagnoses with a delusional disorder and schizotypy, leading to a belief in Slenderman. According to authorities involved in the case, the two girls intended to sacrifice Payton in an attempt to summon Slenderman and hoped to live with him. This, however, was not an isolated instance. Slenderman alone has been linked to twenty-three cases worldwide since his first appearance on the forums of Something Awful.

A large part of the allure involved with tracing Slenderman is his ability to draw on both primordial fears and postmodern anxieties concurrently. The faceless visage and dark appearance both play into fears hardwired within humanity as they are the subject of myths as old as civilization. But his draw of horror is not limited to the realm of history; his emergence on the internet coincided with an accelerated growth of the internet and new technologies causing a resurgence of surveillance paranoia throughout the country. His dress is often that of a dark business suit implying the modern distrust of those with wealth or power, a fear which has led to multiple massive protests since the governmental capitalism shift that began in 2000 with the election of George W. Bush to the presidency. Xenophobia also began to take on a more modern definition as terror groups sparked wars and killed millions, a battle still waging today.

But other than his unique play on modern terrors, Slenderman is actually a conglomeration of ancient myths. His title as the face of death is one traditionally given to the Grim Reaper. Death itself was dubbed the Grim Reaper late in the fourteenth century during the bubonic plague that claimed at least twenty-five million lives (Harris). Artists began portraying the angel of death as a tall, slender figure wrapped in a dark cloak with the either the face hidden or a featureless skull. This countenance is even older than the plague-era, however. 

Ghost stories are part of the essential religions of Japan, particularly in Shintoism, but also draws elements from Buddhism and Taoism. Most Japanese people believe that once a person dies, their spirit is angry and violent. To help pacify the spirit, there are a number of specific rituals performed as part of the funeral rites, mostly taken from Buddhist traditions. But the Japanese people, even today, believe they are surrounded by spirits day and night, each of which has a gentle soul, the nigi-mi-tama, and a violent soul, or the ara-mi-tama. This comes straight from the Shinto religion, stemming from the spiritualism of Japan itself, which boasts more than eight million spiritual entities inhabit the earth and the heavens (Rubin). These spirits are divided into several major classes, but it is from the yōkai that Slenderman likely derives a majority of his attributes. 

Shintoism is one of the oldest organized religions still practiced in the modern world. This polytheistic religion can be traced back to the sixth century B.C.E. and has more than a thousand types of spirits (Religion). The one most resembling Slenderman is a type of yokai called a noppera-bō. These spirits often blend in seamlessly with human society, inhabiting roads, inns, and even shops. The only visible difference between an average person and a noppera-bō is that the spirit has no face, simply a featureless blank slate. Often they will entertain themselves by spooking humans and reveling in their terror. Almost every culture, however, has a Slenderman-like figure to haunt them: the Germans have Der Grossman, most Western Europeans have faeries that steal children and force them to commit evil acts, the Chinese have a demon named a hundun considered to be the source of all chaos; the list goes on.

Despite all the assumptions made by fans of the Slenderman mythos, Knudsen has refused to weigh in on his personal inspiration. He filed for a copyright and has since given his personal blessing to a vast number of Slenderman-based projects like movies, video games, and books. This copyright is not for the sake of the money, he argues, but for artistic integrity. In 2016, Knudsen sold the copyright to Mythology Entertainment (Rogers).

Imaginative minds have spent centuries developing shambling monsters that mingle folklore with the godlike powers science could develop. Birthed by the internet, spread by social media, and manifested by the physiologically unstable, Slenderman is the modern Frankenstein, playing the manifestation of humanity’s most primeval fears with postmodern stressors. He is an omniteunous presence and a predator.

And he is watching you.

Works Cited

Davisson, Zack. “What Does Yokai Mean in English?” 百物語怪談会 Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, 24 Nov. 2014, hyakumonogatari.com/2012/10/26/what-does-yokai-mean-in-english/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

Harris, William. “How the Grim Reaper Works.” HowStuffWorks Science, HowStuffWorks, 26 Jan. 2009, science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/strange-creatures/grim-reaper.htm. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Lambert, Frank. “The Second Law of Thermodynamics.” A Students Approach to the Second Law and Entropy, Feb. 2006, entropysite.oxy.edu/students_approach.html. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Lickerman, Alex. “Why We Need To Know Why.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 15 Nov. 2010, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/201011/why-we-need-know-why. Accessed 22 Apr. 2017.

Madison, Associated Press in. “Slender Man stabbing: Wisconsin girls to be tried as adults, appeals court rules.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 July 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/slender-man-stabbing-wisconsin-girls-tried-as-adults-appeals-court. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

“Mark Twain quotations - Ideas.” Mark Twain quotations - Ideas, www.twainquotes.com/Ideas.html. Accessed 22 Apr. 2017.

Myer, Matthew. “Nopperabō.” Yokai.com, Wordpress, 25 Feb. 2016, yokai.com/nopperabou/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

“Myth.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myth. Accessed 28 Feb. 2017.

“Religion Library: Shinto.” Patheos Library, www.patheos.com/Library/Shinto. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Rogers, Katie. “'Slender Man,' a Horror Meme, Gets Ready to Step Out of the Shadows.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/movies/slender-man-a-horror-meme-gets-ready-to-step-out-of-the-shadows.html?_r=1. Accessed 23 Apr. 2017.

Rubin, Norman A. “Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore.” Norman A. Rubin: Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore, Asian Art, 26 June 2000, www.asianart.com/articles/rubin/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2017.

Surge, Victor. "Create Paranormal Images." The Something Awful Forums. N.p., 10 June 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2017. <https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3150591>.

“Xenophobia.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia. Accessed 22 Apr. 2017.

Death: The Final Frontier

Death. Our greatest fear. Our imminent end. But why is it so terrifying? Nothing is definitively understood about what happens to the ‘eternal soul’ when the body dies. Since humans first came into existence, we have tried to explain phenomena around us. These include everything from weather to childbirth and even from the birth of everything to the death of everything. Religion is a culmination and collection of these explanations often tied together with a story of supreme beings.

But is death really final? Just like humans have struggled to comprehend the world around us, we have also struggled with the concept of permanency. Even our modern permanent markers- there are tips to get out even sharpie ink. So why should death be more permanent than our markers? So stems our belief in the afterlife. We spend our whole lives culminating a personality, a unique intelligence with knowledge. We cannot seem to comprehend that it is all for nothing; that it all just ends when the body finally gives out. Be it an afterlife in another world like Christianity, Islam, and even many pagan beliefs, or reincarnation like Buddhism and Hinduism, humans insist on death not being the end. 

Most mainstream religions believe in some version of the afterlife, often times divided by how 'good' you were while on Earth. And, often times, it is our actions while alive that determine where we spend our eternal life. Even the norse had a division of afterlives between the honorable warriors going to Valhalla and the common people going to Hel. What most of us are likely more familiar with is the Christian concept of heaven and hell. You do good deeds while alive as a Christian and you go to heaven. You do bad things, Christian or not, and you go to hell. If you do good but aren't a Christian... That is a point Christians argue over constantly. Regardless, it is that hope of eternal bliss that drives some people, and sometimes entire cultures, to do better: for fear of what hell might be like. 

The interesting turning point in all of this is actually the typical flood myth. Like creation, almost all religions have a flood myth. Often times before the flood, humans are long lived and sometimes even abused by their creators. But after the world is washed away, the lifespans become dramatically shorter, humans are left more to their own devices without divine intervention, and belief is 'restored' because only the faithful are saved. Christianity explains this sudden reduction in lifespan as an intended consequence of the flood. 

Regardless of what happens when our body dies, it is inevitably going to happen. I think rather than focusing on what comes next, we ought to focus more on what we have left behind and how we come to terms when the Reaper pays us a visit.

Myth of Moana

Moana is Disney’s newest hit movie. Memorable music, relatable characters, and another non-conformist ‘princess’ take the stage in the typically theatrical take on a traditional Polynesian myth. 

According to Doug Herman of the Smithsonian Magazine, the movie appears to take place in Samoa, though most American’s will interpret it as Hawaii. And, of course, the creators of the movie drew from many cultures to create a touching storyline. So, while not accurate of one specific culture, it does a credible job of representing the group of tribes of the Polynesian Islands.

But the story focuses on a hole in Polynesian history. Archeologists refer to a dead-zone of traveling as “The Long Pause,” a time when voyaging to and from the islands halted without any discernible reason. And, for an equally inexplicable reason, they begin sailing again after almost 2,000 years. Archeological records point to an explosion of colonization after they returned to their seafaring nature.

Regardless of their creative license, Disney managed to create a lovable myth of their own, however. Moana, the main character of the movie, goes on a hero’s journey. These journeys, primarily a Westerner construct, often focuses on a young man of often privileged birth embarking on a journey for an altruistic purpose and collects mighty deeds and fame before returning home to a hero’s welcome and leads his people to prosperity. Perhaps the oldest written hero’s journey is that of Gilgamesh. We are likely all familiar with the ancient epic poem from our grade school days.

Moana is the more modernly ‘politically correct’ hero’s journey. As the daughter of the chieftain, she is chosen by the ocean itself to save her people. While she is aided by a brawny man (with no romantic affinity), Moana accomplishes her goal of saving her people and receives the gratitude of a goddess before returning home and encouraging her people to cross the reef again, presumably to begin the second era of Polynesian voyaging.