"𝔉𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔱𝔯𝔲𝔱𝔥" creepypasta research, Slenderman & paranormal

"The sort of story that has you covering your mirrors": The Case of Slender Man

"The sort of story that has you covering your mirrors": The Case of Slender Man

Abstract: As a monster, Slender Man epitomizes the simultaneous alienness and familiarity that characterizes the uncanny. Created by users on the Something Awful forums, the Slender Man's most common depiction is as a preternaturally tall, skinny humanoid with a white, faceless head, dressed incongruously—given his tendency to lurk in forests—in a black business suit and tie. A potent symbol of fear, Slender Man simultaneously serves as a flexible rhetorical tool, used variously to critique popular trends, instill fear in its audiences, and as a self-referential "in-joke" whose significance is only intelligible to those already familiar with the phenomenon itself. Thus the figure of the Slender Man indexes at least two separate intellectual strands, two distinct but related conceptual frameworks: first, Slender Man is a sign of abject fear—the ultimate Other, the final evolution of radical alterity. Secondly, Slender Man subtly references the self-conscious communicative processes that gave rise to the tradition itself and are, in fact, the reason for its continued existence as an internet icon. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how, as an iconic figure produced through a collective effort and deliberately modeled after an existing and familiar folklore genre, Slender Man represents what might be thought of as reverse ostension. Building on folkloristic work on the concept of ostension, the Slender Man mythos is shown to encapsulate important semiotic processes that are self-consciously employed by its creators to make a new narrative tradition that deliberately mimics established ones.

Keywords: Legends; ostension; Internet memes; fan culture; horror; Slender Man

Introduction

In keeping with the theme of this issue—the monster as sign of radical, insurmountable, and terrifying Otherness—this article considers one contemporary permutation of monstrousness, the Internet phenomenon known as the Slender Man. As a monster, Slender Man epitomizes the simultaneous alienness and familiarity that characterizes the uncanny. [...] He kills, he causes insanity; his presence never bodes well for those who see him. As a self-conscious Internet construct whose backstory has been built up over several years by a massive community of online participants, Slender Man functions metadiscursively to reveal precisely those elements that are popularly conceived of as constituting monstrousness.[...]Slender Man is a sign of abject fear—the ultimate Other, the final evolution of radical alterity. Second, Slender Man subtly references the self-conscious communicative processes that gave rise to the tradition itself and are, in fact, the reason for its continued existence as an internet icon.

[...]

Making a Monster

To make my argument—that Slender Man offers critical commentary on the legend genre by enabling individuals to participate in the creation of a legend through reverse ostension—I draw on semiotic theory as filtered through the lens of folkloristics. Since the genre being invoked and imitated by Slender Man's users is legend, it is necessary to turn first to that genre and the way it has been conceptualized by scholars.

Scholars differ as to what constitutes a legend, but an influential definition has been that offered by William Bascom, who saw legends as prose narratives taken as true by their tellers and audiences (1984:9). The issue of belief, however, is a contentious one. Discussing the ostensive dimensions of legend narratives—that is, their potential to influence reality—Bill Ellis has suggested a more cautious approach: "[I]t seems more accurate to describe legends as normative definitions of reality, maps by which one can determine what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen" (Ellis 1989:202). Similarly, Michael Kinsella, in his study of legend-tripping on the Internet, argues, "Through legends—both supernatural and otherwise—the synergies between narrative and performance can sometimes result in the legend coming to life" (2011:11).