Mistaking Slenderman

The Internet has a lot to answer for. For every good thing it has done, there’s a problem it has caused. Allowing people from across the world to meet and share common interests and ideas is all well and good, but some ideas aren’t ones you want shared.

Take Slenderman, for instance. You know him, everyone online has at least heard of him. Tall, pale white skin, no face, black tentacles, hunts people and children… You know the guy.

Except that, well, you don’t.

For starters, he’s not a guy. I mean, the concept of gender is somewhat irrelevant here, Slenderman is as much male as ‘he’ is a babysitter. And how you visualise Slenderman is not what it actually looks like, it’s merely the nearest thing our puny brains can comprehend to it’s true form.

But the main thing people get wrong is that they see him as a threat, as the bad guy. That’s not true at all.

There are many, many creatures out there looking to take you, take your children. Horrors beyond your and my understanding. Slenderman you can at least visualise in some form, there are others as far beyond your grasp as nuclear physics are beyond the grasp of a housecat.

And Slenderman is trying to protect you, protect the children. It is the good guy here, it’s trying to get you to run away from the danger, but we keep running from it, and into the grasp of the true evil. It’s very sad.

But I hope, one day, you and everyone else will see the truth. Slenderman was very kind to me when we met. I mean, sure he took my eye, but it was a very apologetic about it, I’m quite sure.

Now hold still, this will only hurt a little.