The Slenderman...not a Jenny Craig success story

Strange things that go bump in the night…the Boogie man hiding under your bed or in your closet…Sandusky…all these things bring up fear within a child and/or their parent. For many years tales have been passed down from generation to generation about creatures that would steal children never to see them again. Some of our deepest and darkest fears come from these stories we hear as children and they then carry on into our adult life. Once we become adults do we completely forget about such stories??? No we do not. They are still there in the back of our mind for us to tell our children or sometimes those stories come out when we hear of something unexplainable, something that can happens for no reason at all, something that makes you wonder if those stories you heard when you were younger are in fact laced with some sort of truth.

One such story that has little to no notoriety is that of the Slenderman. No it’s not some weight loss success story and no its not some stupid wrestling gimmick name it is in fact a paranormal child stealing demon…supposedly. I must admit that I have never heard of this story before or even about this thing known as the Slenderman, but I stumbled across it and here we go.

The Slenderman supposedly has a long history attached to it going back as far as german wood cuttings. It depicted a man, almost skeletal in appearance, with very long limbs that do not bend in normal positions. While not much is known about him and his origin of formation he has been linked to numerous child disappearances. It is also said to have been caught on tape in audio format, now if you can find this on the vast array of youtube videos you would see why I don’t give the audio that much credit. There are pictures of him and some supposed vided, but nothing concrete to confirm his true existence…gee sounds like every single paranormal or cryptozoology story out there to date.

The Slenderman is just that…he is slender, but over the years he has changed, I don’t know if this is because of his surroundings or he is keeping up with the fashion times. Whatever the case may be he is now depicted as wearing a suit, almost very Men In Black, plus he is now known to have multiple arms coming out of him almost like a tree. The other aspect of him is that he is always picture around or near trees or forests. Fog has also been associated with him as well as the giggling of children right before he is seen.

As well there are apparently warning signs associated with him that you should be aware of:

-Coughing up blood
-Slender Man messes with technology
-Memory loss
-Nightmares about him
-drawing the symbol (circle with an "X" through it)
-diarrhea (yes, I know)
-vomiting

Now as much as I think this is a cool story waiting for some Hollywood movie to be made about it I am not putting much faith in this one. In fact since he is referred to as the “tall man” at times then that is the title role of Phantasm and I guess Hollywood beat me to my own comment. If you research all the videos and pictures out there they seem to fake and deliberate…almost like Blair Witch. One thing where the eyes can play tricks on you is that when you see pictures of the Slenderman in the trees, yes you can see something like a person there, but its trees and there are branches everywhere, anything can seem like anything ie optical illusions.

This is just one of many stories in the long line of urban myths and stories to scare kids with. While is fun to talk about, it really doesn’t hold up to anything closely related to truth or fact.

 Be safe and remember to put down that twinkie if you ever want to be like the slenderman,

Jon Bolton
Follow... @JohnCannonTBS