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Slenderman's Real World Impact
Slender, what is there to say? You're (spoiler alert) being stalked by a tall, well dressed, pale figure akin to beings such as Lord Voldemort while you try to collect 8 pages. You better watch your torch, and your back! There's not much in the way of gameplay but our dear friend has inspired some truly horrififc acts! But to get there let's dive into his origins!
Back in 2009 on the Something Awful forums the internet legend was born! Something Awful were having a photoshop contests in which the people of the internet took ordianary photos and made them look paranormal. User "Victor Surge" took two black and white images of children and put a tall, spectral and unnaturally thin figure in the background, otherwise known as Slenderman! Victor, however, went above and beyond the task as he gave his character lore of his own with eye witness accounts of abducted children and the last recorded words of a lost and nameless photographer. Slenderman became known for abducting children, for stalking the shadows and killing those who are unfortunate enough to meet him!
As with anything Victor lost control of the huge cultural impact of Slenderman, podcasts emerged based purely off talkimg about Slenderman emerged, books were written and games were made! Victor surely couldn't have known how huge his creepy image on an internet forum could get! Just days after Victor posted his entry fans were creating folklore about 16th century Germany featuring none other than our tall friend! He was an instant success! Scholars of traditional folklore have donned Slenderman as the true origin of digital folklore! He became the timeless classic that know one really asked for, but wanted! However, this little photoshop contest had horrific consequences later down the line, one that really embodies a huge issue the video game industry has suffered from since its origins!
Over in Wisconsin in the USA two young girls aged 12 and 13 stabbed one of their classmates 19 times! 19 times! The classmate survived and returned to school but the two girls claimed that they were trying to please Slenderman. They pleaded not guilty due to mental illness and later a knife was found in one of the girl's bags when they were found near a highway! By the presence of the knife the police could only hypothesise that they were out to do it again, to stalk, traumatise, abduct and try to kill a child, or an adult! What does Slenderman do? Excactly the same! This story was recent too, 21st August 2015! This year! Whilst we were talking about the Origins of Grand Theft Auto these girls were being tried for attempted murder!
It's quite convenient that we were talking about Grand Theft Auto back then, and also very much unplanned! When looking at Grand Theft Auto we looked at how it came under heavy fire to sell more units! It created an army against itself! The video game industry comes under similar flack for trying to give us worlds we can explore, lore we can dive into! We're constantly trying to defend our favourite games and try to educate people on why their not so bad. But the second something, anything, happens the industry is fired on from all sides! The Slenderman girls are another installment in our war against anyone who tries to shut the industry down, or even tries to make any form of censorship! Slenderman may not be purely in the gaming world but he's certainly had his impact. Endermen from Minecraft are based off of Slenderman and his games spawned a hugely successful kickstarter to make them free online!
