12: The Slenderman | Red Thread
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You're a young boy, around 12 years old. The room is dark, it's beyond your bedtime, yet you are still awake. A laptop sits in front of you, idle and bright. You stare with intent at the words on the screen. Words of a faceless being with limbs that escape the normal understanding of human physiology, flame your imagination and hold your attention.

You find yourself jumping from post to post to post, entranced by the messages and stories of this so-called Slender Man.

Pictures of the figure start to filter through, and, with bated breath and curiosity, you analyze each image with not an inch of the scrutiny and logical deduction that an older and more disillusioned person may have. Where one may have scoffed and laughed away at the images, you sit pondering about the veracity. Why couldn't it be real? Why were you almost hoping they were real?

A creaking noise snaps at your attention and your eyes dart from the computer to the bedroom door. A tiny pitter-patter of something beyond seeps under the frame, but then evaporates into silence. You stare, waiting for the sound to return, not realizing you've been holding your breath the entire time. But the sound never does. After a while, you feel safe enough to return your attention to the forums where, for all intents and purposes, the Slender Man actually does exist.

You open Notepad and begin a script and within an hour, your imagination, your excitement and your fascination has led to a video.

Your name is Jackson Clark and you get published on your first ever YouTube upload. Myth information Slender Man. Fuck yeah. That was my first video, baby. Welcome to the Red Thread. My name is Jackson Clark and I am returning over 13 years later to one of the most wildly prolific internet creepypasta-esque things, I guess. I still don't know how to clarify or define Slender Man. He's just a creepypasta.

It's great to have like the lead investigator back though. I'm sure this Linderman community has been eagerly awaiting your return, Jackson. Yeah, they've been waiting with bated breath. This time though, it's not just me. In the original myth video, the seven minute long myth video,

It was just me, but this time I'm bringing along two of my closest friends in that of Charlie and Isaiah to help me on this adventure because realistically, I think I'm too biased when it comes to Slender Man. I'm too entranced by Slender Man. And you're too close. Yeah, I'm too close to the source. I've been put under his spell. So I need you guys along with me to make sure that I'm thinking about this logically and can give everyone at home the correct information that they so need.

So, how are you guys? Doing great, Jackson.

I always like to ask, I always like to get a bit of a mood check in before we get into this stuff. And it's always nice to hear you are doing fine, Charlie. I think you've said that every single time. Couldn't change it up at all? Give me something new? Just always doing fine here, Jackson. How about you Isaiah? You got anything cool to add? I'm also doing fine, but in an even more fine way than Charlie is. Nice. Good to hear. Amen, brother.

You guys know about Slender Man, everyone knows about Slender Man, but how deep did you get involved with Slender Man? How deep of a relationship was it? I'll say this once for the internet. As a child, I'm pretty sure I wrote Slender Man creepypastas. Really? When I was like 11 or 12, I think I wrote like...

A couple stories about like, you're alone. Pretty much what the intros are. You're alone in the woods. There's a man. He's tall. He doesn't have a face. You're dead. Was it directly Slender Man? Yeah, it was directly Slender Man. Because I remember I was really into Slender Man. Yeah. I also was pretty into it. But the thing is, it's a little sadder for me. Because when Slender Man came out, I think I was a junior in high school. So I was already too old for that.

But you still got into it? Yeah, I still got into it. That was like the first big creepypasta I really cared about. It's probably the first one that I saw happen in kind of like real time. You know, like it was something that I was around for. Would it be out of line to say Slender Man kind of kicked off creepypastas as like a cultural thing?

Because was he the first one that kind of built a community around it? Yeah, yeah. I would say that it led to like the proliferation of it, of the genre itself, but like creepypastas and stuff like that obviously existed before that. Scary stories always existed. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, true. But also creepypastas like SCP Foundation, I believe, was like a year before Slender Man. So I just Googled it. Someone did point out Ted the Caver came out in 2001.

which was arguably the first creepypastas. So, okay. Yeah. I remember the one that I found creepypastas through was Ben Drowned, and that was before Slender Man, I'm pretty sure. Wait, was Ben Drowned the Majora's Mask one? Yes. Yeah, that was a really good one. I remember that one. That was a really good one. I always loved, this is a bit of a pivot from Slender Man, but those were always my favorite kind of creepypastas or creepy things on the internet was like,

the kind of corrupted media trend where like a game is haunted or a lost TV show is haunted and there's like recounts or stories about those media I always found those like the funnest

So, yeah, I definitely think, though, Isaiah, that Slender Man was the massive popularity boost for the genre. That's when I remember it going everywhere, like creepypasta culture being a thing with people making their own stories and sharing them and stuff like that. Exactly, yeah. And I think that's pretty undeniable with... Like, there's a movie made about Slender Man, stuff like that. It extended beyond just the year it was.

was made popular. You know, it's been like a decade and Slender Man was still somewhat talked about, which is impressive for something like this. Yeah. So let's start with the synopsis of Slender Man. Does someone want to talk about Slender Man himself? For anyone who doesn't know about Slender Man, I guess we actually have an audience that skews a little bit older. So maybe there are a few people that don't know Slender Man because they're too old to use the internet at the time. And now they're just getting into it.

I still think they'd know the name Slender Man because even outside of just creepypastas, it proliferated into horror culture itself. And there was the Slender Man killings, which also put the name out there in a big way. So it's definitely a name I think anyone's heard of before.

More so than any other creepypasta anywhere. For sure. So, Slender Man is a fictional character starring in the pseudo-internet creepypasta who captured the fascination and interest of internet users during the late 2000s and early 2010s. Slender Man has a common appearance in almost all the media he's found in. He's described as having male features, milky, white, featureless face, freakishly tall, and unnaturally thin. He's usually seen sporting an all-black suit and black pants,

At will, he is able to elongate all his limbs and body to strike fear into those he is haunting. He is also able to conjure multiple black tendrils from his body. It is unknown whether or not he kills or just captures his victims, but it is said that no matter what happens to you, no evidence will be left behind and nobody will ever see you again. The story, paired with the images posted to accompany the story, obviously captured the imagination of those who enjoyed similar creepy internet stories. Did you guys find the image of him creepy at all?

Not particularly. I just thought it was interesting. Like, I thought it was well done. But I was also old at the time. Older at the time. I think when I was a kid, I thought the idea of, like, being outside... What honestly scared me more than the creepypasta was, like, the Marble Hornet series. Yeah, I love the Marble Hornet. And particularly how, like, they would be looking out at the woods at night, and then just you'd realize the blank face was there in the tree line watching you. I did find some of that stuff creepy, I remember. Yeah.

That's always the best horror when it's not so much in your face. It's the kind of thing where you have to go back and look at each frame and then you notice things. That's always creepy. I always love stuff like that. I wish they did that more in horror movies instead of just jump scares.

But yeah, I guess looking through the eyes of 12-year-old Jackson, I found it creepy at the time. I don't necessarily know why. There's nothing about it right now that's jumping out as creepy, but maybe it's just because there's been so much of this kind of stuff since then that it's kind of lost all impact. Featureless face and stuff like that, kind of boring now. Wearing a suit, very classy, creepy dude.

Very tall, lanky. I don't know. Looking back, it doesn't seem like anything special just from the appearance of him. I think it's more so the story around the Slender Man and the mythos that the creator kind of conjured up. So the Slender Man started on this something awful internet forums, which was...

I never used it. Did you guys use it? I went on there occasionally, yeah. That was a hot spot for some of the biggest, most influential memes of the day. Like what? Something Awful is where a ton of shit started. Yeah, that's where meme culture kicked off. Yeah. Hold on. I don't want to get it wrong, but I'm pretty sure... Let me see.

Yeah, they started that entire trend of, like, that Reddit format they ran into the ground with, like, the Bad Luck Brian type shit, where they just take that photo. Oh, it was fucking good. They did, like, all of that. It seems that started on something awful. But they also made some of, like, the big videos, like...

Uwe Boll fought someone from something awful. He used to insult his movies. That was a huge, huge site. So was it the most popular social media site at the time in terms of like internet forums?

I would say so, probably. So it was like a precursor to Reddit, almost. What was the other Reddit before Reddit? Dig. Yeah. So it was like Dig and Something Awful, and that was the late 2000s. Well, no, it was mid-2000s, because the UA ball fight with the Something Awful guy was 2006. Yeah. I never used Something Awful. I never even came across it. I don't know. It mustn't have been a thing that was common over here in Australia. Yeah.

The internet forum that I used the most during that time period was the Bungie.net forums. There was a sub forum on there called the flood and I would hang out there all the fucking time and just shit posts and stuff like that. And I think that's probably where I came across Slender Man, honestly.

So shout out to the BungieNet forum. Before there was any, you know, like title or prestige attached to it, Jackson was doing it for the love of the game on the Bungie.net forums. You joke. Oh my God. This is unlocking it like an old memory. I actually had like a pinned thread there, like the moderators pinned the thread and I would just like review internet myths. There was like a collection of internet myths that I would... I think that's what started the YouTube series actually.

or the YouTube series as in two videos. Holy shit. That's a, that's a deep cut memory. Anyway, shout out to the bungee.net forums infinitely better than the something awful. I'll say, I think I'm pretty sure I'm the youngest out of everyone on this podcast. I was like, I never went on like something awful forums, but I watched YouTube a lot and they would talk about stuff from like something awful. So that's the only experience I had with it.

Yeah, I've definitely heard about it now, but I'd never visited it back then. So I don't really know what the vibe was then. It does seem from the comments that I had read for research of this video, it does seem like the vibe was mostly like Reddit tier stuff, which was like...

You hear something like a forum called Something Awful. I was thinking like 4chan going in, but no, it's like the most Reddit tier stuff possible in there. Pretty much. From what I can see. Anyway, so on the Something Awful internet forums, a thread was created titled Photoshop Contest and users were tasked with creating paranormal images. So it was like just a Photoshop competition who could create the scariest images basically.

Many users would submit photos, but none would be talked about as much as those created by a man by the name of Eric Knudsen. On June 10th, 2009, Eric posting under the pseudonym Victor Surge, cool name. Is that a Pokemon reference?

Probably not, I don't think. Surge is just a cool sounding word. I swear one of the gym leaders in like Pokemon... Lieutenant Surge, yeah. Yeah, Lieutenant Surge. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Victor Surge would post two images along with descriptions for each of them in this Photoshop contest thread. So the first image we have here is like a bunch of children walking towards the camera.

With a Slender Man in the back just kind of sitting there, standing there. Yeah, just standing there. And the quote that he posted along with this was, quote,

So that's the very first image. I don't know where he would have got this photo from. Do you think he hired a bunch of children for this Photoshop competition? No, this is probably something that was like in a yearbook or something. Yeah.

He just takes the image, puts Slender Man in the background, which for one is all that it needs to be for an internet legend to kick off. At least, you know, back then on the internet. Like, it's good. It's effective. The little caption gives an idea of some haunting presence that maybe killed the photographer. It puts enough pieces in place for people's imagination to run well. Imagination to run well. Yeah. I was surprised going back and learning about this all again that

It kind of spread even after having been created in a thread called Photoshop Contest. Like, that immediately removes all the mystery. Like, for kids...

wanting to believe that Slender Man is real. Yeah. Like it was, it was very obvious. Well, you don't think about it that hard. You're just like, oh, scary. And that's enough. Well, also you don't see that it was part of a Photoshop contest when you start posting it elsewhere. Yeah. Which is what happened to me. But then if I had have done any kind of like finding the origins of it, I would have seen that it was created in a Photoshop contest and that would have removed everything. Like all of your stories, Isaiah, that you were talking about, like the, what was it? Ted, the, Ted, the,

Cave Diver or whatever the fuck it was called. Ted the Caver, yeah. Yeah, Caver. It wasn't created in a subreddit about creepy writing, like two sentence horror or something. No, Ted the Caver was an Angel of Fire story that he made his own blog about to get that across. So no, it wasn't like the same kind of format.

Yeah, there was like some air of, I guess, believability if you wanted to believe it. Whereas if it was made in like a creative writing class and then advertised as such, it would have lost all of its kind of impact, I think. So yeah, I was just surprised that it kind of had this impact even after having been created in the Photoshop contest thread. And then the very next image he posted in the same thread is another image of children in a park.

Playing around, having a good time, and in the back, Slender Man's hanging out again with, like, squid tentacles hanging off his arms. Never really understood the whole tentacle element of Slender Man, but he has them. He's like a gene-spliced octopus with a tall dude. Does he have hair there? No, I don't. Wait.

Which photo are you looking at? The one in the mirror or the one at the park? At the park. No, he doesn't have it. I mean, it's too vague to tell. I think it's still supposed to be just a blank face, a tall figure with kids. Yeah, maybe.

Anyway, the quote for that one is one of two recovered photographs from the Sterling City Library blaze, notable for being taken the day which 14 children vanished and for what is referred to as the Slender Man. Deformity cited as film defects by officials. Pirate Library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated.

as evidence 1986 photographer Mary Thomas missing since June 13th 1986 so Slender Man's even gone for the photographers he's leaving no one behind which is great I mean he can't he can't be seen but he he was seen the photos still found their way well he tried not to be I guess

So already Slender Man's kind of, not Slender Man, Victor Surge is kind of creating this mythos around these images and that's what kind of separated it from all the other shit that was posted in the Photoshop contest. I went through that original thread and some of the other images were cool, but they didn't have the story to go along with it, which is what I think propelled Slender Man beyond all those other things. You guys can continue. I feel like I've been talking a lot.

users would start to give positive feedback to the photos with one user stating this is going to give me nightmares what a fucking loser this is what i mean by reddit tier comments like you're in a fucking thread about photo like photoshop being a photoshop contest i don't understand how you could say this is going to give me nightmares i can't give you up dudes for this one it's two spooks

The kids are like, he's right behind me, isn't he? A few hours later, Eric would make another comment playing into the story and acting like Slenderman is a real entity. Maybe I'll do some more research. I've heard there may be a couple more legit Slenderman photographs out there. I'll post them if I find them. Victor Surge.

Yeah, so Victor's doing all the hard work. He's going out there, going to libraries, his local libraries, collecting photos. I don't know. It's just a cute story that he's constructing, I guess, at this point. Like, people want to believe it. I knew about the previous two pictures. I actually haven't seen this one before. Neither have I. So it's the picture of, like, someone taking a flash in front of a mirror with Slender Man standing over their shoulder. Yeah.

And it says... On 5-24-1995, it says...

1994 Wilkes estate. One subject reported nothing out of the ordinary before taking photograph. Lower stairs area was said to be very dark. Subject states that after the camera flash, she heard a sound like a watermelon being unable to understand subject. I don't know what that means. She heard a sound like a watermelon. Yeah. It's just Slenderman carry. What was the guy that like smashes watermelons? Gallagher, right? Yeah.

He just fucking carries around a sledgehammer and smashes water. I don't know what that means. Maybe it means someone's head got bashed or something? I don't know. Maybe it was that he just, like, has squ- Oh, because maybe tentacles. Because he's got tentacles, but they make squelching noises. That's gross. Interesting theory. Anyway...

525 of 93. Subject unable to recall events after man or power failure. Unable to question other two identified subjects. Camera and film acquired from Gloria Creedy, current resident of Woodview Mental Hospital and Psychological Rehabilitation Clinic. Film mostly uncontaminated despite massive blood and human tissue present on camera.

No positive ID on anomalous tall and slender subject. Facial blur caused by possible contamination. You mean we didn't find a match in the database of convicted criminals? Of the Slender Man? We couldn't find any fingerprints, unfortunately.

Those damn tentacles. So that's interesting. The people who took the picture wound up in a mental hospital. Then after that, on 6-7 of 93, it says, Early digital analysis indicates tall subject may have no eyes. Anomalies, previously thought to be film errors and flash artifacts, now thought to be appendages.

Wait, so they had that photo for like a month and then it took them a month to figure out that he may have no eyes just by eyeballing it and looking at the photo in that one month period of time? They're not very good at what they do, to be fair. They never claim to be. And then three days later, it says final identified subject reported missing along with other 33 patients and staff of Woodview Mental Hospital and Psychological Rehabilitation Clinic South Wink.

So basically, Slender's kidnapping the people that saw him and all those associated. Oh, okay. So the government's doing this? No, I think it's the idea that Slender's doing it. No, it's Slender Man. Why would the government be taking away Slender Man? Exciting people. They're working for the Slender Man. Regardless, that's a high kill count for Slender Man. 33 people in one sitting. That is a lot.

Going on, it says, unlike other posters contributing to the overall Photoshop competition, Victor Surge wasn't just posting edited photos. He was attempting to tell a story. Others are describing what they did to their photos. But when Eric is talking about the photos, he acts as if they are real.

He dug these out of archives. He's looking through evidence. He's looking through reports. This made his post stand out and made people want more, and more would come. On the same day of June the 11th, 2009, he posted two more photos with no descriptions, but one would be different. So we see here the one of Slenderman just outside of a window. I've seen this image before. Yeah, that one's a very popular one. It's so dumb. Yeah.

I mean, I mean, outrageously stupid. It is outrageously stupid. He'd be that close, but I get how this works into the mythos that there's like paranoia. Look, I'm trying to be a defender of Slenderman. Oh, I love Slenderman. Slenderman is always going to have a special place. You've got the guy standing in the window with a rifle. Yeah, that's what I was just laughing at. He's got a hunting rifle. What's Slenderman going to do against that?

And then after that, we have a what seems to be a police department report, but where the stuff's supposed to be fill out, it's mostly scribbled. We see the scribbling Slenderman kill us already. Kill us, kill us, kill us.

which is that house, right? That the picture was the mansion. Yeah. And then there is a note from six 1193, which is the day after the people went missing from the asylum where it says fog rolled in 3. PM. It appeared at three 27. Mark and Evan went outside. Couldn't cover them. Fog too thick screams and sounds like a baby laughing, but deeper. Yeah.

That's a throwback. That's like a throwback to the Goatman episode where I said, what was it, like a goat bleeding behind you on the bridge of a scenario? Okay, I would be more afraid of a baby crying in the woods than I would a goat. Well, that'd be more concerning than a goat for sure because a baby shouldn't be there, but it's also still not a concerning sound if the baby's laughing. It's like, okay, that's cool, I guess. Someone's having fun out here. Yeah, it's a party. I do want to hear what a baby would sound like deep, though, like a deep voice.

They just sound like one of us laughing. That's how babies laugh, yeah. They hear voice critical laughing in the woods behind them. Yeah, that would be terrifying. It's out in the fog. We may be a little outside of town, but someone will come. And then two days later, rest of us can't sleep. No food, no power. And then one day later, what does it want? Tom showed me that...

Weird case file. Weird case file, there you go. Yeah, it's written legibly down below. I transcribed it. Well, not so much the next one. Oh, I didn't see that you were...

I was trying to read all of that off the note. I didn't see you had it typed out. Oh, that would have been better? Okay. You did well. I didn't realize you weren't reading from it until just then. And then one day later, it says Wilk's Place, and then it's scribbled out after that. So again, the house that all this is supposedly happening at. Well, it says like Wilk's Place and then same, same, same, same. So I think he's saying like the thing from Wilk's Place is the same thing as this. Yeah. He's doing it like a Redditor would, though.

Slender Man, kill us already. Kill us. Kill, kill, kill. Okay, so they're getting edgy with it. Yeah, so after that, after the note, it says, the scribblings on the document seem to be from the perspective of police officers serving and protecting the community in this made-up world Victor Search was creating. The note even mentions Wilkes Place, calling back to the previous post Eric made and showing an overarching connecting story and environment. The photo of the man looking out the window and seeing Slender Man could be taken from within the department. That's a good point.

You could see some obvious inspiration in Eric's story with one being Stephen King's The Mist, which Eric would go on to confirm in an interview later on. Oh, that's interesting. Well, that's cool. Those were both like really important stories to me as a kid. So it's cool that they inspired each other.

These images were highly effective with the something. Wait, I don't think Stephen King's The Mist was inspired by Slender Man. No, it was a mutually symbiotic relationship. Okay, correct. One was inspired off the other. Thank you. Not that Stephen King read Slender Man. It was like, there's some good ideas in here. I like what they're doing with The Mist.

These images were highly effective with the user zombie scholar commenting. You're an amazing and terrible bastard, sir. What that is the most well played. That is the most Reddit phrase. You are an amazing and terrible bastard, sir. Well played.

Just take your updoots and go, my good sir. Now to look over my shoulder every couple seconds for the rest of my day. Oh my gosh. Why are these images of this guy with a hunting rifle looking at a cartoonish figure outside making you paranoid for the rest of your day? You're in a fucking thread called contest. Photoshop contest, goddammit. They didn't have a lot to work with, okay? You had to take what scares you could.

The next day on June the 12th, 2009, Eric would post six more images. And these are all, again, more world-building stuff. We have children's drawings of them next to Slender Man. One shows, I think, his tentacles covered in blood attacking Jake, age seven, or at least Jake's the one making the picture. I think Jake's the one that drew it. Or maybe Slender Man drew it. Oh, no, Jake's signature. I think Jake drew it, but maybe he watched another kid get killed by the tentacles.

Oh, true. Yeah. And then there's a birthday party invitation for Jake that says it's Saturday, May 8th, 18th, which is before the events of all this stuff going down in June.

I believe, by the way, that's a triceratops silhouette, so if that has anything to do with the story, if that's a connection. Thank you for that. Thank you for inserting your dinosaur special interest. He's an ancient entity dating all the way back to the Paleolithic era. That triceratops was the Slenderman's first victim. Yeah, not many people know that Slenderman is a triceratops, actually. Yeah.

There's a picture of like an adult with some kids looks like maybe a birthday party or like park setting. I don't know. There's another drawing that says Rebecca. Did you notice Slenderman in the background of that picture though?

I didn't actually. I just glazed by that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can see him at the trees back there. You can see his suit. Yeah. He looks way too close here. He looks like anyone would be like, hey, you, what are you doing? Who's that tall suited guy sitting behind the trees? There's a little drawing from Rebecca where she portrays the same thing. And then there's a newspaper report. Um,

That says a local boy, an eight-year-old boy named Jake Greenwood, which I imagine is the same Jake from the pictures, has disappeared. So those are the six extra pictures that were dumped the next day.

So the story I took from this, and I'm not sure, it's up for interpretation. That's the great thing about art. You can glean any kind of interpretation from it. But my interpretation was that Slender Man kind of created a relationship with Jake and Jake was drawing pictures of him. And then Jake had a birthday party and Slender Man abducted him shortly after his birthday party or even at his birthday party since he's there at the birthday party.

and then started haunting a girl named Rebecca who would then draw Slender Man as well so it's like I think you immediately read way too deep into it so I think it's pretty clear Slender Man found Jake abducted Jake and Jake just drew pictures about that and

And that birthday party invitation was like the evidence left behind. And then Rebecca just happened to see Slender Man while she was out on a walk with her mom. Wait, so Jake got abducted and then started like, Slender Man gave him pieces of paper to draw on? Yeah, so that's one of the things about Slender Man that got established is he doesn't necessarily kill them. He just kidnaps them and they're like their own little family unit. Yeah, but they don't come back. Oh, right. Yeah, they don't come back, but

But then how did we get the photos? He must have left them in the forest or something and someone stumbled upon them. You have to find the pages. They're on the trees. Come on, this is basic lore world building. What are you talking about? Yeah. No, I still think I'm right. Yours is stupid. Why would he form a relationship with Jake at his birthday party? Look, he's behind the trees. He was clearly there at the birthday party. To abduct kids. Yeah, to abduct them. It's not like he's invited and he was like the friend.

I never said he was invited. I just said he formed a relationship. No, I said that he formed a relationship with him somewhere before the birthday party. But then the birthday party is when he abducted him, is what I assume. I just don't know why they have to know each other. He just kidnaps kids. Well, he clearly, well, okay. He clearly knows, they know each other because Jake's been drawing pictures of him, right? Post-abduction. Yeah, but you're saying that's post-abduction. All right. All right. I guess both are possible.

All right, so let me read the newspaper clipping. His mother reported seeing him playing near the trees of his backyard prior to his disappearance and noticed nothing suspicious. So would that be the same trees that he's standing behind in the party picture?

Yeah, there's also only two of them, so it's not like he'd be laying behind the trees and not being seen. Like, you can see everything from those tiny trees. It's also in, like, the middle of a row of houses as well. Like, yeah. He's completely exposed in someone's front yard, yeah. Yeah. I mean, anyone walking by could see Slenderman hanging behind those trees. Anyway, so that came along with, like, a...

from Victor Surge saying, alert, alert, deployment request. Anti-S Walker unit to deploy to Wichita, Kansas, which is where the abduction happened. So they have an anti-Slender Man Walker unit, I suppose, in the government. I see. So it's like an SCP thing. Yeah, this was where SCP started kind of becoming a theme in this. There was a government body set up to handle Slender Man. Yeah.

So, do you want to continue, Isaiah? Well, this is kind of just what you said here. Yeah, so the basic description of the photos, we talked about that. After these photos were posted, almost everyone on the thread was talking about Slender Man and praising Eric's images. The focus of the thread went from being a Photoshop contest who ostensibly won about the Slender Man itself.

One user would say, "This entire series of images is fabulous, but this one is a killer. Purely because all the little kids I work with never color the sky all the way to the ground, just like this. It's very plausible detail and adds the extra touch of authenticity." So that's referring to the picture that Rebecca drew. So Victor Serge is quite good at replicating the art style of a child, apparently. Thank you, Victor. Later in the day,

On June the 12th of 2009, Eric would post two more photos. This one I've seen a ton. The one of him, like, on stilts. Like, tentacle stilts in the woods. Oh, so that's what he does with his tentacles. He uses them to walk around while he, like, hovers in the air. Yeah, it's like the anchor arms from Spongebob, but with, like, four tendrils. Living like Larry.

The caption for it said,

Object said to be the body of a man of unknown age. It was very precisely dissected with major

Wait, hold on. An object fell out of a tree and then it turns out the object was a body. Okay, I see. A piece of a body. A piece of a body. Okay. It was very precisely dissected with major internal organs still contained within the rib cage in what looked to be clear bags. Surviving subjects placed organ bag within backpack. Attack followed several minutes later after a low children's laugh like a giggle. Surviving subject ran until he reached his vehicle. Subject then drove to assume safety.

Okay, so the whole children's laughter and stuff, that adds credence to the theory that he's kidnapping kids and keeping them alive and they're just haunting with him. They're part of his posse, right? That's the theory?

It's not a theory. That's just his lore. Yeah. That he brings kids with him, maybe. Yeah. Or possesses them in some way. But what's with the dissection? Is that implying that like Slender dissects people and puts their organs in bags?

Yeah, well there is, in the very next description, they talk about it, yeah. Okay, so after that, it says that the backpack was destroyed, talking about the organs, and that the surviving subject is classified as a B7 witness. B7 witness to be placed in a quarantine blind box until resolution, whatever that means. So the government is kidnapping people. I mean, people who have, like, witnessed Slender, but the government didn't kidnap the wing of 33 people.

Unless they witnessed Slenderman. Maybe, but I don't think that's what the implication is. Okay. The implication is that Slenderman kidnapped them. They weren't even children. He's only kidnapping children, isn't he? Yeah, but he went after someone who saw him previously at the house. And then the other picture in the woods, again, of him stood up looking very spider-like in the trees.

Since 2007, investigation team discovered 22 bodies of both genders in various ages impaled on broken tree branches in a radiating circle pattern with chest mutilation as often noted with Slenderman.

Upon confirmation, lead investigator redacted, called for an immediate evacuation of investigation team at 1700 hours. Bodies first discovered at 1100 hours. Deadline for safe evacuation of team with only viewed physical evidence of Slenderman approximately 1730. Lost contact of team at 1725. Safety procedures fell well within established protocols. Reason for abnormality is unknown.

Second team recovered camera equipment one week later. Slender Man's safety procedure required this incident's physical photographic evidence to be disposed of by no later than 1020. Um, and then...

Is this your writing the next part? No, no, no. What is this? This is him. So, okay, remember, Victor Surge is a character that is, like, researching this stuff. Oh, right. So then he comments on what he just found. So Victor Surge says, honestly, don't get what half this poo-poo means. I'm just...

Why did you immediately assume that I wrote that? Because I was like, this doesn't seem like a field report. The next line. There's no investigator who's going to be like, man, this poo-poo is going to be, and then smokes a cigar. There's no Jackson that would say that either. There's plenty of times I can hear you saying like, oh man, this is all poo-poo and I don't get it. I've never once said poo-poo. I've never once acted like that. It's more likely you would say it than an investigator would say it, is all I'm saying. Yeah, well, it's

It's more likely that Victor Surge said it because that's what actually happened. Okay. I honestly don't get what half this poo-poo means. I'm done with this Slenderman stuff. It's starting to make me uneasy. It's like reading the GBS ghost story threads before I go to bed. Why do I have to look at all this stuff while it's super late? Frowny face. Yeah, that's the actual frowny face used in that message as well. Luckily, my friend is coming over.

I hope it's a good friend. It's going to have a nice ending. I'm sure it will. Because right after that, it's written...

In Eric's world, Slender Man is a known entity. There are procedures for when people encounter Slender Man. This adds more detail and color to his story and makes it seem like Slender Man is an active threat that the public has to constantly be on the lookout for. The last part seems to come from Eric's point of view, with him commenting on his investigation. Finally, on June the 13th, 2009, Eric would post his last photo and description. I've never seen this one before. I've seen this one. This one looks like it.

This one looks like an early AI-generated photo. It actually does. It does, yeah. It's pretty cool. Huh. That's neat. The caption for it says, for the audio listeners, it's like in a house, someone's running up a staircase, and then it's like a blurry Slender Man, but you can see the impressions of a face, and he's reaching his hands out towards the camera. It says, my friend is...

What? Oh, my friend is here. Just came in. Barely made upstairs. Got picture. Locked door. But it's right there in the hall. Don't look at its pictures. It doesn't want to be known about. Don't look. Well, then why'd you post them, you dick? Haha!

Idiot. Yeah. Keep it a secret. No one look at these pictures that I'm posting right here. Close your eyes when viewing these photos. Is this going to be a dying message? You prick. It's mean. As user www.jaboosto would go on to comment, Oh, Jibbus, this one is giving me the willies.

Oh, I love something awful. Oh,

Oh, man. I'm so glad we found Reddit to corral all these people in. I thought Reddit was like a new thing. I thought the internet back in like 2009 or whenever this was, I think it was 2009, was so much cooler. But looking back, it's always been this Reddit tier. It is always. 100%. That's just like one of those rose-tinted glasses things. Like people think the internet was different, like the attitude was different. But if you go back and read a bunch of old threads, it's the same goddamn Redditor attitude. Yeah.

Yeah, "Ojeebus, this one is giving me the willies." Like, who says that? Who writes that? And then it continues, and says, "Usually subtle works best, but sometimes the blatant ones scare me more." I really want to read a Slender Man horror novel now, with pictures. So he wants a picture book. With pop-ups. I'll go ahead and take the conclusion here.

The ending to this story does seem abrupt, but Eric has stated he wanted to end the story the way that it would be the scariest. Responding to another poster, he said, And I kind of wanted to bring it to a close.

I'm glad everyone enjoyed it, although initially it hadn't been my intent to do more past the first picture post. What essentially inspired me was stuff like the rake, since that pretty much terrified me. Having an unearthly creature such as a skinwalker or something stalking you has always been much scarier than ghosts, in my opinion. Agreed. Agreed.

Do you get the Rake influence, Isaiah? I'm actually kind of surprised because if you would have asked before we read this, I would have guessed that Slender Man was before the Rake. So it's surprising to see that it's the other way around. That's interesting. Yeah.

After this last post, everyone in the thread would continue to talk about the Slender Man within the context of the now newly born creepypasta that would go on to share with people who weren't familiar with something awful. The spirit of the Slender Man would continue on with users creating their own photos of the entity and adding their own contributions to the lore. In many ways, Slender Man would be an extension to the budding realm of collaborative creepypasta storytelling elements that things like SCP Foundations cemented.

It's undeniable, regardless, that Eric posting these photos would change internet creepypasta culture forever and inspire countless stories from others. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's kind of like the beginning of The Slender Man. That's what Victor Surge created for us, the entirety of his creation. His direct creation. That's pretty fascinating. I didn't realize the original had that much lore attached to it. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of, like, lore. Yeah.

was included in these photos but i was also surprised at how quickly it kind of happened it was all in the span of like a day a week yeah well yeah it was like it was like four days right it was very it was very quick yeah um

regardless the legend was born yeah so it just kind of spread out from there like people would take those photos and then post them on other internet forums without all that kind of context or knowledge of where it came from and they'd be like oh man look at this look at this creepy photo pretty scary huh and then idiots like me who didn't know anything about photoshop or knew that images could be edited would be like holy shit sunday man is actually real that's crazy so

That's how it kind of gained its popularity in general. And the proliferation would continue with a YouTube channel called Marble Hornets, which was created on June 19th, 2009. So that's very recent. Well, very soon after Slender Man was actually created. Do you want to explain and describe Marble Hornets, Isaiah? Yeah.

Yeah, Marble Hornets was a classic for me. It got me into early internet horror. Shortly after Eric's post on the Something Awful forums, a YouTube channel called Marble Hornets was created on June 19th of 2009. This would be the first series to be created around Slenderman. This would also be a very early example of an alternate reality game, or ARG. The series would become extremely successful. The channel has garnered over 660,000 subs on YouTube and over 118 million views on the channel.

Even early on, the channel would have success, as by August 28th of 2009, the channel had almost 2,000 subscribers and thousands of views. The series would end up receiving a spinoff series, a comic book series, and a spinoff film called Always Watching, A Marble Hornet Story. This shows that early on, the concept of Slenderman was intriguing to the public and people wanted to see more.

So can you describe Marvel Hornets since you've probably watched it all? So basically the idea behind Marvel Hornets is that it was a guy who was like a college student who was originally trying to make a documentary but started to run into this figure and he's never referred to as Slender Man. He's called the...

The Watcher?

and how proxies of Slenderman are getting closer, and it's him saying he doesn't understand what this creature is, he goes to different places to try to discover it. It's a really interesting horror series, and honestly, it works as both a found footage film when you watch the whole thing together, and one of the earliest examples of internet horror, or ARG stuff. Yeah, it was very effective. I remember watching it at the time and being actually genuinely pretty scared watching it.

Which was fun. I'm trying to remember the name as well. I'm trying to look through it. The Operator? That's it. The Operator. Yeah. That's what they called him. Yeah. And then they also did some really cool stuff like ARGs and stuff like that on a cryptic side channel that was called To The Ark. Stuff like that. It was a very fun series and it was very popular. And it continued on for a while. It had over 130 episodes.

Obviously, with something that long, it kind of lost its impact towards the end or whatever. It kind of dragged on a little bit. That's to be expected, though. Something that spans that length of time with the same subject there. Yeah, yeah. But it was very effective for what it attempted to do. And then even after that, you have in June 26th of 2012, the Slender Man 8 Pages game came out. Which, I mean, as we all know...

That's how I think I found people like Markiplier and PewDiePie and stuff like that. This game was massive. This game was talked about even outside of the internet space I remember in high school. This is where people were talking about the scariest game ever made. Have you ever played Slender? It's like nothing else. And then it's based on this like

entity that like captures children it's a real story so like it's spread by word of mouth like wildfire from this game yeah I remember in high school we used to all play it together like we'd go home or we'd have like a hangout after school and like all play take turns playing it and getting scared together and shit like that

I consider it probably one of the worst horror games ever made because it spawned that entire genre of just go into just random asset flipped area and just find like trivial little fucking pieces of a scavenger hunt while getting jump scared occasionally. It's the worst format for horror that even to this day, 12 years later, games are emulating daily. Like that is still the most common horror genre, the most common horror game that gets pumped out in the genre. Yeah. But did you like it at the time?

Yeah, of course. It was huge for the time, but looking back on it, I wish it just never got made because that shit ruined horror games forever. Yeah, I think it's cool as a one-and-done kind of concept. Yeah, no, no, it definitely was for its time.

Yeah, I think it holds a special place in my heart. Like even my mom was like, let's play Slender Man, the eight pages. Oh, I want to play that. That looks fun. So it was like a bonding experience for like the entire family, really. It was kind of crazy, the impact and reach that it had from such a simple concept. And you can see it as well. Like go to, I've got a picture here of Google Trends. You can see the search term relevancy of Slender Man.

just fucking absolutely skyrocketing when the Slender Man the 8 page game was released. It was enormous. It never left either because it just put it in everyone's mind. You have written here as well. Slender Man became a super common figure. In the early 2010s there'd be a Halloween costume for Slender Man that was popular. There was references in media across everywhere referencing Slender Man.

I didn't know this, but apparently some people speculate the Enderman character in Minecraft is actually based off Slenderman, used in memes. He was just legitimately infiltrating every facet of internet life, and even outside of that.

So then in 2018, this is what I want to talk about. They finally released the Slender Man horror film. It was directed by Sylvie and White, written by David Burke, and it released August 10th, 2018, and was universally hated by everyone. It had a 16% score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 3.2 out of 10 on IMDb, and the film would come with controversy when the trailer for the film was released, as some thought it was inappropriate to release the film so soon after the well-known and publicized Slender Man stabbings.

So I saw this film in theaters with Kaya, actually. This came out when you guys were still in town. Why did I not go see it? Oh, maybe I was fucking hungover from the poisoning that Kaya gave me. No, you might have been too scared, potentially. You came down with a big case of big old bitch. Yes, true. But also, I was probably at Disney World during that.

God, that would be so lame. Have you ever seen the movie Jackson? No, I haven't. You have to. So this film is an absolute disaster. I think it took like four or five years just to make it. It got caught in production hell. So by the time it came out, that initial wave of absurd hype

was gone. So it came out way too late. It was still rushed, like nothing in the film worked well at all. It ruined a lot of like the core elements of the Slender Man story as well. It couldn't get even the established stuff correct. It wasn't scary. It was trash, visually horrible. Everything that could go wrong with a horror movie went wrong with the Slender Man film. And I think that's what kind of buried Slender Man as like a scary figure in a lot of people's eyes.

and made it more as just kind of like this tired joke that he kind of is today where people look at Slender Man. Yeah, that was the turning point for Slender Man, I think. And you're right. It was announced a few years before it released. You said five years? I'm not sure about that. It was quite a few years. It wasn't like a quick turnaround or anything. This got stuck in a limbo of production. Yes, 2014. No, wait, no. On January 2018, the first teaser post was revealed.

I'm not sure. Regardless, when it was first announced, I remember a lot of excitement for it. Yeah, people were like, this internet thing is being made into a movie and it's awesome. And it has a big budget as well, $50 million US, released by Sony. So it had big, you know,

you know big production company behind it everything was expected to go well for it and instead it fucking bombed it released and like like charlie said it was an awful movie from what i've heard uh and it really and it made a box office oh wait no sorry i got that the wrong way around it didn't bomb um 28 million dollars budget the box office was 50 million so probably like broke even at the end of the day when you account for marketing and stuff like that

So that's not as bad as I thought. No, I mean, there's still curious enough people to go see it for sure. But regardless, very bad movie. Terrible movie. And what you referenced there at the end is there was controversy because not too long before that, the Slender Man stabbings happened, which is a real thing that happened on May 31st, 2014. I thought it was later than that. I didn't know it was in 2014. But in...

uh wisconsin two young girls named morgan geyser and anisa wire lured another girl by the name of peyton lutner into a local park called david's park during a sleepover they lured her there under the guise that they would be playing hide and seek they were 12 years old at the time and unknown to peyton morgan and anisa had different plans once they're in the woods the two girls would pin peyton to the ground and geyser would stab peyton 19 times with a kitchen knife

The girls would leave her in the woods to die, but miraculously, Peyton wasn't fatally wounded. She would go on to crawl out of the woods onto a bike path where a passerby would find her and call for help. Peyton incredibly survived the attack and would go on to make a full recovery and end up leaving the hospital seven days after the attack. 19 stabs and gets out of the hospital within a week. What a fucking champion. What a legend. I don't know how you survive 19 stab wounds.

Yeah, that's incredible. So the two girls here, Morgan and Anissa, would be apprehended by the police. And when interrogated, they said they did it to please Slenderman. They wanted to become proxies of Slenderman and did the stabbing in the woods because that's where they believed he supposedly lived. They believed that if they committed the murder, they would win Slenderman's approval and would live with him in his hidden mansion.

Shortly after the attack, Eric Knudsen felt compelled to make a statement. I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin and my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this terrible act. Imagine how shit you must feel having created something that would like, it's not his fault, obviously, but I'm sure you feel somewhat guilty at that point being like, because it inspired them to believe in it and do something.

Like, absolutely deplorable. I would assume that they didn't even, like, engage with the original something awful post or anything like that. It would have been based entirely off that video game. Yeah. That's what my gut feeling is. Well, I mean, it's like they just made it up, right? At least in all the stories I've read, there's never any lore saying normal people who do evil acts become proxies or whatever.

Like it was just, it just seems like they had like a nugget to work off of with Slender Man and then like mental illness or what have you, you know, did the rest. Yeah. So Morgan Geyser's actions are considered horrible.

Morgan's actions are considered to be due to her poor mental state and schizophrenia. Anissa was also suffering from delusions as well, seemingly bolstered by Morgan's similar mental state and convincing behavior. Both their delusions of Slenderman would feed off each other, resulting in them believing Slenderman was real through pure self-affirmation.

Once Anissa was separated from Morgan, her delusions died down, which is usually the case with scenarios like this. And there's usually a primary person who has more severe delusions, and that was Morgan. So Morgan would end up being sentenced to 40 years to life in a mental institution. As of January 2024, Morgan has requested to be released, and her hearing is scheduled to be in April 2024. Anissa would be sentenced to 25 years in a mental institution.

but would end up being released after seven. She was released with multiple, she was released with multiple stipulations, including a GPS monitor supervision at all times and a ban on social media usage. Right now, Anissa's whereabouts are unknown, but it is said she's attending college in an interview with Peyton conducted in eight conducted by ABC in 2019. When she was asked what she would say to her attackers, she said, I would probably initially thank her. I would say just because of what she did. I,

I have the life I have now. I really, really like it, and I have a plan. I didn't have a plan when I was 12, and now I do because of everything that I went through. I wouldn't think that someone who went through that I did. Oh, I wouldn't think someone who went through what I did would ever say that. That's truly how I feel. Without the whole situation, I wouldn't be who I am. I mean, well, that's a very positive outlook on a tragedy. I'm sure that's like...

coping with it as well which is fair to say like you would want to spin it into a positive direction for yourself uh it should have obviously never happened this is like a crazy level of delusion from from these two individuals that kind of fed off each other what's crazy to me is the 25 years uh for one of them as opposed to the 40 years because from what i've read they were both very like

Equally culpable. Like one stab... One did the stabbing for sure. But I believe there was a quote... Like she asked the other one for permission before stabbing her. And the other one said something like... To the effect of... Yeah, do it. Go ballistic. So there was like...

an equal level of dedication and motivation from both individuals in my eyes. Probably where they were minors, like they had, you know, psychiatrists rule and be like, this person is very easily suggestive, right? And the other one seems to be the instigator. So I imagine that's what it came down to. But in this case, the instigator, the one that said the things like, yeah, do it, go ballistic, was the one that was sentenced to 25 years, which I just found a bit odd. Yeah.

Was it? I thought Morgan was the more violent one. She was the more violent one, but there were quotes in that moment where Morgan asked Anissa Weirer something to the effect of, I'll only do it if you tell me to do it. And then Anissa Weirer is like, she says, yes, do it. Go ballistic. Yeah. Again, it likely just comes down to they were minors. It was more of a psychiatric, you know, judging rather than a criminal one. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, 25 years is a long time. Yeah, it's a long time to be stuck in somewhere, even if they only did seven. Yeah. But they're, well, two of them, well, not two of them. Anissa is out now and apparently in college. And from all accounts, what's her name? Peyton is living a good life, so that's good.

good outcome for her. As for Morgan, she's still in prison. Or not prison, the mental institution. Maybe released later this year. We'll have to see how that goes. But yeah, very, very chilling stuff and a very sad outcome overall to the Slender Man. Yeah, I remember when all that was happening, having to convince my parents, like, no, we're not reading stories that tell us to kill our friends. This is just... Oh yeah, actually, I didn't even consider what that might do for, like,

parents and stuff oh yeah well my parents were like freaked out and most parents were they were like oh no like or is this what this is this is the horror stories you read like telling you to kill people and stuff and i'm like no i don't know where they got this from this is a this is a one case it didn't happen again yeah it's just mental illness i i can't think of a single other creepypasta that's kind of motivated someone to to murder what happened there

This wasn't even long ago. You guys don't remember Momo? I remember Momo, yeah. Yeah, parents were freaking out because Momo was telling the kids to hurt themselves. I think there was a case of someone actually hurting themselves. Yeah, I mean like an actual murder enacted or attempted because of a creepypasta. Oh, well, no, not necessarily. This is probably super unique in that respect, but it's not unique in the fact that people take creepypasta and think that they're real. Yeah.

Or like do something about it in the real world. All right. So in conclusion, in an interview with Eric Knudsen talking about the Slender Man, he said that his goal with the character was to make him simple, which is, I can see, I can see that. It definitely started pretty simple. He describes the Slender Man as an open source creature. So yeah, kind of like that SCP foundation. Yeah, pretty much.

I believe that is a perfect way to describe him. Anyone can look at him and come up with their own motives for him and his own powers. This results in the huge amount of different stories we have about Slender Man. And when you really break the character down, it's just a man with no face. And people are free to give him one. Well, and tentacles. Tentacles is established. The tentacles never come into it, though. He just walks around on them.

No, that's not true. He does use his tentacles in some of the iterations. Like when? Did he even have tentacles in Slender Man The Eight Pages? I don't think so. He did. Well, like when you see him. He didn't do anything, though. Like, that game fucking super sucks. So what happens is when you see him, it just gets all staticky and then goes away with a loud noise. But he does have them there, I'm pretty sure. He just doesn't use them. I don't remember them. But wasn't there another Slender Man from the Slender Man The Eight Page dev? Yeah.

uh didn't he release like a sequel to that game like five years later oh maybe that's what i'm thinking of because looking at slender the eight pages the one that came out it doesn't look like he has tentacles most of the time yeah slender the arrival so he there was i don't know if it's by the same dev but they made a slender the arrival game which i think that's what i'm thinking of wow it's got a whoa it's got 88 positive rating on steam did you ever play it slender arrival yeah was it good

I don't remember. Probably not. People liked it for the time. It was a lot more complex than eight pages. Well, yeah, you couldn't get much less complex. Well, I mean, like you went to different locations and there was a story and there was objectives and stuff like that. It was a lot higher regarded. Yeah. 88% on Steam. All the recent reviews, 100%. So it's

It's doing well. Interesting. I forgot about that sequel, so...

It's kind of the whole story of Slender Man. It's interesting how we went from like a few posts of just, oh, there's this creepy figure and it's kind of like an open and shut story in that. But then it became so much more. It became video games. It became movies. It became ARGs. It even became a news report with a stabbing. Like it's really wild how much this little quarter of the internet exploded. But I'm thankful that it

It did because there's probably a direct path that could be traced from me reading about Slender Man when I was like 11 to me here now. So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely meant a lot to a lot of people, some good, some bad. But like you said, it's absolutely crazy that a small post on an internet forum spread this far and this wide and had this kind of impact just from some Photoshopped images.

um very impressive kind of example of how the internet can be used to spread these kind of tall tales and have that kind of impact i love the slender man i think i think i think it's one of the most entertaining aspects of the internet when stuff like that happens so i'm a big fan do you guys want to say anything else about slender man before we wrap

Not necessarily. I think we covered pretty much everything. The movie sucks. The first game sucks, but it was fun for the day. Yeah. A product of its time, so to speak. Yep. Definitely a product of its time. That's a good way of putting it for sure. Just like this episode of The Red Thread is a product of right now, this time, and this time is ending because we are ending the show. Thank you very much for watching. We'll see you next time.

We really appreciate it. A short one this week, but I had a very busy week, so I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to research and The Slender Man just kind of jumped out at me as something that we could easily produce given the time constraints. So thank you for watching. I hope you learned something about The Slender Man, or at least I hope you had a fun time listening to us recount The Slender Man's tale. Other than that, we'll see you next time on The Red Thread. Goodbye. Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye. Thank you all for watching. Bye.

so