Slenderman
The Slender Man is just a myth. We are almost entirely sure about it. But who is he, and how did he become such a big and scary star over the past years?
Easy said, the Slender Man is a thin and tall creature with tentacles growing on his back, whose favourite prey are defenceless children. Some say he is faceless, which would be pretty scary to imagine. But some say something even worse: his face changes according to who is looking at him. He appears on many black and white photos, usually within a forest, hiding behind creepy and old trees, in the plain dark.
These pictures are the only proof we have of his existence, but legends say that he comes from the Black Forest in Germany, or even that he exists since Ancient Egyptian times. Another claim is that cave paintings found in Brazil already picture his existence.
The sceptics, instead, track his existence back to a forum that might be known to many of you: Something Awful. This is the perfect platform for whoever is interested in role-playing, photoshop tricks and pranks and so much more. One of its threads, headed “create paranormal images through Photoshop” was the stage where the Slender Man was created. Not only the post soon became Slender Man-only, but the myth spread immensely all over the internet, as sometimes happens. Apparently, that thread has today 194 pages filled with pictures of the Slender Man.
Victor Surge himself, the man who created the first pictures of the Slender Man, admits that he had no idea its creation would become such a huge phenomenon.
Because the myth was created by many, it also comes in different variants and becomes slightly different each time. He could either have no limbs, or an endless number of tentacles. Eat children or prey on anyone he encounters. Some even say that he has the power of convincing humans to kill each other, which does not sound good.
Lately, the Slanderman caught a lot of renewed attention for an attempted homicide that happened in Wisconsin, in which two girls tried to assassinate a friend, after bringing her to the forest, stabbing her with a knife.
Their reasons to do so had a lot to do with pleasing the Slender Man, hoping that he would acknowledge their blood sacrifice and bring them to live with him, in the forest.
Before this dramatic event, another mystery made the Slender Man story as famous as ever: the Henderson Horse Farm shooting.
In this case, Mr Hederson, the horseman, shot his wife in the chest and was found completely shook and unable to respond in any way. After his conviction and his transfer to a mental facility, specifically exactly three years after the murder happened, he started talking again.
He claimed, in this circumstance, that a tall thin man dressed in black, with no face, was holding both his wife and daughter and that Mrs Hederson was begging him to shoot them, in order to save them.
He, therefore, shot his wife, but not his daughter, who disappeared and was never found again.
Many claim that this is just a legend and that the slender man is only an internet myth; it would surely be the easier and safer answer, but for those of you who chose to believe: beware the Slender Man.
Author Letizia
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/08/slender-man-stabbing.html
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