The Birth of Slender Man: The History and Cultural Imprint of the Most Creepy Meme on the Internet. Slender (Thin Man): history and facts What a Thin Man looks like

Monsters under the bed and in the dark closet are a thing of the past. A real nightmare these days is a tall, thin and faceless man with unnaturally long arms, dressed in a decent suit, by the way. Slenderman (Thin Man) - here he is, a monster that strikes terror into the hearts of people! But fear not, because wikiHow is here and ready to teach you how to stop being afraid of Slender Man.

Steps

We think logically

1. Know that you will break it. Yes, Slenderman is over two meters tall - but he is as thin as... a stick. He's the same Thin Human! He is, to put it bluntly, a jerk. And at school, most likely, it was not sweet for him. Accordingly, if he suddenly appears, you have every chance of knocking him out!

   • Come up with names similar to the name “Thin Man” - well, for example, “Fat Guy”, “Seductive Girl” or “Pear-Shaped Incomprehensible Something”. So are you really going to let some awkward Thin Man scare you?!

2. Think about Slenderman's past. What do we know about him? That's right, not enough. Well, he wears a suit every day. Who wears a suit every day? Or someone who has an extremely high paying job, or Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. Let's look at both options:

   • Slenderman has an excellent education and a great job. Well, you can come up with a lot of things here. He's probably partial to politics, flies first class, doesn't eat processed foods, doesn't watch TV, and listens to audiobooks. So, we found out something about Slenderman, and this is already a step forward! People are afraid of the unknown, and if you know that, for example, Slenderman did not vote for the future president in the last elections, then he becomes a less creepy figure.
   • Slenderman is almost like Barney Stinson. Well, perhaps his life circumstances just happened that way. After all, the guy has no face! He wants to be loved, but he has no face! Yes, my own mother will not tolerate this without difficulty! Be human, Slenderman also needs love and understanding!

3. Think about the fact that he is mortal. He's Thin Human. Accordingly, he hopes, dreams, fears, worries, wants, strives - in general, like any of us. It is quite possible that many of his wishes remain unfulfilled. Why, a man wanders through the forests, he doesn’t even have anyone to exchange a word with! Not too terrible a fate, eh? Maybe he has been praying for death every day for many years?

   • Slenderman will die. If you believe that he is alive, then it will happen. He is not the same age as the pharaohs; he will not be able to pursue you forever. Maybe he even gets sick several times a year... After all, he is the same as all of us... well, with certain reservations.
   • Names ending in “-men/man” are usually of Germanic origin. Maybe he can be fascinated by a conversation on topics related to Germany? Just not about “grandfathers fought” and not about Nazism - the ending “-men/man” is also characteristic of Jewish surnames. Of course, they didn’t see him in the synagogues, but that doesn’t mean anything.

4. Imagine him hugging. How many people can Slenderman hug at once? Do you think it would be cool to be in a group of 12 people hugging at the same time? After all, what a connection this is, eh! His hands can unite you all, give you all his warmth - isn’t that wonderful?

   • And it's more than likely that there aren't enough hugs in Slenderman's life. After all, they are afraid of him! So the next time you imagine Skinny Man, think about how you hug him. He will be moved, guaranteed!

5. Think about how he experiences the world. He has no eyes, nose, mouth or ears. Accordingly, he does not see, hear or smell you. He doesn't breathe on you. Now imagine yourself in the middle of a wild forest: without weapons, with a blindfold over your eyes, with your nose and ears cut off, with a gag in your mouth. What, the feeling of power and strength just overwhelms you? That's it... even squirrels are more dangerous!

   • Let's say he still has some kind of sixth sense. Maybe he sees dead people, can teleport, etc. This is all cool, of course - a sixth sense. But he still doesn’t have the other four.

6. Think of Slenderman as a squid. Probably, if you fry his hands with onions and butter... Not in the sense that you are a cannibal, no. Just in case you had to eat it... Look up how to cook squid dishes. You don't have to eat it, it just might be... interesting.

   • If you ever get close enough to Slenderman to cut off his hand, let it not be in vain.

   Let's act

   1. Research the topic. He's not real, so what is everyone afraid of? After all, it was invented back in 2009. Author - “Victor Surge”, location - “Something Awful” forums. There is an opinion that the author's name is Eric, he lives in Japan. Who knows, what if he has a little mermaid girlfriend and lives in a boat? It's creepy!

      • Slenderman was... part of a competition, the point of which was to come up with something creepy and supernatural. And people drew, wrote, created... Slenderman was a figment of one person’s imagination, and then hundreds of other people simply picked it up and began to develop the theme.

   2. Be objective. The traces of Slenderman in history... are hardly more than zero. Yes, many people believe that he is real - but this is not so. In addition, there are about 7 billion people living in the world, the planet is simply huge. Based on this, evaluate the chances that Slenderman will come to you.

      • What is so special about you that Slenderman would start waiting for you on the doorstep? Nothing, unless you treated him with milk and cookies yourself. In the end, Slenderman is a fiction, an image. Just like, in general, Father Frost or Santa Claus.

   3. Use it as a portal. With the ability to teleport, Slender Man can become a natural superhero! All you have to do is be nearby, grab it and move to another place! Teleportation is cool! In fact, he might even teach you how to teleport yourself!

      • And if you learn to teleport, then fame will not take long to arrive. Slenderman will be your ticket to the world of Fame and Money. And you yourself decide how you will use your newfound powers.

   4. Use it like a TARDIS. Slenderman can not only teleport, but also move through time. And who among us knows how to travel in time? That's right, TARDIS!

      • The only question is whether he moves back or forward in time. Physicists believe that traveling “backward” is impossible, but even Stephen Hawking believes that traveling “forward” is possible. However, if Slenderman does not obey the laws of physics, then he can “go back”.

   5. Find the source of those creepy sounds already! Sitting in the corner and trembling with fear, expecting a monster to appear in front of you any minute - this is not our method. Instead, get up and go explore. Maybe your mouse is scratching behind the baseboard? Or does a branch hit the glass? In general, there is no need to attribute all strange sounds to monsters.

      • In essence, Slenderman makes no sounds. He makes noise. But what is making noise then is another question. Maybe aliens?

   6. Act like he is your best friend. Why not? Imagine that you are bosom friends, that now you are throwing such a party that... ahem... This will at least puzzle Slenderman and pleasantly surprise him - after all, he is most likely not often treated with such warmth and cordiality.

      • If anything, Slenderman is probably watching his figure, so don’t take anything high in calories! Of course, as a courtesy, offer him anything, but keeping low-calorie alternatives on hand just for Slenderman is a good idea.

   Control your emotions

   1. Face your fears. Yes, you will have to do this, because if you do not find the courage to take such a decisive step, then you will continue to suffer from fear. It's unlikely you'll meet Slenderman, so remind yourself that real fear is fear itself. Do you know that Slenderman does not exist, but are you still afraid? You're screwing yourself over. What are you really afraid of? Do some self-reflection. Maybe you're afraid of formal suits? Tall people? Skinny people? What is the reason?

      • Yes, it’s easy to say, but in reality everything will be much more complicated. A notepad will serve you well in this difficult task. Write down your thoughts there. When did you start to be afraid? What is the reason? Which is more scary for you, in the morning or in the evening? By isolating patterns from your behavior, you will get closer to solving the problem.

   2. Deal with your fears by facing them directly. Let's say you're afraid of spiders. How to deal with this? Sit in a cramped room at a distance of three meters from the spider. The spider will get closer and closer, nothing will happen to you, you will get used to it, the fear will go away - the scheme is approximate, but on the whole it is correct. You can get used to everything, so what...

      • This is called “decompensation” - and it works! So go ahead and sing. If you meet Slenderman, don't run away from him screaming. Sit next to him, look at him, calm down and catch yourself thinking that you are... bored with him. That's it, the fear is gone!
        • Start small. Let's say, decompensate for 5 minutes on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, 15 on Wednesday, and so on.

Encyclopedic YouTube

• 1 / 5

  The Thin Man was created as a result of a competition Create Paranormal Images held at the forum Something Awful in June 2009: participants were asked to use a graphic editor to add any supernatural and frightening details to ordinary photographs. June 10, 2009 forum user under a pseudonym Victor Surge(according to the game credits " Slender: The Arrival", his real name is Erik Knudsen. Eric Knudsen)) published two black-and-white photomontages depicting a fictional character chasing a group of children as part of the competition, and gave him the nickname “ Thin Man" and accompanied them with the following text:

  We didn’t want to go, we didn’t want to kill them, but his stubborn silence and outstretched arms both frightened and reassured us... / 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead.

  Original text (English)

  we didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time... / 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead.

  One of two photographs that survived the Stirling City Library fire. Notable for the date - the day of the disappearance of fourteen children - and the object, called the “Thin Man”. Officials explain the distorted proportions as defects in the film. A fire in the library occurred a week later. The photographs themselves were confiscated as evidence. / 1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing June 13, 1986.

  Original text (English)

  One of two recovered photographs from the Stirling City Library blaze. Notable for being taken the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as “The Slender Man”. Deformities cited as film defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence. / 1986, photographer: Mary Thomas, missing since June 13th, 1986.

  On topic Create Paranormal Images The Thin Man's photographs created a sensation, and Victor Surge continued the theme by adding more photos, a police report, and even some children's drawings. Some users also decided to contribute by posting their own montages and fictional stories. This tradition gradually spread beyond Something Awful, and on the Internet the Thin Man quickly became very popular.

  Video diaries that appeared Marble Hornets had a significant influence on its mythology: for example, from there came the famous “Operator symbol” - a circle crossed out by a cross - and such concepts as Proxy (English Proxy, Slenderman’s “puppet”) and English. slender's sickness, symptoms that indicate his attention paid to a person. The idea of ​​​​video diaries with the participation of this character, using filming principles similar to Marble Hornets, and suggesting different theories of its origin, also gained great popularity on YouTube.

  Today, he has a large fan base, including stories, videos, amateur films, and even characters created in his image (for example, Offenderman, Splendorman and others, others). In the ideas of different people, his behavior and appearance may have almost no points of contact, since no one can describe a single image and model of behavior, and one can even say that each fan has his own image of the Thin Man, which is at least a little different from the others. This legend is also unique in that, despite its unconcealed fictitiousness, there are a relatively large number of people who, accepting this fact, believe in Slenderman and study him, and some also claim to have encountered him. This makes him the first full-fledged urban legend created on the Internet.

  Description

  Thin Man appears as a very tall, pale man with unnaturally long limbs that bend at random and sometimes black flexible tentacles or appendages growing from his back; one of his most striking features is his absolute facelessness (in some photographs by Erik Knudsen there are visible holes in the place of the eyes and nose, but later users picked up the idea of ​​a complete absence of sensory organs on this character’s head). He wears a black funeral suit with a white shirt, which could lead one to mistake him for a government agent or one of the Men in Black. Fan art often shows a modified image of him, different from the original one, and he can be depicted with a different build, body structure, skin color and clothing elements. Some researchers even tend to divide these images into the most realistic “classical” (which is usually described by people who allegedly encounter it; in English-language wikis this direction is called surgism) and “fan”, in which the character appears more as an Internet meme than an urban legend. First and foremost, the Thin Man is a kidnapper, in particular of children, whom he takes to a place where they are never found again.

  An integral part of the Slenderman image is the absolute uncertainty and ambiguity of his intentions. The canonical version of his origin, nature and goals remains, paradoxically, its complete absence, that is, perhaps even its author does not know where he came from, whether he was someone else before and why he would kidnap people. Some sources may present various hypotheses, from the tractable to the downright absurd, but it should be remembered that none of them are official theories, because there simply isn’t one. It is the uncertainty that scares people the most, since no one can say with certainty what the Thin Man does with the victim after the abduction. In addition, its inherent inevitability is also taken into account, which makes it similar to death, since it is impossible to resist it and in most cases the victim can only help himself by fleeing.

  It is believed that Slenderman is an excellent telepath, due to the absence of most senses and, accordingly, a hypertrophied sixth sense, and in Marble Hornets he was credited with the ability to erase, edit human memory and manipulate people, turning them into puppets. As a rule, the children he abducted began to have nightmares of him a few days before their disappearance. There is also an opinion that the Thin Man “feels” when people are talking or thinking about him, and tries, if possible, to find and take these people. In games based on this legend, its influence on electronic photo and video devices was noted, which began to produce strong interference when approached. He is able to teleport, lengthen his body, arms, change their number and even turn them into tentacles. As a result, he basically does not use weapons or improvised means. It is unknown whether he has any other abilities, although his appearance was often accompanied by thick fogs.

  Apparently, the Thin Man is not very active in terms of movement: he usually stands modestly in the distance, sometimes with his head tilted to one side, and does not take outwardly aggressive actions, almost nowhere is he described as running and even walks quite rarely, preferring to move using teleportation behind the limit of the observer's vision. When trying to grab someone, he uses his hands, tentacles, or tries to put the victim into a stupor using hypnosis. Often the stories mention the severe headache that people experienced when making eye contact with him.

  Its habitats are mainly forests, in which it can very conveniently disguise itself as a tree, and abandoned buildings. He attacks lonely people, who then disappear, so that neither their bodies nor any traces of their presence are found, however, Victor Surge wrote that several missing people were found impaled on trees in the Steinmen Woods. A thin person is also characterized by the habit of knocking and peeking at windows at night (on any floor).

  Prototype and similarities to other characters

  Victor Surge emphasized that the image of the Thin Man was completely invented by him, and noted that he used the image of the Tall Man from the film “Phantasm” (), as well as photographs of men in formal suits taken from the network for photo montages. Despite this, some users Something Awful noted his resemblance to a mythical character called him. Der Großmann (Russian: The Tall Man), a fairy-like creature resembling the Boogeyman and according to legend lived in the Black Forest. The tall man was used to scare naughty children who ran into the forest at night, and in appearance he was very similar to Slenderman, except that he had a face with two white spheres instead of eyes. Der Großmann popular among fans and researchers of the Thin Man, but as an independent myth it is practically unknown.

  The thin man was also “found” in Romanian folklore: one of the users Something Awful a tale was posted about two girls, Stella and Sorina, who, together with their mother, encountered a tall man dressed all in black with many arms, “long and boneless like snakes, sharp like swords, and wriggling like worms.” The tale noted the demonic nature of the tall man, and presumably his ability to telepathy. This tale is probably nothing more than an invention of a forum participant (since, in addition to Something Awful, was not found anywhere else), but it had a significant influence on the formation of the final image, since, coupled with the legend of the Black Forest Tall Man, it made it clear that Slender Man may be several hundred years old and was known long before Eric Knudsen came up with it.

  There are many characters similar to the Thin Man: nopperapon, Kabadat (eng. Cabadath) from the game series Chzo Mythos, the devil in Stephen King's story "The Man in the Black Suit" or thin people in Brian Lumley's story "The Thin Ones", aliens from the episode "Silence" of the series "Doctor Who", etc. Despite sometimes considerable (as in the case of Kabadat) They have no similarities or connections with Slenderman and his mythology.

  It is also possible that this character is similar to a common vision during sleep paralysis.

  Spreading

  The Thin Man gained popularity as a character in scary “creepypasta” stories that spread among websites, forums and image boards. Web series dedicated to Slenderman, Marble Hornets(Russian) Marble Hornets), was created by another user Something Awful under a pseudonym ce gars and was distributed through the YouTube service. The Marble Hornets webisodes, stylized as found footage, told the story of a fictional student filmmaker who, while trying to make a feature-length film, encounters paranormal phenomena, including the appearance of the Thin Man. Subsequently Marble Hornets was developed into a game in an alternate reality; As of 2013, the web series had 65 episodes, over 55 million views and 250 thousand subscribers on YouTube. In 2013, production began on a feature-length film based on the web series.

  In the TV program Digital Human The BBC's Thin Man has been called "the internet's first great myth". The success of his legend was attributed to the collective structure of the network: although almost everyone involved in creating the myth was well aware that Slender Man was a fiction, the online nature of this peculiar game allowed each participant to add their own details, thereby giving the image of the Thin Man a sense of authenticity. Victor Surge noted that a number of people, even knowing that the Thin Man was invented on the forum Something Awful a model of pseudo-folklore, but still allowed its existence in reality.

  Popular culture references

  • In a computer game Minecraft there is a mob called Enderman ( Enderman, russian The Endwalker) is a very tall black creature with long arms, reminiscent of Slender Man. Some players also noted the resemblance to another creature that was allegedly never in the game - the mythical mob Herobrine, according to legend, appearing in the fog and frightening the player by standing behind him. In addition, several mods have been created by users that add Thin Man or Herobrine to the game.
  • In Game XCOM: Enemy Unknown There is an enemy called "Dead Man" Thin Man) - a reptilian masquerading as a very elongated, thin man in a suit.
  • In the episode "Dark Side of the Moon" (eng. Moon Madness) of the animated series "Drama Heroes: All Stars", the Thin Man is clearly visible in the middle of the episode on one of the monitors where the heroes are observed.
  • In the second episode of the third season of the series “Call of Blood,” the name Slenderman is mentioned at the very beginning, and is also one of the nicknames of the antagonist, better known as the Pied Piper of Galmen - a character (though not faceless) who can stretch out his arms and put people into a trance.
  • In the ninth episode of the fourth season of the animated series “Friendship is a Miracle,” when the heroes get to their aunt’s house in the forest, Pinkie Pie gives a monologue about the Apple family, after which, in a fit of enthusiasm, she jumps on Applejack. At the moment of the jump, when the camera pans to the right, a stylized Thin Man can be seen behind a Christmas tree in the background, disappearing so quickly that he can only be seen when the video is slowed down.
  • There is also an opinion that in the second episode of the first season of the animated series Gravity Falls, in one of the scenes in the forest, Slender Man can be seen in the background, which is usually confirmed by one frame showing him standing behind a tree. In fact, this shot is nothing more than a fake (in the original video there is no one behind the tree), and in fact it did not appear in this episode or in others. But in the mini-series “The Hine-Behind” Dipper is investigating a case about a certain Hiding- a tree-like thin creature (with similar features to Slenderman) that walks through the forest, but you can only see its traces. At the end of the episode, Dipper leaves, leaving the camera, and as can be seen, the Hiding Man avoids eye contact in every possible way.
  • IN Watch_Dogs On the streets of Chicago you can see several graffiti with a stylized image of a pale man in black without a nose, mouth, ears, hair and with shaded eyes. As in the case of a shield made of Metro: Last Light, many believe this is a reference to the Thin Man, but there is no reliable evidence of this.
  • In the web series "Annoying Orange" (episode Annoying Orange Vs. Slender) the main character Orange, together with his friends, wanders through the forest of Slenderman, where he meets him and, inexplicably, collects all 8 pages.
  • There are many references to Slenderman in other independent game projects, for example, in indie horror The Curse of Blackwater, where he can be seen in the distance on the way to the hospital. also in Five Nights at Freddy's 2 there is a character Marionette (eng. The Puppet), appearing as a skinny humanoid with long limbs and a mask, but her resemblance to the Thin Man is more of a coincidence than a reference.
  • In addition to this, in Goat Simulator in the main location there is a cemetery where you can find a creature that strongly resembles Slenderman.
  • Also one of the modes Yandere Simulator has a name Slender Mod: when you turn it on, the music changes, the atmosphere becomes very creepy, and the main character is tall, with long arms, legs and hair obscuring her face.
  • Many reviewers have compared the Thin Man to the “voids” from the film “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” which are grotesque creatures of enormous stature, on the head of which there is only a mouth with many tentacle-like tongues. Despite the similarities, it is unknown whether Tim Burton was inspired by this character when creating the film.

  Most internet memes are short-lived fads: created for momentary amusement and promptly forgotten. With Slenderman, or, as he is also called in RuNet, the Thin Man, the story is the opposite: in the USA, children with a knife attack their own people, under the impression of the ubiquitous anorexic demon. We remembered how the most terrible meme on the Internet was born.

  The appearance of Slenderman

  The Slenderman that children are afraid of today is a “rebranding” of German, Russian and Romanian folklore: a collective image recreated in 2009 by members of the Something Awful forum. Then the forum members were asked to create a monster that could claim the title of a new urban legend. The winner was a user under the pseudonym Victor Surzh: he processed two black and white photographs of children in a graphics editor, adding Slenderman to the photographs.

  In a photo mockumentary, Surge attributed telepathic abilities to his creation, noting that the photographs were taken by photographers who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Surge continued to surround his hero with legends, fabricating several police reports and children's drawings of the Thin Man. Slenderman quickly left the Something Awful forum and began to conquer the Internet.

  Slender Man is believed to be very thin and capable of stretching his already long limbs to almost any size. When Slender reaches out to the victim, she falls into a state of trance, but experiences a certain attraction to the Subtle One. He, in turn, turns his arms into tentacles, wraps them around the victim and either disappears with him or disembowels him, hanging the body on a dry tree branch. Something Awful wrote that Slenderman has an antagonist brother, Splendor: a merry fellow of the same appearance, but in a colored suit, who helps those who are lost get out of the forest.

  Even at the stage of creating the monster, Something Awful had heated discussions about where the image of the Thin Man came from. Someone pointed out a certain similarity with the character of German fairy tales, the Tall Man (Der Großmann), a faceless scarecrow used to frighten hooligans. Someone recalled a Romanian fairy tale about Stella and Sorin - two girls who once saw a many-armed man, dressed all in black, whose limbs were long and boneless, writhing like snakes.

  

  Fabricated children's drawings

  Runet users remembered Longshanks (from the word “pole”) from Vladimir Dahl’s book “On Beliefs, Superstitions and Prejudice of the Russian People”: “very long and very thin, sometimes wandering around the streets at night, looking into the windows and warming his hands in the chimney; a pathetic crank, condemned to wander around the world for centuries without any purpose or position.”

  There are analogues of Slenderman in Japanese fairy tales: the Faceless Man, whom Chihiro met in Miyazaki's Spirited Away. The director copied the image of a man without a face from Noperapona - a Japanese spirit that steals other people's faces. Instead of a face, Noperapon has smooth, egg-white skin. The creature lives on the side of roads and in forest thickets, hiding away from villages.

  Surge, in turn, stated that Slenderman was a character he created, and the prototype for the visualization was the film “Phantasm” by American director Don Coscarelli. Be that as it may, the Thin Man meme turned into the plot of the web series “Marble Hornets”, and a little later formed the basis for the indie horror raft Slender: The Eight Pages - a super popular and very scary horror film, numerous downloads of which brought down the developers’ website.

  

  "Phantasm"
  1978

  
  

  How to summon Slenderman

  For the most part, people are potential Darwin Award winners: we have spent thousands of years learning to avoid danger, and now we are again climbing cliffs, diving to the bottom of the ocean with sharks and experimenting with our own psyche. If the Thin Man can be fought, then perhaps there must be ways to summon him.

  1

  It is recommended to call Slenderman at three o'clock in the morning: a time designated in Catholic literature as the “hour of the devil” - if you remember, in Scott Derrickson’s film “The Six Demons of Emily Rose,” the Evil One visited the girl when the clock hands became parallel to the floor.

  2

  For the ritual you will need five sheets of paper (the number of spell steps), a pencil, a flashlight, playing cards, glue, thin tape and a blindfold. Find a multi-story building with an elevator, go up to the top floor of the building, turn on the flashlight and lay out the sheets of paper in front of you.

  3

  On the first of them, draw a tree, on the second - a face, on the third, glue any card of the spades suit, on the fourth sheet, draw yourself. Here it is very important to complete the distinctive sign that characterizes you: beard, red hat, glasses, etc. They say that even a small detail in clothing is enough. On the last floor, draw a multi-story building: the number of floors should match the real building in which you are located.

  4

  Hang a drawing of a tree on the first floor, a face on the second, a map of spades on the third, a self-portrait on the fourth, and a high-rise building on the fifth. After half an hour of waiting on the top floor of the house, take the elevator down and check the sheets: a hanged man will appear on the tree, all features will disappear from his face, the card will be replaced by another, the fourth sheet will be empty, and the fifth will be marked with a black cross. If a mark has been made, turn around - Slenderman is waiting for you.

  
  

  How to fight Slenderman

  In March 2014, Slenderman also appeared in the TV series Supernatural. A thin person is confidently turning into an almost tangible nightmare, and nightmares need to be fought - we have already told how during the zombie apocalypse, so now we consider it our duty to give some practical advice that will help you stop being afraid of Slender.

  Slenderman can be broken over his knee, just like Nolan's Bane broke Batman. Because you are strong and he is subtle.

  2

  5

  Make friends with Slenderman, gain his trust, and then hand over the Thin Man to the authorities.

  Slenderman appeared in our culture for a reason: A thin man without a face is the embodiment of a person’s basic fears. The main markers in creating the image of a character in new Internet folklore are the strongest fear for one’s life and an equally serious fear of the unknown. From the point of view of the physiology of fear, the Slenderman character, although not unique, is very effective: according to the classification of Doctor of Biological Sciences Yuri Shcherbatykh, Slenderman fits into the classical concept of the nature of human fear, falling into the category of existential shock: fear generated by the human intellect and associated with questions about death, time, the meaninglessness of our existence, symbolism, the afterlife, etc.

  Slenderman scares poor and rich, young and old, well-educated and stupid people. Thin Man - people’s unified ideas about everything bad that can happen to them.

  

  Slenderman is a monster who stands out for his tall stature and skinny figure. He has no nose, eyes or other parts of his face. He is dressed in a black funeral suit, white shirt and red tie. This monster is also called the Thin Man. According to the legend that explains whether Slenderman exists, the monster lives in forests and areas where thick fog is constantly present. Such landscapes serve as an excellent camouflage for him. The monster attacks, stretching out its already rather large arms and hugging the victim. He then takes her away to an unknown location. When people see the Thin Man, they fall into a stupor and cannot move and call for help. The monster's fingers can also turn into tentacles.

  Does Slender Really Exist?

  In 2009, a thread was created on the Something Awful forum where anyone could suggest new characters for scary stories. Victor Serge is the man who introduced the monster Slenderman. Since then, the terrible image has spread throughout the world and, most interestingly, people began to send evidence that Slenderman exists. In numerous photographs one could see a strange creature with a thin and tall body. Photographs captured the Thin Man in forests, dark rooms, etc. Most often the image appeared in Norway, Japan and America. By the way, on the same forum there is information that the skinny monster has an antagonist brother, Splendor. He has a similar one, but his suit is colored. His main task is to help lost people return home.

  During the creation of the Thin Man, many people argued and offered their own versions of where the image of the strange monster came from. Some drew an analogy with the character of a German fairy tale - the Tall Man, who is a faceless scarecrow. Others claimed that the roots of the story originate in a Romanian fairy tale about two girls who met a scary multi-armed monster dressed all in black. Thinking about whether Slenderman (Slender Man, Slender Man) exists and where he came from, people also remembered V. Dahl’s book, or rather his hero Longshanks. There were many more different versions that, to some extent, could be attributed to the Thin Man, but no one settled on one version.

  There is also another theory that points to whether Slender Man actually exists. The image of a tall man in a suit was first described in the early 90s. Photographs depicting the Thin Man were found in the Sterlin Library. Interestingly, they were made on the day when 14 children went missing. In this story there is mention that, in addition to children, adults involved in photography disappeared. It was while taking a photo of the monster that they disappeared forever.

  Every year the story of the Thin Man acquires more and more new facts. People talk about encounters with the monster. For example, someone saw him over their bed at night, others provided photo and video evidence involving Slenderman. In March 2014, he appeared in one of the episodes of the famous TV series Supernatural. which aroused even greater interest in his person. As a result, people simply stopped distinguishing between what is true and what is just a figment of fantasy. Psychologists have their own opinion about the persona of the Thin Man. They claim that this is only a reflection of the main human ones. This image was infused with all the worst things that can happen in life.

  Let's sum it up

  Despite numerous theories and photographs, there is still no 100% proof of whether Slenderman really exists. Therefore, each person has the right to independently decide whether to believe or not that a terrible monster may be hiding in the dark, which at any time can drag you into the unknown.

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