RUN! Slenderman is Coming For You...

Slenderman // Doctor Who // Freddy Kruger // Ben Shapiro // CBC // Fox News

Sep 22, 2022

Yo…

I’m certain you’ve heard of this gruesome gathering:

“On May 31, 2014, in Waukesha, Wisconsin two 12-year-old girls, Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, lured their friend Payton (Bella) Leutner into a forest and stabbed her 19 times in an attempt to appease the fictional character Slenderman.”
~ Wikipedia

(A Stranger Thing: Netflix released the trailer for Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story just this past Tuesday. Dahmer was known as the Milwaukee Monster, who operated/hunted less than 20 miles from the notorious Slenderman stabbing. To quote Doctor Who: “Never ignore coincidence. Unless, of course, you’re busy. In which case, always ignore coincidence.” So we shall…ignore this lamentable coincidence.)

When this jarring news broke it was all what the? It was difficult for adults to grapple with two 12-year-old girls stabbing their best friend but then it was equally arduous to understand what a “Slender Man” is. They did what now for who now?

(Did many of these confused adults not grow up watching horror movies? Slenderman is basically an online horror meme whose preys on children…did nobody watch Nightmare on Elm Street?? Slenderman is this generation’s Freddy Kruger: Slenderman is tall and thin with unnaturally long, tentacle-like arms (sometimes actual tentacles) which he extends to intimidate or capture prey. Yeah…similar to Freddy’s glove of knives. Slender is adorned in a black suit, dressed like Will Smith in Men in Black. Freddy is permanent fall fashion: all sweater weather with his dirty red-and-green-striped sweater. Both of em don’t occupy reality in the traditional sense: Freddy Kruger attacks children in their dreams sure but he’s a movie construct; Slenderman is mostly online. These horror movies do big box office business so I’m uncertain why so many adults suddenly came down with horror-movie amnesia.)

Here’s one of the initial Slenderman images published by Eric Knudsen in 2009. You can see circled in red there is Slenderman…coming for the “innocent” children. Super creepy yet lots of fun.

*“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...”* 1983, photographer unknown, presumed dead. (Is the *Blair Witch Project* style caption…real but fake if that makes sense…)

(Horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street are fantastic because while there is a great deal of terror; hope is ever present and victory is possible. It’s inspiring because in real life you hafta do things that scare you. You can’t live in a warm and fuzzy comfort zone all the time. Evil doesn’t get the final word. Which in our messed up universe is an encouraging message worth holding onto: “Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight.”)

I’m voicing these dark affairs because I’m 200 pages deep into Slenderman by Kathleen Hale. Published on August 16, 2022 it’s the first book account of the Slenderman stabbing in 2014.

A meticulously researched captivating page turner: Highly Recommended Reading.

(The disquieting tale mirrors Dave Cullen’s excellent 2009 book Columbine: two demented and damaged kids traumatizing their community. (Also Highly Recommended Reading.) We rarely get a satisfying Why…why did they do what they did but readers can walk away with a deeper comprehension of the other Ws (Who, What, When and Where). And while Slenderman is well-written there’s a 2016 HBO documentary Beware the Slenderman that is compelling and worth checking out. Hale’s book-account builds on the research of documentary and colours in many more details while deftly avoiding the profitable trap of sensationalism.)

(But wait…there’s more: Slenderman is a 2018 fictional horror movie that is to be avoided at all costs. It has nothing to do with the stabbing; just a generic horror movie about 4 girls who summon Slenderman. Let’s just say the plot died way sooner than any of the 4 girls. It’s one of those awful horror movies that’s so bad that is what is scary about it.)

And before we swim from the shallow to the deep end you haven’t asked how I’m legally allowed to identify by name the two girls in the horrific stabbing…all the media is.

It’s more than they were tried as adults thing. This part is dreadful; on page 145 Kathleen Hale writes: “Wisconsin has taken it further: in attempted homicide cases, the minimum age for adult jurisdiction is ten years old.” Seriously?? You can charge kids 10 and up for attempted homicide cases. How? Why? I’m not suggesting a kid get away with attempted murder but ya gotta provide alternatives (other than adult jail) for these troubled youths.

(In 2014 as the media ginned up ghastly panic an online petition demanded the 2 girls face the death penalty. Umm: some issues with that…it was attempted murder; though many articles and TV news reports at the time failed to make that clear (some even said stabbings plural as if the girls were serial killers), the girls were 12 years old and most importantly and this is truly key: Wisconsin was the first state to abolish the death penalty on July 10, 1853. So even if the girls had committed murder…there was you know…no capital punishment. And sure maybe some people who signed the online petition were scared and out of state so they didn’t know. But if anyone in Wisconsin signed it; that didn’t make sense. In 1992 Jeffrey Dahmer was convicted for murder in their courts and his sentence was life imprisonment because…again Wisconsin didn’t have the death penalty. A cannibal serial killer couldn’t be executed.)

Now because of the dark nature of the stabbing…the 10 year old age thing got lost in the narrative. Instead the media focused on mental health and mental illness and the evergreen classic do you know what your kids are consuming online? Yet it’s something Wisconsin so needs to revisit.

Certainly this incident has a legit aspect of mental illness: the one girl who did all the stabbing inherited schizophrenia from her father. (Thankfully the girl who was stabbed 19 times survived; yet how she is gonna trust another human being ever…I have no idea. The two girls invited her to a sleepover for the specific purpose of killing her. I can’t even imagine how much therapy you need to even process that.)

However due to the horror underpinning of this situation it naturally generated a good ol fashioned Satanic Panic.

When the two girls were arrested and interrogated by the police; they naturally assumed with three 12 year old girls this was a ugly fight over a boy. When the two girls confessed their friend was a necessary sacrifice to save their families from Slenderman’s murderous attention; the classic appease an angry god via human sacrifice it was too bizarre a leap for them.

People murder for money, or under the influence of a jealous rage…sometimes people are straight up crazy and randomly kill others…we call em serial killers. But to stab a 12 year old girl on behalf of a horror internet meme simply doesn’t compute.

One of the investigating officers continued to follow up the “satanic angle.” He investigated the parents and even examined their Instagram images through a…sinister satanic lens. The same lens many in the media were using to share details on the crime.

On page 156 Kathleen Hale wrote:
“In 1980, a Canadian psychiatrist named Lawrence Pazder and his patient (and eventual wife) Michelle Smith cowrote Michelle Remembers, an account of Smith’s alleged experience with “satanic ritual abuse” (SRA). Despite multiple investigations into Smith’s claims, nothing in the book could ever be corroborated, and her accusations were later discredited as fake. Nevertheless…Michelle Remembers became an instant bestseller. It inspired an international manhunt for demonic cults that did not actually exist, setting the stage for a shameful period in American history now referred to as “Satanic Panic.”
By the 1990s, a decade or so after the book’s publication, religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, and therapists, as well as clients in psychotherapy, had falsely accused more than twelve thousand people of SRA. Accused parties lost their jobs and reputations. Some Goth teenagers went to prison for decades.
As Americans came to realize that their fear of satanism had actually been a case of crowd madness, Satanic Panic turned into a national embarrassment and became a cautionary tale to anyone wanting to work in psychology or law enforcement. But in 2014 Waukesha, the devil was as real as ever.”

If you grew up in the 80s or even 90s you know exactly what she is talking about. (There’s a weird evolution right now…one of our classic panics which served as a cautionary tale was razor blades or broken glass in Halloween candy. Joel Best, a professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, debunked all that. And even after it was all debunked the media persisted with the alarming fake news. No child has ever died from eating Halloween candy taken from a stranger: you can go google this. We’re not in the 80s anymore. Lately…that panic has evolved from razor blades to gummy edibles. Fox News is all in on that urban legend hardcore.)

So it was an interesting coincidence to be reading about Slenderman and reflecting on my misspent youth consuming Halloween candy from strangers and urban legends in mass quantities that I came across this Ben Shapiro article on the CBC News site.

To quote Doctor Who: “Never ignore coincidence. Unless, of course, you’re busy. In which case, always ignore coincidence.” This time I decided to explore the coincidence…or rather the article:

'It’s a slippery slope': How young men fall into online radicalization

I’ve lived through several Satanic/Moral Panics and I’m one of the lucky survivors of Y2K. News articles around these local nightmares are vague yet terrifying; this CBC article on Ben Shapiro mirrors that sloppy journalism.

(It’s kinda like a cold reading from a carnival psychic…that leaves you cold: enough details to be authentic yet vague enough that anything can be applicable. “She was right!”)

For example: in the CBC article…there’s not a single link. Even when the writer says: “Shaprio’s suggested, for example, that transgender people suffer from a "mental disorder."” You’re just supposed to accept the journalist at face value? And why that example or fail to list other examples of Shaprio’s reckless talk?

Two paragraphs later readers see this useless phrase: “experts in media, gender studies and the radicalization of young men...” Again no examples? No orgs? No books? No links to studies?

(Just above in discussing Halloween candy I mentioned Joel Best, a sociologist at the University of Delaware. He’s not a household name; yet you can google him…drop his name into YouTube or podcast directories…you can take 30 seconds to run a search or two just to even confirm I am not out to lunch. Even if dude sucks; his research is trash and I’ve been blindly misled at least I was upfront about my expert.)

And yet many paragraphs down the first quoted expert is…“a documentary and podcast producer who researches online radicalization among young men and incel subculture…” A podcast producer. Come on, bro.

Setting aside experts there’s this confusing cartwheel: “While Shapiro is not affiliated with any hate group…” then directly below that: “And the exposure to controversial — and increasingly harmful — views about masculinity, the objectification of women and the LGBT community has these same experts raising concern about how extremist, far-right groups are using TikTok, YouTube and other social media apps in a drip campaign to slowly radicalize vulnerable teens and young men.”

So unnamed far-right groups have a drip campaign while Ben Shapiro who is not affiliated with any groups (again no links) can be…lumped into that mess? Because why?

And even after mentioning the drip campaign the article concludes with “Young men aren’t inherently sexist. I think it’s the algorithms that can really make them this way.” So then why does the article start with Ben Shapiro who is not part of hate groups then evolves to blaming far-right groups only to conclude “it’s all about the algorithms…” that makes no sense.

Who exactly is the boogeyman lurking under my bed?

Look: I don’t consume Ben Shapiro at all; I just despise lousy journalism. When did quality journalism go out of fashion?

Why are articles like this along with Halloween edibles an acceptable way to make money?

There’s lots to legitimately criticize Ben Shapiro about but that requires significant work. You can’t stand up and say “this guy sucks!” then sit back down. (Even if it is true.)

The CBC opted to cut corners and present alarming “It’s 10pm, Do You Know Where Your Children Are?” fear.

Like Slenderman the internet is coming for your children. Terrible. So fired.

The sad irony is the whole purpose of these alarming articles is to raise vigilance. It’s called situational awareness; know what’s going on around you so you’re not blindsided. But it’s not the Halloween candy full of broken glass or the creepy internet meme that should activate your spider-sense rather it’s these types of shoddy journalism.

We’re heading into October which is a season celebrating urban legends, mad myths, scary stories. I enjoy all of that stuff. Got my trusty Spider-Man nightlight ready to keep the darkness and monsters at bay.

But these days the monsters don’t slink in the shadows. Like Slenderman they’re obviously online and popular enough to crossover into real life.

It’s not enough to know “what your kids are consuming online” when you have an internet diet as well.

We all unleash monsters; that’s mostly what we do online. It can be Slenderman or Ben Shapiro or feeding our fear and panic with foolish CBC articles like this one.

We all know razor blades in Halloween candy and we can’t blame that one on social media. We willingly spread that concept from person to person until it became an established urban legend: folks crafting folklore.

And sadly the monsters will claim many victims before it’s all over. In horror movies we mock the horny and stoned teens who camp at Crystal Lake or laugh at the hot girls who hears a noise and goes down into the basement to investigate…at night…with a flickering flashlight.

Yet…But and probably However: watch enough horror movies and you know the monster can be defeated; that’s the hope.

October is a scary yet a wonderful reminder we can and should defeat monsters. Real life or online or both.

If Christmas is all about peace and love, good will to man etc. etc. then let October be about hope and light and ill-will to all monsters.

If you're gonna leave a comment start by telling me what’s you go to hot beverage in the morning...Tea or Coffee?

My Pal Sammy

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