Slender Man

Slender Man (also called Slenderman, Slender, or Slendy) is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme created by Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen (using the pseudonym Victor Surge) in 2009. He is depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless white head and face, wearing a black suit, with branching tendrils.

Stories of Slender Man commonly feature him stalking, abducting, or traumatizing people, particularly children. Slender Man has become a pop culture icon, although he is not confined to a single narrative, and appears in many disparate works of fiction online. Fiction relating to Slender Man encompasses many forms of media including literature, art and video series such as Marble Hornets (2009–2014), in which he is known as The Operator. The character has appeared in the video game Slender: The Eight Pages (2012) and its successor Slender: The Arrival (2013), as well as inspiring the Enderman enemy in Minecraft. He has also appeared in a 2015 film adaptation of Marble Hornets, where he was portrayed by Doug Jones, and an eponymous 2018 film, where he was portrayed by Javier Botet.

In 2014, a moral panic occurred over Slender Man after several violent acts were connected to fans of the character, most notably a near-fatal stabbing of a 12-year-old girl in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The stabbing inspired the documentary Beware the Slenderman, which was released in 2016.