An internet-born urban legend character created in 2009, depicted as a tall, faceless figure in a black suit who stalks children, inspiring real-world violent incidents.
Slender Man is a fictional character created on June 10, 2009, by Eric Knudsen (username: Victor Surge) in a Photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums. It began with two doctored black-and-white photographs of children with an unnaturally tall, thin figure lurking in the background. The character spread rapidly across the internet, spawning countless derivative works.
Slender Man became an iconic figure in creepypasta (internet horror story) culture. The ARG (alternate reality game) series "Marble Hornets" garnered tens of millions of YouTube views, and the video game "Slender: The Eight Pages" became a major hit.
In May 2014, two 12-year-old girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin, stabbed a classmate. They claimed their motive was to become "proxies" of Slender Man. The case sparked worldwide debate about fiction inspiring real-world violence.
