Lately this Slenderfan has come out of the woods, camera in hand and a pack full of journals with delirious scrawlings on my back, to discover something fairly disturbing. Something I'm sure everyone by now knows is obvious and which honestly makes me feel as though I'm missing a few pages somewhere.
When did the Slenderman stop being frightening?
It's a strange feeling, seeing this change that's gradually happened since 2012, when I first put on this fandom's mask and allowed all its dark mystery to take me hostage. He scared me then. He scared everyone then. He had a strangeness to him, an otherworldliness that couldn't really be matched by anything except something out of a Lovecraft novel. It wasn't so much his appearance - he is, after all, just a faceless, tall man in a black suit - but more or less what exactly he did to you. Following, haunting, terrorizing, slowly driving out all sanity within you, until finally your clock ran out and he came for you, taking you away someplace unknown, to do something unimaginable, for a reason that was unfathomable. And of course, as the horror cliche goes, "they were never heard from again". This was, and still is, the impression I have of the Slim Gentleman, and to be frankly honest, it still spooks me and drives a good part of my interest in psychological and Lovecraftian horror.
So then imagine my surprise when, devoted Slenderacolyte that I was, I crept from the shadows of the forest, saw what had become of such a fascinating being, and lifted my mask to yell, "What in the fuck happened here?!"
Or, tl;dr - Slenderman has ceased to be scary for the majority of the public. Why? Is it because of that game that came out a few years ago, and was so recently updated to include a story befitting an episode of Marble Hornets (as well as two new levels which are quite frankly as awesome as they are horrific)? Was it the memetic status this emaciated boogeyman so quickly gained afterwards? Was it the fact that nothing new had been done with the Mythos, and that his growing fanbase continued to demand more and more material that never came to be, or worse, was not up to their high expectations? Or was it simply that everyone simultaneously became bored, and moved on to greener woods, resulting in things like the awesome TheWestRecords, the currently ailing WhisperedFaith (which really isn't as good as it once was), and the Fear Mythos community?
Well... maybe none of those. No, I blame a different source for the Operator's downfall, a much more insidious poison that has destroyed the once fertile, dark, and intriguing forest of epileptic trees that is the Slenderman Mythos.
I blame shitty writing.
Now before any of you get up in arms, yes I have heard of the recent Tumblr Slenderverse Fiasco involving a group of certain creators (which I won't name here) having a "bad series night" in a private tinychat, where they streamed series they felt were awful. I'm aware of the damage their careless bantering about it has caused, and while I do believe they've been pretty damn callous (and some have even bullied others) and irresponsible about sharing the details of the event towards certain people in particular and should apologize for that, I also believe they absolutely have a right to roast series they don't like. Good taste is subjective, creators are people, and people can mock anything they feel like - it's absolutely their right because they live in a country where free speech is a thing. And unfortunately, that mocking can get downright nasty, and should not be shared with the public (which it was, and shame on said creators for that). My opinion on the event itself is ambivalent, but I personally feel, as a creator myself, that if you put out a piece of creative material, you do not get to have a say in what people say about that work. If people mock it, then they mock it, and you need to accept that as it comes. If people think it's killing their fandom, then they do, and you need to learn to roll with that. And if your heroes and idols mock it, well, maybe it should serve as a reminder that they too are people, and people are inherently flawed. Just because someone's a celebrity does not mean they're necessarily a nice person, or even that they like you all that much. Was some of what they did a shitty thing to do? Yes, absolutely, and I 100% sympathize with the people that actually were emotionally and mentally hurt by those callous actions, but come on, people - that does not excuse your behavior here. You getting your feelings hurt and feeling like you've been betrayed by someone you never even really knew that well is pretty damn sad, and if that did describe you, then you really need to grow up, move past that shit, and get your priorities straight, because trust me - the world is not nice, your idols don't owe you a damn thing, and it's quite frankly childish and selfish to think that they do.
That said, this whole thing does bring up another very serious problem, aside from some creators getting high off their successes and many fans childishly assuming these creators admire them as much as they admire the creators, then feeling betrayed and hurt when said creators do not live up to their expectations or beliefs. That issue is, as I've pointed out before, that there is too much bad writing in the Slenderverse right now, too much excess clogging the system, and that's why the 'verse is in a downswing right now. There is just too much glut in the system, too much detritus of the same concept reapplied and rehashed over and over. There is no denying that plenty of people still want, and still want to produce, Slenderman media, but half of them are simply not doing it right, copying the same stuff everyone else does. You can argue that the games did it or creator cruelty did it or Marble Hornets ending did it or insert bullshit excuse here, but the fact remains: we need to end this plague if we want our old Slendy back. We need to focus on what really makes him frightening and fascinating, and that means applying some logic here.
"But Sugary!" you cry, tugging feebly at the fringes of my tawny, Timasky-inspired jacket I always wear on chilly fall afternoons like this one, "I want to write a slenderblog/creepypasta, or film a slendervlog/short film! I want to see more Slenderman! I want to write him and I promise I'll do it really good and really cool and everyone will love it!"
First of all, why are you grovelling on my jacket, because that's pretty weird and I'm not Herr GroBmann's maker. Second, you think you can do it, write him. You don't need to ask permission to do that, he's pretty much open-source anyway (even if that open-sourceness is disputed) since he's sunken into the pop culture miasma. But if you're going to write him, take a few tips from this Slenderauthor, and try to remember them:
- Do not copy the same goddamned thing everyone else has. For fuck's sake, your Slenderman is not the Operator, Der Ritter, The Administrator, or any other iconic variation of the character. He does not have to kidnap adults. He does not have to kidnap children. He does not have to be faceless, wear a suit, have tentacles/long arms, be anything resembling sane, or control minds. He does not have to have Proxies. He doesn't have to have a damn thing in common with the average, everyday Slenderman we know and love. All he has to be is mysterious, creepy, and interesting. And guess what? You get to decide what that means. Apply your fears to him. Apply concepts you despise. Make him grotesque, visceral, disturbing to the eye and mind, and ear if you want. Slenderman is not set in stone and never should be set in stone. He's a ball of highly moldable clay - shape him to your darkest will, your most demented dreams, and he will repay you handsomely as a monster in your story.
- Slenderman is not a goddamned jumpscare. Slenderman is not a cardboard cutout. Slenderman is a character, a very moldable character that can be whatever you desire and dread. Nobody is scared by a cheap cardboard cutout that does not move springing up out of nowhere, they are merely startled. Give him a purpose. A will. A soul as bleak, a heart as black, a mind as utterly twisted as yours. He is what you make him. Get into his suit and tie, what would you do to people if you were Slenderman? How would you torment them, how would you scare them - truely scare them, to the point they believe they are seeing you everywhere even when you're not there? How would you torture your absolute worst enemy in the most horrific way possible if you had the ability to teleport, wipe memories, and cause nightmares? Want to use stuff he's already associated with? Fine, but then imagine how you would feel if you had that sort of awesome and frightening power, the power to terrorize. Slenderman is not a goddamned jumpscare. Slenderman is a monster, a boogeyman, a creature of absolute fear. Treat him like one.
- If you have to use stuff that's already established, make like a tree and go back to the roots. Return to that eerie, face-changing, giggling, disturbed Slenderman that haunted children and removed people's organs and impaled them upon trees. Spin those to your wicked ways. Which leads me to my next point...
- Write him the way H. P. Lovecraft would write him. Get visceral. Describe the little things, from how his motives work to the sheer darkness he exudes. What texture is his suit? His skin? Is he cold? Searing hot? Does he feel like nothing, or can the texture never be described? Exactly what sort of eldritch, polyphemous horror is the Slenderman? Could Cthulhu defeat him, or would even it run in terror of the Man Without a Face? Is he, like Yog-Sothoth, a being only able to influence reality through images and actions, or is he, like Nyarlathotep's masks, merely an avatar of something bigger, more horrible, more monstrous than any human could ever comprehend? How does it feel, imagining yourself as Slenderman, to rip someone's guts out; what do they feel like in your hands? How does he sense things, if he does at all? How does he work? Dissect him, get to the heart of him... then lock all that up in your mind under complete lock and key, left secret to all but yourself. Use that information wisely. Tease the reader/viewer, making them question what they know and understand about the being. Get weird, get crazy, get creative. NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING is outside the realm of possibility with the Slenderman.
- Don't write what you're not afraid of. If Slenderman does not scare you, then why write him? If you can use a different monster more effectively for what you want, then why write him? If you can literally swap any other monster in for him, then why write him? You need to use him effectively to make him work. You need to understand the fear behind him for him to work well for you. You must understand that the Slenderman is scary not because of how he looks, but because of what he does - that he stalks you for years, months, days, however long he desires. That he mentally toys with you, making you feel and see and hear things that shouldn't be real, distorting everything you know as logical, driving you slowly mad. Breaking you apart to make you weak to his influence and power... and then, finally, when he is done toying with you, spiriting you off someplace to never be seen again. Not killing, not taking over... just removing, entirely, from life and from the picture. As if you had never existed. As if you were a plastic soldier or a doll he placed in a toybox for safe-keeping. As if you were nothing to him. And make no mistake... you are. The Slenderman is not scary because he hunts people. He's scary because there's no way to comprehend or stop him. Because he's a force of nature, or might as well as be. Because he is a massive unknown variable, an operator constantly deriving and dividing our reality, inverting everything we think we understand. He is the Big Other, made from the same fabric of fear that beings like Hastur, Shub-Niggurath, and Azathoth are made of. He is clarified existential dread and paranoia, purified madness and entropy, and a constant reminder that everything you call real and care about... can be decimated in an instant. That is what Slenderman is and should be, and if you have trouble understanding that much... then it may not be that you're destined to use him as a character in your story.