Now let me explain a second for those who don't really know what's going on. See, there's a lot more to the Slenderman than just Marble Hornets and the game Slender, so much so that I tend to see the whole fandom as having two parts. The first part, which is pretty much restricted to ongoing blogs, vlogs in the same vein as Marble Hornets, and various other things that take place in that continuity (including some fanfics), is known as the Slenderverse (hereafter called just "The 'Verse" for simplicity's sake) and is pretty much a setting in which a very specific story is being played out. In that universe, Slendy is apparently waging some sort of war on humans, a war that only those under its control or able to stay alive long enough after encountering it are aware of. People die, people disappear, people suffer and are used. Humans, both with and against their common antagonist, share their stories and connect and try to stay alive together, determined either not to suffer alone in the dark, or determined to destroy all hope those who fight it have. The result is essentially an ongoing, massive Slenderman-themed RPG that occurs entirely on its own in a specific area of the blogosphere. It is a very dark story, and the atmosphere is very different within the collective story. Blogs frequently cross over with each other, to the point that a reader might have to follow five or six different blogs at once in order to get the full story of what's going on - and in a world where entries go missing, anyone can go insane, and anyone can be an unreliable narrator, even then it may be impossible to know what is truly going on.
The 'Verse, which is truly an amazing (if confusing) universe, is just one of the many, many areas within the Slenderman Mythos. The Mythos, being a collection of everything ever written, filmed, or created pertaining to Slendy, is absolutely massive for something that was only created in the past four years or so. It has undergone so much change and mutation that you can tell how early on in the Mythos a story was written just by looking at what traits Slendy is given in it. The Mythos encompasses all the legends ever written and all the stories ever told about it, and the constant change it undergoes is essentially encouraged by the creator of the meme, an SA goon named Victor Surge. Because of the changing traits and landscape of the Mythos, the antagonist these stories surround can be anything from entirely malevolent to occasionally beneficial, a dreaded bogeyman to a protector of children, a mindless predator to an intelligent killer, a fear eater to a human eater, and everything in between. This provides a certain degree of flexibility but also a degree of uncertainty, in that since everything here technically goes, there's no way to keep things consistant. It's no wonder, then, that most bloggers and vloggers stick within the Slenderverse particularly, kind of like how a Batman fan could prefer writing for the DCAU to the Nolanverse. The important thing to note here is that while the 'Verse is a specific setting with specific rules and specific ways things should be done to keep consistancy going between blogs, the Mythos is flexible and really doesn't have any rules - if it's scary, then go with it. Wanna say Slendy's just trying to prevent humans from suffering a worse fate than death by it? Go for it. Want Slendy to be able to literally puppeteer people with his tendrils? Tha's cool, brah. Want to speculate on just what the ever-loving crudbuckets of static is up with Slendy skewering people on tree branches? You are most certainly welcome to anytime, thank you and come again. Theories can grow and change more readily in the overarching Mythos, so it's no wonder that those fans that want some sort of consistancy in the stories (or who just really want to get balls-deep in some conspiracy theory, scary ARG fun) tend to gravitate towards the 'Verse.
Now, if you've spent any amount of time at all actually getting into the Mythos, chances are you've looked at some blogs and vlogs. And if you actually follow any of those blogs or vlogs, you've surely noticed a formula to them by now: Human goes about life or does something trivial, Slendy shows up to say hi, human starts being stalked, human starts going insane/is killed/becomes Hallowed/etc. There's usually Proxies involved, or at least some sort of mysterious possibly on Slendy's side character around providing cryptic clues and taunts, and the format is usually that of an apocalyptic log. There may be more than one person involved, and if so, one may or may not have some tragic happening in their past or have been visited by Slendy as a child and gotten away. Depending on the story, the protagonist might die and leave the blog/vlog unfinished as a result, might end up walking over to the dark side and shift the tone and focus as a result, or just continue on until things reach some sort of non-resolution. Rarely does a blog or vlog ever deviate from this formula, and that's okay - these stories are creepy reads, they make sense in the context of the Mythos, and they follow the guidelines and general feel of what the 'Verse should be. They are as interesting and addictive as they are scary, and that is the draw here.
Unfortunately, the tendancy to criss-cross blogs with each other, along with the constantly changing story inside of the 'Verse, tends to lead to what TVTropes calls Continuity Lockout. This is what happens when there are so many little storylines and minutiae to a series that, while old fans really have fun with it, newcomers become easily confused and frightened away. I know that, as a relatively recent fan of this Mythos, that I personally find the blogs a bit too convoluted for my own personal tastes. It's not that I dislike any of them, but there's so much going on at once that I can't really get any idea of the overarching story, even if I follow five blogs at once. For me, I feel left out in the cold somewhat because I can't find a good jump-on point without getting confused. It's not like with comics, where you can reboot things every two decades or so and start over fresh. You can't reboot a blog, it doesn't work that way on the internet. The only way that anyone could ever possibly 'reboot' the 'Verse is if all the bloggers went, "Well this is all just getting way too complex, let's start over" - and even then, they wouldn't do that because 1) Complex, insane theories and confusion is part of the collective story, and 2) It wouldn't be the same story if it were all rebooted. This is all really great, it's just not for me. I do not really do work within the confines of the 'Verse. I write for the Mythos, not because I find the 'Verse incorrect or inflexible or anything, but because the Mythos is just so much more open to newcomers like me. That, and I don't write fanfiction for the 'Verse - I write it to fit in anywhere, and I can't do that kind of fitting in anywhere if I did write for the 'Verse. And that is part of why I prefer to call myself a fan of the Mythos proper, rather than of the 'Verse.
Now note I said "part of the reason". That's because the other reason why I'm not super involved with the 'Verse (although I have considered it just for funsies) and why this blog is NOT a Slenderblog is because of some of the attitudes towards new things in the 'Verse. See, because there's a specific canon created there, there's a specific expectation of what should happen in your Slenderstory. That means that anything new becomes either shot down, or is ignored. Sometimes, even if you follow the formula, your blog pretty much languishes. It's very hard to break into the Slenderverse as a recurring character, but it's very easy to get hooked. And therein lies the rub.
Let me recount an example of what I've seen reading some of these blogs. There's an interesting, if rather Sue-ish, Slenderblog out there called H(a)unting, about a girl who has been Slenderstalked for ten years, and yet has never been killed by her stalker. The mysteries continue to mount when a new being named //It//, a being very similar to Slendy, starts attacking humans in the area. So basically, Slendy ends up rooming with this girl. It's quite the clever commentary on some of the differences and tropes involved in Slenderblogs, and there's quite a bit of humor involved. It manages to do something very different with the antagonist character while still making sense within the 'Verse's canon, and for the most part the fans seemed to like it. However, this changed when the author of the blog decided she wanted to introduce the Rake, another Creepypasta monster, as a recurring character, and she happened to give it traits similar to a very, very scary version of a dog. At one point the Rake gets very badly hurt by //It//-Proxies, and in the entries that follow the protagonist (the aforementioned Sue-ish character) mentions she doesn't want it to die. This apparently was seen as "jumping the shark" and "too Mary Sue" even for that blog by several fans, whom loudly rebelled and started to troll the blog's comments by posting pedophilic fiction copy-pasted from God only knows where. No, I'm really not kidding, but I really wish I was. The story posted in multiple parts was very much pedophilic, very graphic, and disgusting, done in a purposeful attempt to scare people away from the blog or bring unwanted attention from disgusting perverts. It was enough to scare me away from reading any more of the blog and pretty much ended my desire to read any more Slenderblogs for a long, long time.
And honestly, could you really blame me? Why would I want to read anything set in a fandom where people think it's okay to post this kind of content when they don't like something someone is doing? People, this author tried to do something different in the 'Verse and got horrendously flamed and trolled for it. This kind of behavior is not okay. It's backwards, unfair, and cruel, and it looks pretty damn terrible to someone who's new to the fandom. Not only that, but it sends a clear message to fans like me who might have even wanted to start their own Slenderblog - do what we say you should, or you will never be accepted here. We don't want your kind here if you're going to try to do anything different, new, or unique. And that is not any sort of environment I would ever want to be involved in. Is this really the kind of message we want to send to new fans? Why can't we accept newcomers and people who do different things as equally as we accept older members? We're all bound by our love of a creepypasta monster, why should we treat someone who is trying to be different any less equal than someone who is following the formula? How is that respectful to any blogger that puts in their time and effort into making a story, or to the characters involved in the 'Verse?
And that brings me to another subject that seems to perturb older Slenderfans - newcomers. There are an awful lot of older fans out there who will look at newcomers and wonder if they have the wrong idea about the fandom, and I know why they have such scorn. You see, because the indie game Slender was so popular, many people (myself included) got more interested in the Mythos proper. Some of us newcomers decided to do the research, others... well, others, not so much. Those others are the problem - these are the idiots who think the name of the antagonist is "Slender", who are fangirling and squeeing and saying things that amount to, as TVTropes would put it, "Slendy In Leather Pants", and people who are misunderstanding the Mythos entirely. I hate to break it to you guys, but if the Slenderman and everything related to it that you have ever seen is not making you shiver in paranoia and look twice at the nearby treeline for at least a week, you are doing it wrong. I will say the same thing here I have said so many damn times about the Joker: Slendy is not a bishie. Slendy is not a good guy. Slendy is not "just misunderstood." Slendy is not sexy. Slendy is not going to give you hugs, and no, it very probably doesn't just want $20. Slendy is a scary, awful, terrifying thing that stalks you because we don't know why, and never stops stalking you or watching you. It doesn't stop, it can't be stopped, and you will end up either dead or insane by the time it's through tormenting you. It chases humans. It preys on humans. I know every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man, but Slendy isn't even human to begin with, let alone an actual man. None of these make for qualities of a good fangirling item, and you are still fangirling over it. And when I say "fangirling", I don't just mean being a spaz and calling it adorable or whatever, I mean actively wanting to have sex with it. I have called this out before and it is still disturbing. What you people are doing is the equivolent of saying Cthulhu is "just a little hungry". You should be terrified of running into the Slenderman, not ecstatic.
Let me tell you about how I got into the Slenderman Mythos. I, like so many of you, played Slender when it came out last August. I had freaky fun with it, partially because I sort of knew about the Slenderman already. However, that same night I decided to go watch as many short films and read as many Creepypastas as possible about the being in question. One of the short films I watched was called Windigo, and I heavily recommend it to all you Slenderfans out there because it is awesome. Through the powerful combo of Creepypasta and films, I quickly became very paranoid, but the worst part was I just couldn't stop reading. It was all so very fascinating and so terrifying and I was already becoming ever more entangled in the Mythos. So much speculation, so many mysteries, and so much fear. This lasted for several weeks, to the point I saw the Slenderman in every little tiny thing - a guy walking to work in a black suit, a set of crossed trees that kind of looked like the Operator Symbol, static noises on the radio in the morning, sign posts, etc. I quickly began to dread that the stories might just be real, even if I knew they weren't, to the point I actually had a nightmare about the Slenderman chasing my boyfriend and I in the forest. And every single second of it was so damn awesome. Of course, I'm still looking for new Mythos stuff, so every so often I still, even now, have flashbacks to that panic and paranoia that got me so interested in Slendy in the first place. I still get just ever so slightly nervous around forested areas when it's dark. I once freaked out when my computer visually glitched while I was listening to the creepiest Slendy-related song ever (those brave enough to take a listen should look up "The Slender Stalker" on Youtube to understand what I mean).
That is what the Slenderman should do to you, people. That is what your experience should be like. It should give you trouble sleeping at night, it should make you dread that maybe, just maybe, it could all be real. It should make you so scared of static that you shudder just a little bit every time you're adjusting the radio and accidentally hit a non-channel. What some of these newcomers don't get is that this is a horror series, a horror Mythos in a similar vein to H. P. Lovecraft's work - and they refuse to get it. I have little tolerance for these people, and you can almost always tell them from the serious fans because they call the Slenderman "Slender" after the game. This behavior is annoying and I've already ranted on it once, so I won't do it again.
But at the same time, you have all these older fans, particularly in the 'Verse, who are looking now at any newcomer and acting as if they're unacceptable people to have in the fandom, just because the newcomer mentioned they got into the fandom through Slender. People, that game is not to blame for idiotic behavior. The people who don't do the research are. If you're going to blame anything for the influx of idiot fans, which by the way, happens in every fandom that gains some modicum of mainstream popularity, then blame the actual idiot fans. Not the game, not the newcomers who are looking for more Mythos stuff, the idiot fans. They are part of the problem, whereas newcomers like me are part of the solution. I hate being lumped in with the fangirls and fad-seekers, and always have. I feel very hurt when you guys compare me to those people, because when I get into a new fandom, I actually take it seriously. I would never have gotten into the Mythos if it didn't scare me enough and fascinate me enough at the same time to take it seriously as something enjoyable. When I joke, it's because I care and am kidding with you guys, not because it's serious. I want to be part of your community, but so many of you are so slow to trust me, and I don't mean when you're acting in character because then it makes sense in context. How come you're so afraid I'm going to "taint" your fandom when I take it just as seriously as you do, or would like to in the context of the story? Why do you want to make me feel so unwelcome?
I just don't get it. Slenderfans, can't we all just get along? We shouldn't be hating newcomers because they're new, or shunning new ideas about the Mythos just because we don't like the idea of them in our little corner of the canon. We shouldn't make it seem, to use the obvious metaphor, like so many of us can't look at the forest for a single damn tree (if anything, we should be looking to see if Slendy is nearby, not at trees). We need to start connecting more and being more accepting of newcomers, and then maybe, just maybe, we can start walking arm in arm (or in Slendy's case, arm in arm in arm in arm in arm...) together without thinking anyone is going to ruin anything. Because, I promise you, they really aren't. Let's save the conspiracy theories and paranoia for the actual stories, mmkay? :3