SLENDERMAN

Slenderman, in his black mortician’s suit, is a ghostly figure with extremely thin arms and legs and 4-8 tentacles protruding from his back. His pale face has no discernable features. His arms stretch out to lure children to him where he absorbs them.

Slenderman was first seen online in the summer of 2009 in two vague pictures that were passed around in horror sites and forums. The artist, Victor Surge “created paranormal images” through Photoshop. The artist created the two images that began the whole Slenderman mythology. Once his images hit the internet, others added to the myth, and finally, it arrived in the computers of two little girls who took it as far as attempted murder.

The first photo was dated 1983. In it a hoard of young teenagers burst out of the woods toward the camera. The second photo was of a playground full of 6-7 aged little girls. In a cluster of trees, a tale pale figure is seen with the children gathered around him. It was said that 14 children vanished at the time the picture was taken. Every myth needs a measure of danger to it.

This all would have been chalked up as just a “fun” story until two 12-year-olds in Wisconsin

led their friend into the woods to play a game of hide and seek and then, at the behest of Slenderman, tried to kill her.

The tragedy centers around three little 12-year-old girls: Morgan Geyser, Anissa Weier, and their friend Payton Leutner, a.k.a. Bella.  The three were drawn to each other by their mutual loneliness. They shared the fantasy world that revolved around Slenderman.

The girls got together on that Friday night to celebrate Morgan’s birthday by going skating and then having a sleepover. The three little girls were not popular at their middle school. They were obsessed with video games and making up scary stories. Morgan was a “creative weirdo” whose only real friend seemed to be Anissa, and Morgan seemed to be Anissa’s only friend.

When the girls were done skating, they returned to Morgan’s house and went to sleep. When they got up the next morning, they role played that one was a Star Trek android, Seven of Nine and one a troll princess. It’s doesn’t seem sure how Bella fit into this game. The three then walked to the park near Morgan’s house, with Bella taking the lead. Morgan showed Anissa a steak knife she had taken from the kitchen. The two girls had been planning this attack on their friend for weeks. The three went to the swings when Anissa suggested they play hide and seek in the woods. When they got to the woods, Morgan and Anissa, on Anissa’s cue, stabbed Bella 19 times in the chest. Bella, still alive, was taken further into the woods where the other two ordered the frightened little girl to lie down on the ground.

Morgan and Anissa, later, would say they had planned to go get their friend help, but, instead, left her to bleed to death alone in the woods. Luckily for Bella, she did not die. She crawled out of the woods and was rescued by a passing bicyclist.

Now you must be wondering what all this has to do with Slenderman…well, that connection was revealed five hours later when Anissa and Morgan are arrested. They both claimed that Slenderman told them to kill their friend and they wanted to please him.  When they were arrested, they were heading into the Nicolet National Forest to look for Slenderman.

Once they were placed in juvenile hall, Morgan descended more and more into her mental illness and talked constantly to Slenderman. She claimed to see unicorns and treated the ants in her cell as if they were her pets. She was eventually moved to a mental facility where she was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia, which is actually very rare.

In December 2014, Morgan was deemed competent to stand trial. She eventually plea bargained to be committed to a mental hospital indefinitely.

In the same year, Anissa was sentenced to 25 years in a mental institution, when she plead guilty to the attempted murder of her friend Bella. "I want everyone involved to know I deeply regret everything that happened that day," Weir said. "I know nothing I say is going to make this right, nothing I say is going to fix what I broke."

So, what lesson can we learn from this tale? At 12, children can’t handle the kind of things that come to them through the internet. They need to be monitored closely, perhaps having the computer in a family area and not in their rooms.

Myths like Slenderman can be fun for the people who create them and watch how they catch on fire on the internet, but there was nothing fun in the tale of three little 12-year-olds who believed that Slenderman was real and nearly killed one of them to please him.