- We didn't want to go.
00:03
We didn't want to kill them.
00:06
But its persistent silence
and outstretched arms
00:08
horrified and comforted
us at the same time.
00:11
Welcome back to the show,
ladies and gentlemen.
00:20
As always, thank you for tuning in.
00:22
That's Matt behind the cameras,
say "welcome back," Matt.
00:24
- I'm Ben, we have various
things floating in the abyss
00:29
behind us, but most
importantly, you're here.
00:32
We're all, I presume,
alive and that makes this
00:35
"Stuff They Don't Want you to Know."
00:38
This is our first episode in a
while, and if you're watching
00:41
this the day it comes out,
then you're watching it
00:45
right around Halloween of 2015.
00:47
And so Matt and I decided
to take a look at something
00:51
listeners have asked us about on YouTube,
00:54
on Facebook, on Twitter,
where conspiracy stuff,
00:57
listeners have asked us about
this for years, right, years.
01:00
And we're finally going to cover it.
01:06
Today we're going to talk
about the rise of Slender Man.
01:09
Now what is Slender Man?
01:13
It's one of the most
famous legends in the age
01:16
And Slender Man is typically depicted as a
01:21
very, very, very, very tall,
very skinny humanoid figure
01:23
dressed in a suit, maybe with
some tendrils and darkness
01:27
coming out behind it.
01:31
And most importantly, nothing on the face.
01:32
It stalks people, and you
see it in the background
01:37
of photographs from across
times and across the world.
01:41
This is literally a legend,
and it 's a synthesis
01:46
of a couple of different kinds of legends.
01:51
There are the very,
very old myths, you know
01:53
about let's say a ghost
encountered at a cross roads,
01:56
or following someone in the woods.
02:00
And then on the other side,
there's a more recent urband
02:02
legend, the scary guy
with the hook hand who is
02:05
trolling people in their
Impalas at Makeout Point.
02:10
And they find the hook in
the car, in the car handle.
02:13
You know what I'm talking about.
02:17
What's interesting is that
Slender Man is a combination
02:19
of these things, it's one of
the first legends of its type
02:22
to exist in a world with the internet.
02:26
One other thing that's very
different about Slender Man
02:30
is that we can trace the
evolution of this legend
02:33
all the way back to its source.
02:38
In 2009 on the "Something Awful" forums
02:39
with someone identifying
themselves as "Victor Surge,"
02:42
in response to a "Photoshop
something creepy" challenge,
02:46
put out these different images
with a Photoshop difference
02:50
where there was a
person, very tall person,
02:55
suit, no face, just in the pictures.
02:58
So Slender Man was created
by this guy caling himself
03:02
Victor Surge, and we can
put Victor Surge's real name
03:07
on the screen, I think
enough time has gone by.
03:11
An from that origin point,
specifically June 8th, 2009,
03:14
the story of Slender Man
grew and grew and grew.
03:18
It was an open source legend.
03:22
Which means that people
would throw other things in
03:25
and some of the claims
might contradict themselves,
03:27
but one thing is for sure,
there were more and more claims,
03:30
they aggregated as time went on.
03:33
For a lot of people, this
would make Slender Man seem
03:36
less important, more like
just an interesting part of
03:40
folk lore or another viral
concept on the internet,
03:44
but there are some precedents
that are a little bit strange
03:49
when we look at this.
03:53
Because Slender Man is of
course, not the first faceless
03:54
humanoid monster in the human experience.
03:58
Not by a long shot, we're
talking about stuff that dates
04:01
back to ancient civilizations,
if we're talking about people
04:05
who were allegedly abducting
children, then through the
04:09
past few thousand years of
human civilization, we're full
04:13
of stories to explain
those kinds of occurrences.
04:17
You might remember the Goethe poem
04:21
wherein something called the Erl-King,
04:23
is after a little boy, the
little boy is the only one
04:29
who can see it, and no
spoilers if you haven't read it
04:32
but it's a very similar monster.
04:37
And stories of similar
creatures exist in the Caribbean
04:40
for instance, the
pre-Columbian people known as
04:43
the Taino had a monster called the Op'a.
04:45
And in Hawaii on the other
side of the continent,
04:48
Well, if we're being honest,
way out in the Pacific Ocean,
04:51
there's a story with a
thing called a "Mujina"
04:54
and you can actually go and
read eyewitness anecdotal
04:57
sightings of these faceless
creatures from as recently
05:01
as the late 50's, early 60's.
05:05
Last, finally, and most
importantly, it doesn't matter
05:08
that Slender Man is a
fictional creation when we look
05:14
at the real world
consequences of this idea.
05:18
On May 31st, 2014 two 12 year old girls,
05:24
Morgan Geyser and Anissa
Weier stabbed a mutual friend
05:28
19 times in an attempt to murder her,
05:31
a sacrifice of sorts, to Slender
Man, in the hopes that they
05:35
would become its proxies on Earth.
05:39
Also in 2014, an unidentified
woman in Hamilton
05:42
County, Ohio accused her
daughter of attempted murder.
05:46
The daughter was wearing
a white mask, a hood,
05:52
and attempted to stab
her mother in an attack
05:56
that the mother believes
is tied into belief in the
06:00
Slender Man mythos.
06:04
So depsite the fact that
Slender Man has a known
06:06
origin point, a known creation
point, unlike many other
06:11
legends, what we see is that it does have
06:14
real world consequences.
06:19
And thanks so much to
everyone who's written to us
06:22
and asked about this, because
what we are seeing is the
06:25
genesis of a legend.
06:28
One of the most successful,
one of the most well-known
06:31
legends in the digital age.
06:35
How far will it go?
06:38
What else will happen?
06:39
Those are the questions that
are gonna be up to future
06:41
historians, and maybe if we
live long enough, you and I.
06:43
But in the meantime, thank
you so much for watching.
06:48
We're getting out of here,
we're working on a very special
06:51
episode for you this Halloween.
06:54
And as you know, Matt and
Noel and I always try to do
06:57
something a little bit different.
07:00
So check out our audio
podcast, we hope that you will
07:01
find it interesting.
07:06
In the meantime, we'd like
to hear your feedback.
07:09
What do you think about Slender Man?
07:11
Are there any other
internet urband legends
07:13
that we should look into?
07:16
Let us know in the comments
below, and if you'd like
07:17
to recommend a upcoming topic for us,
07:21
or feedback on something
we've already done,
07:24
or see the stories we
look at that don't always
07:27
make it to the air, for
one reason or another,
07:29
follow us on Facebook
and Twitter where we are
07:32
"Conspiracy Stuff."
07:34
If you want to write to
us directly, we'd love
07:36
- [Matt] Yeah, it's great.
07:52
Do you mind if we get some coffee?
07:53
Then you can come back in?
07:54
- Yeah, I need some.
07:55
- [Matt] I'm just gonna leave
this like it is for now.
07:59
