There’s a terrifying urban legend that’s been floating around for the last decade. It’s a faceless, tall, man in a business suit. So simple, but absolutely horrifying. There was a YouTube series I came across when I was a teenager called Marble Hornets. In this strange series, a group of people are working together to find answers about a missing friend. While watching over old footage, they found strange occurrences happening with the missing friend, that he recorded. They go searching for answers and are met with the unfortunate sightings of Slender Man.
The character Slender Man was created for a contest on a forum called Something Awful. The first picture posted of him had a caption in which others in the community expanded and created their own stories. The most popular story is that Slender Man mentally tortures you by stalking you for years; driving you crazy by making you anxious and paranoid. He then lures you out to the woods where you both disappear to wherever he takes you. All of the theories and stories spread quickly, which made the Slender Man go viral.
Slender Man eventually ended up in abundance around the internet, landing on a website called Creepypasta. On this website, two 12-year-old girls would discover this imaginary monster. They became obsessed with Slender Man.
Beware The Slenderman is an HBO documentary following the events of the two girls that found the Slender Man Creepypasta, and attempted to kill their friend because of it. The documentary shows footage of the interrogation rooms where the children say they only did what the Slender Man asked. They lured their friend into the woods late at night and attacked her, stabbing her 19 times, leaving her for dead. It’s insane to think how much fear, and imagination can disturb and manipulate people.
I think the eeriness of the case, and the subtle horror of the Slender Man creature solidifies it’s place as the scariest urban legend. Might have to sleep with a lamp on tonight..
