Origin Story

So, the point of this blog, as I stated last post, is to really look into this whole 'Slenderman' from every angle. I want to get into some of the creepier, more convincing evidence here. In fact, that's really what I'm looking forward to, but before I can do that we have to get the basics out of the way.

We have to go back to the beginning.

The first (known) overt discussion of Slenderman is on the Something Awful Forums, first brought up by one Mr. Victor Surge.

The forum was about creating paranormal images with photoshop; ostensibly with which to dupe paranormal websites. And for the most part it had all been in good fun, most of the images were hoaky, or humorous, with a few bordering on ligitmently scary. Then, on page 3, June 10, 2009 Mr. Surge posted this and everything changed.

"we didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time..."
- From Victor Surge's Original Post

These pictures were cited as two surviving images from a small town library fire; taken the day before the dissapearance of the fourteen children.

There was immediate response.

"Film defects my rear end... (Excellent work good sir!)"  - Gyver Mac

"Some of these images are quite creepy. I wish "The Slender Man" one was legit." - Cowboythreespeech

"oh gently caress you when i finally saw the guy in the background i lost it this is going to give me nightmares" - Leyendecker

Victor Surge's response: "Maybe I'll do some more research. I've heard there may be a couple more legit "Slender Man" photographs out there. I'll post them if I find them."

This was followed by a photo of what appears to be an old man with no face and tenticle reflected in an overexposed photograph of a mirror in an estate sale. He stands with a child and two women who seem unaware of his presence. The Report describes a the photo being taken in a dark stairwell, afterwhich there was the sound of something large being dropped. The report indicates that the camera was found bloodied, with only one of the subjects still present (but a little looser in the brain-box, if you get my drift). Of course, she doesn't stay present and accounted for, for long.

Then these a day later:

From the original Victor Surge post on Something Awful Forums

From the original Victor Surge post on Something Awful Forums

LeechCode5 was the first to post a response. Expressing a fear to post the images he possessed, but feeling the need to; he cites a stories of missing children and burning schools. This takes Slenderman into the 1970's.

From the original LeechCode5 post on Something Awful Forums

This marks the first corroboration of the Slenderman story. And the beginning of Slenderman, doing what he does best, hijacking the blog into something else.




From the original Victor Surge post on Something Awful Forums



From the original Victor Surge post on Something Awful Forums

"I'm not usually one to get all bandwagony but Slender Man is honestly one of the most inspiring and sinister things I've seen lately. Something about it seems to strike some sort of primal 'wrong' chord." - TheRiffie

"My friend is herejus camein barely made up staairs got pictur locked door but it s right there inthe hall
dont look at its pictures it dosent want to be known about dont loo..." - Victor Surge

"I read this thread while in bed last night, and if you wanted to go off on a tangent about slender man haunting the dreams of those who research him, you'll be telling the truth. Not quite a nightmare as I didn't feel the usual fear that goes along with them, but very odd dreams that started with running from an apparition of him in the distance and ended with him catching up to me and ripping my chest open with his tentacles as I tried to fight back, at which point I woke up." - GWBBQ

It always starts with the dreams, doesn't it?

By Page 6 the forum became almost nothing but Slenderman. To date the forum is 46 pages long.

Can it really be that all that fascination came from one man with one idea? Maybe he named him, and maybe that's where he got popular but is that really the true original of Slenderman?
Maybe the idea came from Slenderman. Maybe he's been around a lot longer than anyone realizes. Maybe he looks how we imagine he's supposed to look, and thus Something Awful and Victor Surge truely did define him. I don't know.

Or maybe I'm a retard.

Eitherway, I'm gonna find out.