The Cy-buran Legend of the Slender Man or Slenderman (SM) is one of the most fascinating, original subcultures spawned from the internet. I myself was a typical goon lurking and occasionally posting on the forums at somethingawful.com when SM first appeared in a somewhat random post by fellow goon Victor Surge (aka Eric Knudsen).
The concept behind SM was simple enough. Surge created a skinny, tentacled, faceless ghoul, inserted him in various news stories and photographs, and created a fictitious folkloric history akin to the Vanishing Hitchhiker, Hook Man or Bloody Mary. I found the meme amusing and many of the subsequent SM tales spun by other goons (called creepypasta) to be creative and amusing. To be honest, though, I never really considered SM groundbreaking or revolutionary. Imagine my surprise, then, when I started reading news accounts detailing violent crimes and eventually an attempted murder committed in the name of Slender Man.
Since encountering these horror stories come to life, I've felt the need for a definitive scholarly study of the Slender Man meme-omenon, one that addresses not only his whimsical origins but his collaborative, ad hoc development and unique stature as the first true internet-created folk legend. Unfortunately, Walter Rodriguez's poorly conceived, barely intelligible effort isn't the book the world is waiting for. https://www.scribd.com/book/246753839/Slender-Man-34-Success-Secrets-34-Most-Asked-Questions-On-Slender-Man-What-You-Need-To-Know Only my fascination with SM allowed me to choke down prose that isn't even lucid enough to be deemed turgid. In fact, Rodriguez's relentless abuse of grammar, vocabulary and punctuation makes me question whether he speaks English as a second or even a third language:
"Professor Sira Chess of the University of Georgia has marked that the Slender Man exemplifies the resemblances amid customary legends and the open origin ethos of the Internet, and that, dissimilar these of customary monsters such like lamias and werewolf/werewolves, the Slender Man's Mythos may be followed and signposted, assigning a strong perceptiveness in to in what way legend and legends shape."
If you can read and comprehend the above passage, then you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. My eyes start glazing over by the time I reach the phrase "open origin ethos."
Look, I'm not a jerk. I understand that my above critique may strike many as snarky and downright cruel. I myself hesitated before clicking PUBLISH. However, I feel not only compelled but justified in my criticism seeing as I actually endured every word of Rodriguez's book.
All writers owe it to themselves and any potential readers to at least present a clean, edited copy for consideration. Had Rodriguez collaborated or consulted with a writer or editor, the information he presents may have actually added to the understanding of Slenderman and this new breed of folklore - the oral tradition gone viral. Instead we are left with a muddled and missed opportunity to shed light on this newest, darkest aspect of the modern myth-making.
For those of you piqued to investigate Slender man further, I can point you to Wikipedia :: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man :: and numerous other web entries involving the attempted murder of twelve-year-old Payton Leutner, e.g. http://www.people.com/article/slender-man-stabbing-suspects-speak-interrogation-videos . As for me, I'm going to keep scouring online resources until I find a scholarly study worthy or my time and hard-earned disposable income.
"Prose that isn't even lucid enough to be deemed turgid" -- GOLD!
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