Slender Man/Synopsis

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Villain Overview Synopsis Gallery

The history of the Slender Man.

Origin

The Slender Man was created by Erik "Victor Surge" Knudsen on June 10, 2009 as the Internet's re-imagining of the Boogeyman, the mythical creature that haunts the closets and dark corners of childhood nightmares. The creator posted the image on the Something Awful forums, on the Photoshop thread, which was a contest for users to create their own paranormal spooky photographies. Originally, Eric named the submission Victor Surge. The image which Eric posted was a photo of children, in which he added a tall, thick figure in a black suit, probably stalking the kids.

Other users resubmitted Eric's original photo with a text on which it displays The Slender Man, giving the figure its official name.

Cultural Impact

Because of Slender Man's ominous and creepy appearance, Slender Man managed to get internet "mainstream", and inspired new characters to be made, which are based on Slender Man.

Most notably, in 2012, "Enderman", has appeared in the infamous video-game respectfully known as Minecraft. The creator of Minecraft, known as Notch even admitted that Enderman was based off Slender Man, and Notch named the character Endermen, after enough people called the creature Slender Man. In the same year, a survival-horror video-game named Slender: The Eight Pages, got released on the internet.The game has been recognized, played and recorded by infamous YouTube stars such as PewDiePie and Markplier. Slender Man got further popularized after the game and the YouTube videos got released.

Slender Man managed to influence the movement which created their own depictions of beings related to Slender Man. Most notably SplendorMan, TenderMan and OffenderMan. These characters are not connected anyway in Slender Man's original storylines, though these characters have been made as depictions of "Slender Man's Family". Slender Man also influenced the Marble Hornets film-series to be made on YouTube, and as a feature film. Later on, more Slender Man films, music and video games have been released which have been inspired by Slender Man. The video-game Slender: The Eight Pages, got it's sequel in 2013, respectfully known as, Slender: The Arrival.

In 2014, a tragic real-life event occurred, which demolished Slender Man's reputation, dye to the event being inspired by Slender Man. After the incident, Slender Man's popularity rapidly declined. In 2018, the movie Slender Man got released, in which four friends decide to summon Slender Man, which obviously transforms into a chaos. A Canadian artist respectfully known as Trevor Henderson, mentioned that his infamous creation known as Siren Head, has been inspired by the Slender Man, during 2020.

Background

Cave art possibly depicting the Slender Man.

Believers in the Slender Man tie his appearances in with many other legends around the world, including; Fear Dubh (or The Dark Man) in Scotland, the Dutch Takkenmann (Branch Man), the minor Egyptian death god Gorr' Rylaehotep, and the German legend of Der Großmann or Der Grosse Mann (the Tall Man).

The earliest argued reference to the legend is within the cave paintings found in the Serr da Capivara National Park in the Northeast of Brazil, which is believed to date from as far back as 9,000 BC. These paintings show a strangely elongated character leading a child by the hand, but make no reference to the extra appendages.

The next known possible reference to the Slender Man comes from around 3,100 BC in lower Egypt, with references to the "Thief of the Gods" or the "Thief of Kuk" becoming commonplace during the reign of Pharaoh Wazner.

Der Ritter art piece.

Hieroglyphic carvings representing the Thief were found in the pharaoh's tomb, who was rumoured to have had some kind of encounter with the entity. The carvings resemble a strange figure with multiple upper limbs, one that has never been found in any other hieroglyphic language.

Slender Man's most infamous historical connection is that of the art piece known as "Der Ritter", made in 1540. It puzzled historians in the 1880s due to the being on the right hardly resembling anything in nature, which was highly unusual odd for such a realistic carving of its time. Stranger yet, "Der Ritter" translates from German as "The Knight" (although this probably refers to the human character on the left). While the focus is clearly on the bizarre being, some speculate the human character is the real monster and the creature is attacking merely in self-defense. The true symbolism of the artwork has never been discovered. The picture is highly associated with Slender Man due to the similarities.

A journal entry from Germany dated about 1702 also references Der Großmann, the mythological creature that Slenderman is supposed to be, reading as follows:

“

My child, my Lars… he is gone. Taken, from his bed. The only thing that we found was a scrap of black clothing. It feels like cotton, but it is softer… thicker. Lars came into my bedroom yesterday, screaming at the top of his lungs that "The angel is outside!" I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me some nonsense fairy story about Der Großmann. He said he went into the groves by our village and found one of my cows dead, hanging from a tree. I thought nothing of it at first… but now, he is gone. We must find Lars, and my family must leave before we are killed. I am sorry, my son… I should have listened. May God forgive me.

„

Sightings

Stirling City Disappearances 1986 - 87

Possible photograph evidence of Slender Man from the Stirling City Disappearances.

Stirling City, Butte County, California was an apparent hot spot for Slender Man activity during the mid-1980s. It is rumored the day this photo was taken, fourteen children were reported missing.

Following the 1986 Stirling City Library fire, a small number of photographs were recovered. One had been taken only a week earlier on June 1, 1986, the date the fourteen children are said to have disappeared, followed less than 2 weeks later by the disappearance of the photographer by the name of Mary Thomas.

Some theorists claim that the figure on the left in the photo is the Slender Man, although officials have stated the apparent extra appendages on the character can be dismissed as film defects. At least one child did in fact vanish.

5 months later, the body of one of 4-year-old Joseph Pertman was found in the Great Swamp Nature Preserve in Kingston Falls, New Jersey. Deputy Sheriff Jim Stolz told reporters from the Associated Press that the body was still in early stages of decay, indicating that he was alive for at least four months after his disappearance.

It was also reported that the body was found in a state of "bizarre contortion", although the cause of death was never officially established. On April 21, 1987, the Stirling City Post ran a story regarding a rash of animal mutilations in Stirling City, that the Butte County Animal Control Department were attributing to coyotes. As many as nine dogs and cats had gone missing since January and had been found in various states of decay. Many of the pets had been disembowelled or otherwise seriously mutilated. Animal Control Officer Joel Driscol was quoted as saying the wounds were "unusually precise" and that it was "rare that a wild animal would leave so much of the carcass uneaten".

Also quoted in the story was a local man, David Elkins, who was the owner of the latest victim - a cat that had been disembowelled and mutilated. 82 days later on July 12, 1987, police were called to the Elkins' residence in Stirling by David Elkins, who had reported that his 8-year-old daughter Katrina had gone missing. The only possible witness to the disappearance was Katrina's 10-year-old sister Alice, with whom she shared a bedroom.

SCPD Sergeant William Hohne reported the last time Alice saw her sister, she was outside the window "hugging the tall man". According to further statements by Alice, over the previous weeks, a man had been coming to the girls' bedroom window at night, where he would tap on the glass, "make faces", and watch the girls. However, police investigators initially dismiss the account as a dream, as the bedroom window was on their house's second story with no support beneath it.

Alberta disappearances 2009

21 years later on January 10, 2009, three skiers - Amanda Fischer, Douglas Bellanger, and Natasha Pierce - disappeared from their cabin in the Mica Mountains Resort, Jasper, Alberta. A day earlier, another friend, Thomas Chambers, left the party to return to Calgary, apparently due to health concerns. He was questioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police following the disappearances and allegedly informed them he had left due to recurring nightmares featuring a tall man in black peering into the cabin windows at night.

Investigators confirmed they had ruled Chambers out as a possible suspect, but considered him a key witness. A source within RCMP, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed to the Calgary Sun that officers had confiscated a digital camera and a camcorder at the time of the interview, which was never returned. However, RCMP was unable to question Chambers further, as he vanished on January 21. His home was found ransacked that morning; he was never found.

RCMP and Park's Officials commenced a month-long search, culminating in the discovery of Amanda Fischer's remains high in a tree, in a severely contorted condition. Bellanger, Pierce, and Chambers remain missing.

Creepypasta Stories

Slender Files

Slender Man in the Slender Files.

During World War II, a Wehrmacht patrol sees something near a tree, but it disappears immediately and they assume they were seeing things. It appears close to the base two nights later, but once again disappears, and is deemed to be a man trying to intrude the base. The next day, it appears multiple times near the base, surviving unscathed when the soldiers fire at him. One of the soldiers realizes it's Der Großmann, a being he was told scary stories about when he was a child. A few days after this, Der Großmann has killed everyone in the base except the protagonist and four other soldiers, who lock themselves in the food storage.

Four days after this, Der Großmann has started to kill the soldiers holed up in the storage until only the protagonist remains alive. Driven insane by Der Großmann' s constant presence, he decides to go to sleep, and is found dead along with the other soldiers with a hole ripped in his chest by American soldiers. His diary, containing records of his encounters with Der Großmann, is taken by a US private, who is found dead a few weeks later.

Götterdämmerung

In "Götterdämmerung", Adolf Hitler, preparing to commit suicide, remembers that he saw children in the street staring at him with completely black eye sockets, a recurring harbinger that Slenderman has come. When he's about to kill himself, he sees a tall man in a black suit with no face in the room with him, immediately knowing that it is Der Großmann, although he doesn't know how. He then hears the voice of Der Großmann, which tells him he wasn't supposed to see it, as he suddenly remembers seeing it at the Munich Putsch and his inauguration, among other things. Realising he's remembering, The Slender Man accuses him of being a failure just like Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goring and Heinrich Himmler, shocking Hitler (who is unused to criticism). Hitler is enraged, but Slender Man silences him and takes away his gun before commenting that both he and His Master are surprised by this outcome and Hitler is indeed The Messiah.

Schlankwald

Slender Man in Schlankwald.

In the poem "Schlankwald", the protagonist is attacked by the Schlankwald, a creature heavily implied to be Der Großmann, which traps them and forces them to look, showing them their children, who are lying dead, having had their eyes removed by the Schlankwald. The Schlankwald then flays the protagonist alive as the narrator states that "This should not have happened, if only you had listened, Never go into his forest".

The Blank Face

A woman wakes up in the night in fear, but does not know why. She goes to get a cup of coffee, but gets a strange scared feeling, although once again she doesn't know why. Increasingly paranoid, she goes to the front door, with the feeling increasing with every step, and looks through the peephole. She sees what she guesses was "once a man", which is tall, thin, wearing a black suit and tie and possessing tentacles.

Trying to escape, she spills her coffee and scalds herself, but still manages to escape halfway down the hall before Slenderman breaks down the door and attacks her, causing her to fall against the wall and crack her head. Visiting her in hospital, her sister Nicole sees a tall, thin man with no face wearing a suit at the window, despite the ward being on the third floor.

The Slenderman Cometh

The protagonist, a man named Steven who works in a graveyard, sees a man wearing a suit standing completely still about a hundred feet away, but is unable to see his face. The man disappears when he approaches him. The next day, Steven is extremely paranoid, and tells his boss Jeff what he saw. To his surprise, Jeff believes him and takes him to see his friend James, an expert on The Slender Man. James tells him about Der Ritter and shows him several photos in which The Slender Man can be seen, before warning Steven not to approach him. However, he goes after Slender anyway, and manages to find him, only to be throttled by him. Fortunately, as The Slender Man is about to kill Steven, Jeff and James arrive, having gone to find him after realizing he went after Slenderman, and he flees, leaving Steven with a mark on his arm. Coming round in the hospital, Steven posts his story online at Jeff's insistence in order to let people know that "The Slenderman watches us all".

Tall, Thin and Faceless

A man goes to visit England with his family and visits an old tailor. He sees the man has a picture of a tall, thin man in a suit whose face he can't see. He asks the man about it, but he won't tell him what the picture is of. After the holiday ends and they go back home, the man begins to have nightmares about the tall man in the picture, believing that it's not so much a nightmare as the man's presence haunting him. Due to his constant nightmares, the man becomes convinced the man in the picture is stalking him. One night, he and his wife are awoken by a window breaking, and are told by their eldest son that it came from the younger son's room. The man rushes in, and sees the man, who he now refers to as The Slender Man, hovering over his son's bed. He charges The Slender Man, but is thrown into a wall, cracking three of his ribs and knocking him out. When he comes round, his son is gone. When the police begin their search, they find the man's suit in his cupboard in tatters and covered in blood with his son's corpse wrapped in it. After being released from custody as his guilt has not been 100% proven, he discovers a drawing by his dead son of him standing next to a tall, thin and faceless man in a suit. While staying in a hotel so they don't contaminate the crime scene, the man and his family discover that his son's corpse has been stolen from the morgue. Searching for the slender man in a nearby forest, the man discovers a picture of his son, The Slender Man and some other children, implying that they too were killed by him. Shocked, the man returns to his hotel room, and discovers his family slaughtered with The Slender Man standing in the middle of the room. The man is then arrested while The Slender Man disappears. It is then revealed that the man's DNA is on The Slender Man's suit, which he left behind when he disappeared, and the man is confined to an asylum, where he begins to insist that "we were Slender", implying that either The Slender Man has sent him insane, or he is just mentally ill and killed his family while hallucinating that The Slender Man did it, although it is left up to the reader to decide.

In Movies and Series

Slender Man in the 2018 movie.

Slenderverse

Main article: Slender Man (Slenderverse)

Marble Hornets

Main article: The Operator

Windigo

Main article: Windigo (Windigo)

2018 Film

Main article: Slender Man (2018 Film)

In Music

Slender Man Song

The Slender Man's Song

Slender Man has had numerous songs written about him. In 2011, one of the most popular songs got created named "The Slender Man Song". The lyrics, the background and piano music were provided by the American singer and musician known as Zip Zipper. In 2012, the background music got released on the apple-store by a music-label known as Sable.

Other popular Slender Man's songs are such as: "Sympathy for Slender Man" (2013), by Liz Beebe, which raised over 14 Million views on YouTube, "I Got Ya" (2018) by NerdOut, and "Slendy's Lullaby" (2012) by LilyPichu.

In Video Games

Slender series

Main article: Slender Man (Slender)

Mark Slender

Main article: Mark Slender

Slendrina

Main article: Slenderman (Slendrina)