Published on 12, July, 2020
Many of you will probably be aware of the 'Slenderman' phenomenon. 'Slenderman' was created as part of a PhotoShop competition in 2009, whose remit was to create convincing and frightening paranormal figures. He's a very simple figure: an extremely tall man, dressed in a dark suit with shirt and tie. He's faceless, too - perhaps his most striking and sinister feature. Sometimes, he's depicted with tentacles spiraling out of his back. He lives in a mansion deep in a dark forest. He stalks children and takes them back to his mansion - either to kill them, or to keep them as 'proxies': personal servants who are dedicated to him.
Since his creation as an image, 'Slenderman' has developed into a powerful urban myth. The mythology has spread around the world via the internet - especially through sites like Creepypasta Wiki, where stories and images were first posted. He's very much an archetype, found throughout mythology and folk tales, and across cultures. Think of figures like Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Boogey-man, The Thing, Melmoth, the Wandering Jew, the Yeti, the Sasquatch, etc. Perhaps the closest model would be the Grimm's brothers' fairy tale The Pied Piper of Hamelin. The Pied Piper was a strange figure who turned up out of nowhere to help the citizens of Hamelin with their rat problem. He lured the rats away to their deaths with a pipe tune. The town councillors had promised to reward him for this. But they cheated him. So... he got his own back by playing another tune and luring all of the town's children away with him to a secret mountain, where he kept them. 'Slenderman' is similar to the Pied Piper in that his intentions are enigmatic and uncertain. Is he acting for good or evil? Or both? Perhaps the most important and powerful thing about him is that he can be whatever anyone wants him to be. He can be different things to different people. Creepypasta Wiki reflects this, with the users posting their own interpretations in images, home videos, and fan fiction. He taps into all sorts of human fears and insecurities... and also our need, perhaps, for some kind of superhero figure or monster to believe in. He's usually seen in images and videos as a furtive figure, lurking in the background. Is he merely observing at a distance? Or is he coming to get you? With no facial expression to go on... who knows?
The power of this myth, and the way it can lead people to blur the lines between reality and fiction, can be compared to something like the character of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the late 19th century. We know this. If he had existed as a real person, he'd be dead now, anyway. Either that or he'd be a highly improbable 160 or so years of age. But again, he didn't exist. And yet... people still write to him from around the world at his fictional address of 221b Baker Street!
As we know, the people most susceptible to believing in such myths are normally children. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. Superman. It's powerful stuff to them. You may also, therefore, be aware of the recent case in the US, where two young girls - Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier - have been tried for the attempted murder of a friend of theirs, Payton Leutner. All three girls were twelve at the time of the incident, in 2014. Geyser and Weier (who were complicit in the plan) lured Leutner into some woods, where Geyser stabbed her 19 times. They then ran off and left her. Leutner miraculously survived the attack and was found. The other two were later arrested walking along a highway. During the investigation, it came out that both girls had been obsessed with the 'Slenderman' stories and firmly believed in his existence. They maintained they committed the act to protect their families, because they had come to believe that 'Slenderman' was going to kill them. When they left Leutner after the attack, they were supposed to be making their way to the forest that they believed 'Slenderman' lived in. They wanted to find his mansion, tell him what they had done to appease him, and live with him as 'proxies'.
It's a very sad, disturbing and distressing case. Geyser, it transpires, is schizophrenic. She inherited it from her father - though hers is a far more severe condition. She had delusions and hallucinations, and was incapable of separating fact from fiction. Weier was a loner. An introverted child without friends, who found escape in her iPad, where she discovered 'Slenderman'. When she met Geyser, they became inseparable, and shared the obsession. Both girls are still only 15, but were tried under the adult jurisdiction. Geyser has been committed to 40 years in a mental institution, Weier to 25 years. The outcome, too, has thrown computer use for young children into a harsh spotlight. I won't comment on that. It all gets covered in this remarkable documentary about the case. If you can steel yourselves to watch it, it's a fascinating insight into the power of myth - and perhaps a wake-up call about where technology might be taking our children if it shuts them off from the world, or if they escape into it if the world shuns them.
Beware The Slenderman
I can agree that the Slenderman phenomenon is "a fascinating insight into the power of myth" but it's just the latest example and no more or less disturbing than any of the other examples throughout history.
The Salem Witch trials were another example of such a myth 'going viral' as are religions, cults, and a plethora of other examples throughout societies and history before, during and after the advent of technology and social media.
These myths have always either been perpetrated or appropriated by people who see the opportunity to use them to control vulnerable groups of people (whether those be children, minorities, the dis-empowered, or the dis-enfranchised in any society) and / or gain power, financial reward, or recognition for themselves or even simply for kicks. The myth's inventors may not even have a specific purpose in mind because 'going viral' can't be accurately orchestrated.
As a parent I want my children to learn to be objective and discerning about what they believe or buy into and to learn to lead their lives (rather then have their lives lead them) in an ever changing world. That includes enabling them to access new technologies and understand societal changes in a broader context. Technology and social media are just tools and it's up to us how we use them or allow them to use us! Myths will always be around though, regardless of new technology.
Thank you for a thoughtful response, Endymion. I agree with much of what you say. However, I would offer the following points for your consideration:
1) Myths 'go viral' via the internet much quicker and with much more potency than ever before. People don't have to wait for publication or hearsay. They have instant access to these things - often within minutes of posting. Also, in the past most children will have been taught fairy tales, myths and so on from stories read to them by their parents or teachers. Nowadays, children are more likely to find out these things independently. Most parents in the documentary, as a good example, knew nothing about Slenderman.
2) Technology and social media are far more than 'just tools'. Hammers, screwdrivers, spanners, even radios, are just tools. We do not use them habitually. We are not addicted to using them. You only have to look around you to see how huge an impact these technologies have had, in a relatively miniscule amount of time, on the way we live. People walk around with their phones all the time. People are hooked in. Yes... it is up to us how we use these technologies, or how we allow them to use us. But judging by the way adults use phones, it seems more and more that 'choice' is being taken out of the equation. And here, we aren't talking about adults, but children - human beings at their most impressionable, whose capacity to make decisions about what to believe and how to act for the best is less easy to define. Children will have a tendency to believe what they are told - because what other context do they have to make more rational judgments? Tell them Santa Claus exists, and by and large they will believe it. Similarly with God. Or anything else you care to mention. These technologies are here to stay, and children have little choice but to learn them and use them. They aren't really something that children can pick and choose about. And their ability to be objective, I would argue, is going to be more and more challenged the more it is determined by what they are experiencing in cyberspace. Also, as the parent in the documentary states, it has the inherent ability to cut children off from what is happening around them, and focusing their attention much more on what they are experiencing 'on-screen'. In this way, it is easy to see how they can be manipulated into believing what others can more rationally question.
"All of us are jacked into the system. All of our minds can be hijacked. Our choices are not as free as we think they are."
Tristan Harris - former Google employee, turned vocal critic of the tech industry.
I agree with the Tristan Harris quote although I still believe that this has always been the case. Yes, the speed and potency of the dissemination of information is exacerbated by the internet but this works in both good and bad ways. We're all more exposed but also more informed about the risks and differing opinions.
It's up to us how involved we allow ourselves to be in the virtual world. I've heard the argument that we don't, in fact, have a choice and I can go along with that but only to a point. We have no choice in the fact that much of our personal information is now online via our interactions with health services, utility companies, our employment etc. but we are in control of our interactions with social media and how much of our personal thoughts, feelings, photo's, and day-to-day activities are shared or broadcast online. These are the things we can and should be teaching our children in addition to encouraging them to learn as much possible about these new technologies in order for them to make informed choices including HOW to use them (as tools) as well as whether to use them.
Children have always discovered life truths independently of their parents, especially ugly truths because these are the ones parents are most likely to try to hide from their children and therefor not discuss with them. The golden age of childhood is a myth in itself!
It doesn't particularly surprise me that many parents knew nothing of Slenderman, it appears to be increasingly in vogue for parents to claim the credit for parenting success but to pass the buck for failures onto the larger community / society. If parents are going to continue to pass increasingly large chunks of parenting time onto technology (TV, internet, gaming devices) they can hardly claim surprise that the large multinationals controlling the content are more focused on profit margins than delicate and impressionable young minds.
My youngest child, aged 13, has a smartphone (at a much younger age than her older sisters) but isn't allowed to freely access social media. I, or her sisters, monitor her phone use and we regularly talk about the things she sees or hears about online or on TV. Independently of me, she has found out about 'sexting' and other online and real-world phenomena but she comes home and talks about / asks about these things she's discovered and I see it as my parenting and my social obligation to find out about and discuss these things with her. Blocking content from my children would only work up to a point and, I believe, would also block any chance of discussing these things openly with them. They're going to have to live in the real world at some point and it's up to parents and society as a whole to make sure we're all having these conversations so that nobody is blindly accepting of whatever content they're fed.
I've discussed pornography with my children and know that the older two (18 and 24) have seen examples of it in the past. The youngest (13) has seen things online that, while not strictly pornographic, aren't exactly TV viewing either. (As I said, I do monitor her phone.)
I've talked about these things with each of them including the difference between sex and making love and they don't all always share my views (which are similar to yours) on the subject but they have explained their views to me and listened to mine.
I have never 'told off' my daughters for looking at these (or other) things and when I saw the things my youngest was looking at I explained to her (as with her sisters) that if she was old enough to look at it / do it / make jokes about it, then she was also old enough to have a rational discussion about it with her parents. Exactly the same as I have for anything else they have encountered online or heard about at school.
I challenge their views and opinions and they mine. I think it's healthy. If either of my children make a decision to involve themselves with something I don't agree with, at least I can be assured that they've given it enough thought and consideration to be able to justify that choice. I would hope that this would stand them in good stead when deciding what to buy into in relation to anything they encounter, whether online or in the real world.
We're all capable of being taken in occasionally though, it's human nature to want to trust or to seek confirmation for opinions we already hold regardless of new evidence to the contrary, but each time we are taken in it's a learning curve. 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me' holds true so if people are repeatedly conned / swindled / tricked by the same source / type of thing, they've allowed that to happen.
Endymion said:Blocking content from my children would only work up to a point and, I believe, would also block any chance of discussing these things openly with them.
How would you feel about them viewing pornography? Just asking. Kids have a natural curiosity, of course. When I was 13, I used to try peeking in the windows of porno book shops. The first time I actually got hold of a porn magazine - very soft-core compared to what you can now view on Pornhub and Redtube - was when I was 16. I was in my mid-20s before I actually saw a porn film, and again it was nothing like the graphic stuff you can now see just through typing a few letters and clicking a button. There are all sorts of arguments about what pornography represents: demeaning of women, devaluing of loving relationships, etc. I find it all a bit ludicrous now. There isn't much of a narrative to it. It's basically just about people doing what people do, and mostly motivated by animal lusts rather than love. That sounds a bit old-fashioned, I know. But I suppose I was brought up to believe in an idea of being in love, then 'making love.' I don't think I could ever have sexual relations with someone that I didn't love. It could never be just a casual bit of fun, or something paid for for personal gratification. I'd always end up emotionally involved in some way. I guess that points to emotional immaturity, which I readily admit to having - even though I'm over 60! Or maybe not...