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
It's worth adding, I suppose, that it isn't just children who can be taken in by stuff online. I like to think I'm pretty discerning with content, but I've been caught out a couple of times with stuff that's been posted - a combination of image, textual quote and 'source' - that's actually been completely false. One such was a supposed quote by Donald Trump in a magazine interview in the '80s, saying that if he ever ran for president, he'd run for the Republicans because Republican voters were dumb enough not to care too much about him or his record. That meme went far and wide before it was finally exposed as false. The thing is, I admit that I wanted to believe it - so that made it all the more plausible for me. The addition of a source made it all the more credible, so I didn't even bother to check it. I was completely taken in.
We already know that our personal data online can be used to determine our psychological profile, and the information can then be used to target us with appropriate advertising. The Cambridge Analytica case, too, shows how this information can be used for more devious means. There is another argument, of course, that all it's done is expose the myth of the so-called 'rational' voter. Elections have always pivoted on appeals to emotion as much as to rationality, and this shows how susceptible we can be to such content. I'd wager that the Brexit vote was as much about emotion as anything else, with people being swayed (on both sides of the argument) by false or at least questionable emotional appeals. The NHS 'battle-bus' is the most obvious example. One of the things Edward Snowden blew the whistle on, too, is how security services can use our personal data not only for good (e.g. to identify possible terrorists), but for bad in terms of manipulation and 'honey-trapping'.
As I mentioned in my other thread on the subject of how tech can hack our brains, I don't think we can ever underestimate the effect this technology and these devices can have on us. Yes, many of us are aware enough to know when we're being sold a line, and to be able to separate fact from fiction. Many others, though, can be more easily taken in, and find it difficult to know what to believe. Targeted adverts can be ignored. But the likes of Google and Facebook, and the people who advertise with them, bank on plenty of people not being able to resist. We can all say we know where to draw the line, and that we use devices like smart phones as 'useful tools' only. But our lives are becoming increasingly focused on their use. We can find out where we are, find out where the best restaurants are, plan a route, order a cab, remotely operate our home appliances, catch up with our friends on social media, take photographs and upload them, download information on something we need to know, watch a film, play some music, play games, watch porn, order our shopping for delivery.... all from this one tiny device that's relatively cheap to use. Why on earth wouldn't someone want something like that? So it becomes more than an addiction. It becomes a basic necessity for life in the 21st century. When I tell my colleagues at work that I've now disengaged from social media, they look at me askance (they do that anyway, to be honest!). When I tell them that I'm getting rid of my smart phone (I hardly use it - except as a camera), they simply can't believe it. They're mainly younger people, who've been brought up with them. At lunch breaks in the staff room and canteen, they're all engaged with their phones - either temporarily, or throughout the break. Until they can come up with an alternative to these things, they're always going to be there - in hand or to hand - in most people's lives from now onwards. The implications of that are, for me, quite scary.
Bicycle said:I like to think I'm pretty discerning with content, but I've been caught out a couple of times with stuff that's been posted - a combination of image, textual quote and 'source' - that's actually been completely false.
"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it's difficult to discern if they are genuine." Winston Churchill
"The internet is totally trustworthy, I'd bet my life on it" Kurt Cobain