Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 418: The Slenderman Enigma

Episode Date: July 25, 2020

Today, we explore the internet phenomenon known as Slenderman from the perspective of a living story that somehow managed to jump out into the real world despite being super lame. Will his domination be challenged by the Scungilli Man? Only time will tell. Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

There's no place to escape to. This is the last stop on the left That's when the cannibalism started So um as you know, I made this like funny little pose. I saw this plate of squid Onions on the street. Yeah, how did you know it was squid by the way? You could tell because of the flappies. It looks like little foreskins. We talked about this song inside stories It does it looks like Like where you'd hide a little penis. Yeah, okay, so it's it's the it's the celebrity injectable Into their face to make themselves look younger. Well, I mean, there's like funny little joke about how

if you leave this If you leave this plate of squid onions out that this gujili man Will visit you and give you an italian surprise funny joke. Everybody. Yes, very well on insta And um, I was laughing about it with Natalie and I thought it wouldn't be funny Such a funny thing because idea that like the schoonjilly man is like real Right, it's as real as our subject is today. Sure. I mean like that type of thing He is just as real as our subject today. He is

um But then I was like, what if I like did a thing where I went into the mirror and I said the schoonjilly man nine times sure like so it happened so you know and then again that's like sure Henry you're brilliant You're the best lover I've ever received. Well, that's I think you're I think you're adding a little bit She said a lot of stuff. She said I wish I could carry your baby, but your seamen's too strong It needs to go in the drain. Wow That's what she said I couldn't ever bring your child to term because it'll rip out through my guts Yeah, I'm pregnant in your own house then and so I went into the bathroom and I shut off all the lights

I had smoked a little bit, but I thought it was fun and I looked in the mirror and I you know, I started the ritual where I looked in the mirror dead in my face and I said the schoonjilly man The schoonjilly man The schoonjilly man you have to say the schoonjilly man. It's a part of the ritual. Okay. What number was I at? Three are you gonna do nine? The schoonjilly man The schoonjilly man five

The schoonjilly man. All right. We're at the final count down here the schoonjilly man The schoonjilly man, uh-huh, and then I had to stop right I got to eight and I had to stop What's because I was so I started getting weird, but I started smelling it I was I was like but then it smells like onions, but I legitimately was eating squid in the house And then I'd go to sleep, uh-huh and when he goes nuts at night And then I posted it into what I found this morning just this plate of what I can only describe it as schoonjilly On my front step

Welcome to the last podcast on the left everyone. I have been with henry and of course marcus parks Um, I don't know henry. I feel like maybe I I I marcus, where do I go with this schoonjilly man stuff? Because perhaps uh, you could start with asking him what the fuck is schoonjilly We already know what schoonjilly is isn't that it's it's the It's italian kong it's italian what kong kong What's kong? It's a shellfish. Well, it's schoonjilly All right, I can't do this apparently because I was like, you know

schoonjilly man is of normal height perfectly normal heights about five with seven that's shorter than no He's a normal height and he wears like a bandolero hat and little Boots. He's kind of like a twisted twisted gondolier Well, that just makes him a gondolier, I think you never you'll never find a sane person who likes to float In the middle of a city the way that the gondolier likes to float. Well folks We have a topic today that is near and dear to my heart because you know Where it began or you know where the true crime event of this character began. Yep was wisconsin Yeah, so that's kind of exciting. Is it to

Well, yes, it is a little bit um today's topic We have we've been getting a lot of people who want us to cover this person Entity idea whatever it is. We're talking slender man Now to sum you the topic of slender man might seem a little passe a childish middle school obsession Born from a young desire to find the best creepypastas on the internet of which there are very few Well, if you feel that way you're wrong You know, I honestly think that you might be correct That you are correct, but what I love is there's nothing better in the world

Than hearing slender man or as several of the wisconsin the walk of shop police prefer to him as slender man um like mr. Slenderman Yeah He's jewish and told proven otherwise This story hearing people take it seriously Yeah, is one of the funniest funniest bits on the face of the planet Listening to coast to coast a.m. And them trying to take it super seriously and the guest host a guy that was sitting in for George Norrie one episode. I was listening to just being like I gotta tell you if you keep putting nasty names in

In the titles of these emails. I am not gonna read them I would love I would love to see the coast to coast fan emails that just say fuck you For us slender man has always held somewhat of a sideways fascination Partly because we got to see this modern-day myth created on something awful And we get to see it spread through the x-board on 4chan back before the pole and r9k boards Infected 4chan and took over the entire site something totally different now than it was back then Well now it's a just a grave of its former self. It's not even the real spot anymore I believe it's 8chan that I don't even go to I don't go into those realms anymore

The only chan I like is jackie chan. He did his own stunts And he even injured his own leg in rush hour and he continued on filming rush hour 3 I was actually rumbling the bronx. Oh, that was rumbling the bronx when he jumped off Because they showed it in the blooper reel at the end of the movie That's right. That's right And he was the first person to actually have a bone grow in the tip of his penis Then he went and broke I believe it

Now slender man has shown up on a few of our creepy pasta episodes over the years Usually as an erotic joke. He's got a big thick old cock. There's one thing we know about him But we've heard that a lot about yet lanky guys Yes, we have Well with the publication of nick redfern's bulk on slender man in 2018 which works as our main source today Our view on slender man has somewhat shifted Sure Wait, I mean it's it has what you guys gonna tell me what my view should be. I didn't know it shifted

I don't believe in slender man, and I don't believe in a slender man ever. I never believe in a slender man I think anybody should have meat on their bones, but the one thing I do believe in Is the skingily man. I know what you I don't want to hear about skingily man anymore Well nick redfern kind of approached the whole slender man thing from a different perspective See the thing about slender man is that there are plenty of people out there who believe he's real Just like people believe the bigfoot the chupacabra and the Loch Ness monster are real This tall thin faceless white skinned creature in a suit who stalks children and drives its victims to the brink of insanity Became in a very short period of time something to talk about on coast to coast a curious news story and something to fear

Let me ask you something. You seem to be an expert on the slender man. I've seen him often in a very nice It's it's well cut Italian suit. Does the slender man ever wear shorts? What about the summertime? Uh, well, we haven't really noticed him wearing shorts at this point. No, no, that's not a proper coast to coast a.m They always go George, you know what? I tell you I maybe doesn't come in some of my research But a lot of the Richard points there might be a summer version of the slender man. He might have a bathing suit Well, you never know. All I know is why you talking to me about slender man. I'm here to talk about the skingily man It's taking hold. Yes, it is

In other words slender man in some ways has gone from creepypasta to cryptid But while bigfoot lives in the forest and nessie lives in the lock slender man lives inside of the internet The digital frontier the last truly unknowable place on earth outside of the deepest parts of the ocean Cool. He's like lawnmower man. Yeah, man with a bigger ding dong. Yeah, this is like a hard x version Is it possible that slender man became so famous because he looks like jack skeleton and young girls want to have sex with him You know, wow, you honestly you're close You're really hitting close to the heart of this whole thing great Now looking through all the thousands of different websites about slender man

It's difficult to suss out the people who actually claim to have seen something like slender man from those who were just whipping up a big bowl of Spooky spaghetti But it's funny here stop things that nick redford puts in this book And he's like and there's the terrible story of linda applinan. She turned on her laptop Personal computer and went into the bedroom and only to come out to see the eyeless lipless face of the slender man That is scary when you say it like paul mccartney having sex with john lennon. That's what he sounds like Well part of what makes the slender man's story powerful is the purposeful mixing of fantasy in reality

Which is obvious to us but can be highly confusing to a developing mind But this is also nothing new in the world of horror when I was a kid I 100% believed that not only was the texas chain saw masquerade real But I believe it happened less than an hours drive from the town where I grew up. It did. Uh, yeah, marcus Are you kid? I mean, but seriously the idea of having a family of inbreds murder a bunch of people whose car is broken down That's very possible. You have members your own family kill other people that their descents are also probably like Really mixed up, you know, I mean if some of the branches are kind of on top of each other in the family tree You're actually chop-top

Man, I love music Texas chainsaw massacre too if you haven't watched it you must watch it and just know what's marcus' favorite movie And then throughout the entire film you'll be like yep. Yep. Yep. Yes. All right That's totally makes sense music is my life Love love mr. Mosley But the difference is that while it was terrifying to think that such a brutal massacre had occurred near my childhood home There was no Invitation from the Sawyers to join them in their secluded farmhouse for more fun family dinners

Unlike Leatherface Slender man is not a static character the very nature of slender man begs for interaction and collaboration Because the internet where the character of slender man lives is built on those two principles I mean, I I don't want to say I'm the Leatherface expert, but I am large and I do have Homicidal tendencies and I would love to change my face and wear others as a mask. Um, what I'm saying is I believe that Leatherface is actually extremely complex and I think he wanted friends and that's what they were Leatherface is deep Leatherface is that one of the deeper of the maniac killers slender man is the mere slender man is a

Mirror image of whatever you want to put into slender man Do you want to be one of his proxies sucking his dick for the rest of time? Do you want to be bigfoot strapped to a chair getting your legs put above your ankles being forced made love to you By slender man is big thick and gorge cock. Do you want to be chubacabra at dinner with slender man slender man says? Hey, let's go back to my house We go back to his house next thing you know your ankles are behind your ears your chains of chair And you are just getting furiously made love to again by slender man Okay, I do believe that Leatherface probably has a small dong. You think so. I think so. Yeah, I'd agree. Yeah, I'd agree too

It's okay But the reason why slender man works is because it taps into something deep and the collective unconscious of humanity Concerning the monsters we create within our own minds In other words the image of the tall thin terrifying creature is not new Never be scared of the short short man Do not kind and it has a plan this level of height is it is going to come back and haunt you You wait for the tall revolution in 2030 when people play this audio and you get canceled You wait

They're always scared of tall skinnies No one's ever scared of a short round. Snoop dog. Did you see the picture with tuba can snoop snoop is the size of a He's a coat anger. He's one of the best people of all time. He killed somebody He had to kill somebody Well, what's new here is that we gave this tall thin terrifying creature a name And as we know names have power and you know, yeah, you might say slender man's lame as fuck and it kind of is Yeah, but considering how slender man was linked to a string of deaths and attacks in the last decade It's hard to argue that while he is lame. It's hard to argue that slender man doesn't have power

I think I think the true bitterness comes from and I feel this too of all the various mysterious creatures and entities that exist but that Something as dumb as slender man Got the golden laurel of true crime and have murders and attacks like placed at its feet It doesn't deserve it. No, I mean I mean, we live in a world where po d made grown men cry because they love the music so much Yeah, the world's not always fair, Henry That is like, yeah, sometimes the wrong sometimes the wrong thing makes it big po d did not

Po d didn't deserve to be big at all yet us. There we were So technically as far as legendary monsters go slender man is the newest on the scene when it comes to the big boys Knocking the infamous chupacabra off the top slot when it comes to being the new kid in town What a rock and roll high school that is Crypted high school has already been in development five times Someone's doing it. The problem is that they had like, you know, what's her name somebody from like Like le whatever name is from the other show. No, I don't know. They just have a white woman playing chupacabra So they had to cancel it three different times

Well only a chupacabra should play a chupacabra. So find me a chupacabra. I think so there needs to be chupacabra representation However, while the chupacabra's origin is somewhat mysterious Slender man's origin can be traced to a specific date When it was freely offered up as a fictional being on a simple image board That is the one truly fascinating thing about slenderman as a 36 year old man I think our generation because I looked up hashtag slenderman on tiktok, right? I looked it up just to see what the kids is he there

We're saying well, it's interesting to see the the people that are because it started in 2009 The people that are 10 years older 10 years younger than us were 14 right when slender man was born. We were already full-time adults, right? We do technically I mean we didn't live like it, but by age wise you can't believe in slender man when you're mid 20s You can't if you're on a lot of mushrooms. Well, yes You're leaving a lot of things you're like 20 at 24 We saw slender man be born and we watched it grow to us. It's we just kind of I always knew it as essentially I always knew it as a meme. I always knew it is just some dumb image

But these there's a younger generation that grew up with slender man as an actual character And there's it seems to be a popular. This is just now. I just I don't know what the hell I sound like I sound like I don't know like I'm grooming tiktok for myself The younger generations grew up with a more folklore version of slender man Where they believed in it more wholeheartedly and it became a part of their mythos But is it on tiktok did he make it to tiktok? No, he's not like a partner or anything Yeah, no, he's on there now. There's he is. Oh, yeah, it's it's piles and piles of videos. Okay. Okay. Yeah When june 2009 a user on something awful comm named eric canoodson going by the handle of victor surge

Whoa, are you telling me a guy with the last name canoodson didn't stick with it for his little name on internet? Well, he participated in a photoshop free-for-all, you know right now like now you can see these types of photoshop contests on like subreddit It's like photoshop battles Yeah, but the task was to take a normal picture and make it appear as if a paranormal event had been captured on film So canoodson took a black and white photo of a group of kids on a playground And photoshopped a tall thin monster wearing a black suit into the background amongst some of the children Because all the real villains wear a fucking suit man. Yeah, yeah, they do honestly, but this picture was so scary It was really cool. It's good. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's good

Captioning the photo he wrote this we didn't want to go And we didn't want to kill him But it's persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time Whoa, the photo was then attributed to photographer unknown presumed dead Hello scary dude Hello fucking spooky bro It is scary He then posted another photo of a group of young teenagers in the 80s

And again photoshopped the disturbing otherworldly figure into the background This one read quote one of two recovered photographs from the sterling city library blaze Notable for being taken the day which 14 children vanished and for one is referred to as The slender man Dude am sending chills down my big old spine It holds up. It is scary. It's because you're sweating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah At second photo was attributed to mary thomas missing since june 13th 1986 Whoa, bitch is dead hella fucking spooky, dude. Maybe she was driving through texas and she picked up a hitchhiker and ended up for dinner

Unless she left out a plate of skewed and onions. Yeah, you're gonna You know it's conchili man. Do not stop making conchili man happen Now obviously canoodson wasn't passing any of this off as real The whole point was that they were faking these images to see who could make the scariest one The last thing we need marcus is an italian cryptid Can we just how can you edit out every time henry says the words conchili man? I don't think that we have an italian cryptid to this. Absolutely not. I want to see where this goes I want to see it's conchili man a fucking day. I want to see if schoon gily man shows up

Okay, I mean the more you call to him The more you let him in the more you let him see. Oh my god The more the schoon gily man knows the more he can use that against you all he does is eat onions and I don't know what else he will continue to do once he's done with the appetizers Yeah, schoon gily man. I mean that shit's in la y'all are out in la. I'm still in new york I don't got to deal with schoon gily man. Schoon gily man is attracted to crudo I don't all right

But somehow canoodson had tapped into something big and within weeks If not days slender man was a bona fide meme on its way to becoming an established part of internet lore Now the word meme has pretty much had all its meaning stripped away by the internet in the last decade Reducing a somewhat complex idea to a shorthand for funny picture posted on the internet This is where we officially become like the boring older dude at a teenagers parties where we are trying to like be like Yeah, you guys think fucking memes are funny. Oh, you have a folder on your phone that says for memes only Well, let me tell you something else. Memes actually can be pretty serious Yeah, how many how many high school parties have you been invited to?

No, I just watch them. You just watch them dressed with my bandolero hat on on my tiny shoes My plate is squinted onions Watching us Well, the word itself has actually been around since the 70s coined by richard docins in his 1976 book the selfish gene His definition of a meme was an element of culture or an idea that has passed from one individual to another For example, think of the air jordan logo Yeah, buddy. I do every day, bro. Sure this simple image now recognizable almost anywhere in the world Helped spread american ideals through the cultural colonization of other countries

Which has always been america's colonization tactic of choice Yep, in addition to that the logo also suddenly carries nike's ideas of brutal capitalism And the image of jordan dunking over the world carries jordan's own ideas of winning at all costs And all of this is conveyed in one simple monochromatic image Man, now that you broke it down like that. That's fucking medallist hat. Well, there is a great Uh, there was a great meme as a matter of fact. I saw the detroit pistons They have the jordan logo above them above the word detroit now on their jerseys That is like such a win

There's one in that for years just one. He's like one day. I will buy the detroit pistons fucking stadium I will I will fucking name it the jordan bike of sports industrial zone In other words a meme is essentially a thought virus infecting people with Information and slender man worked much the same way but on a much smaller scale Where is the air jordan logo conveys athleticism? The simple tall white skinny figure of slender man conveys a primordial fear

It's because the skinnies are evil Skinnies are scary. No, we're fine. I'm a skinny I am a very skinny and I can't help it. Yeah, he can't help it. He's a toffee thin on the outside fat on the inside I don't view you as a skinny. He is skinny. No, oh 135 pounds no, there's no way 135 pounds away 150 pounds. No, he's not that skinny. That's what I'm saying I'm not saying that he is not skinny. I'm not I'm saying that he's not a skinny A skinny is one of the people that you could see like the back of their shoulder bones Well, that's that it's a medical condition. That's that's someone who is struggling with with a certain eating

You can see the back of my shoulder bones when I take my shirt off if you're really looking You're supposed to you're supposed to be able to see the bone structure in a human being I'm the healthiest one out of the three of us easily. I'm getting healthier I actually Is that true? Yeah, I guess I mean I drink a lot more Yes, yeah, maybe I'm out of crossroads here All right, can we get back to something less horrifying than than Henry's health slender man Well, interestingly this impossibly skinny nightmare creature has been around for millennia

Cave paintings found in Brazil from 9,000 years ago portray a terrifying figure with overly long arms and legs Towering over other representations of humans that are perfectly normal and I've seen these cave paintings not, you know In real life. I saw pictures, but these cave paintings do exist Yeah, man. They're scary. Yeah. Yeah, it's terrifying to see There's also the Grossman or the tall man, which is another one, which is Which is claimed to be a German folktale Yeah, I wonder what comes from

Yeah, Germany is where it comes from Arriving in the 16th century supposedly Der Grossman was said to be an incredibly tall and thin fairy who lived in the black forest and preyed on children Working as a cautionary tale Der Grossman's MO was to chase children who snuck into the forest late at night And if he were to catch them, he would whisk them away forever to parts unknown In another tale, Der Grossman would tap on the windows of children to Tap on the windows of children who stayed up too late and would again take them away to some other land

We are going to Kabul to hang out for significant miss shami hega sweet The slender believers say that there's a wood cutting from 1497 that proves the image of slender man as we know him Has been around for centuries However, the wood cutting they're talking about Der Ritter is a fake. It's a fake. Oh, no The real version shows an anthropomorphized version of death piercing a knight with a lance Yeah, but the internet But the internet added extra limbs and gave death slender man's eyeless mouthless face

It's a it's a fucking fake. In fact, I don't even know if Der Grossman was an actual old Folktale or if the entire story was a creation of the internet Even those stories of tall thin creatures do show up in Irish Scottish Lakota and Romanian folklore All famously small people. Yeah, interesting how you're still obsessed with height So what's interesting is I guess the before slender man before scanjili man before Uh, the chupacabra was just the grim reaper, right? Yeah, wouldn't the grim reaper be considered sort of a tulpa type creature? A uh Acrypted in its in its own kind of right. This is we this is literally an episode we should do

We should talk about the history of the concept of the grim reaper because I don't know how old The what we know is the grim reaper and all that. I don't know how old that image is but it's interesting that these That stretched out characters it might be born from our own nightmares. We had a really good Uh, we had a really good email from a someone who worked in the psych industry. I call the psych industry For side stories. We were talking about the man that's all hat like the people seeing these sort of these entities mid-sleep in uh sleep paralysis And he said one thing that the brain does is that it stretches things out to fill space is that it'll see a thing

And basically it will fill it up. The brain kind of fills it up and our brain is also We're good at seeing faces, but we're not good at making faces So a lot of times in a half-sleep what we'll see are these big wide open mouths Know that because you're basically watching your brain and experience lag Creating an image that it can't fully crystallize So what we and you're already at a high agitation state because you believe yourself to be paralyzed You can't move you or you are paralyzed. You can't move and you see this thing and the apprehension kind of adds a sort of Energy to that very image and I wonder if it's just sleep paralysis and these things have been around since consciousness started

But even if Der Grossman is a fabrication It still tells us that the character of slender man took on a life of its own beyond Knudsen's original creation making slender man a collaborative cryptid But in Knudsen's creation of the character he himself took inspiration from quite a few pop culture figures And at least one real-life series of crimes that could have been a case of imagination run wild themselves As far as figures went Knudsen gave slender man tentacles as a nod to Lovecraft's Cthulhu I think it's very generous that you said as a nod and not as a complete total ripoff

I mean What's interesting though is that well, I don't know man. I mean Cthulhu don't own tentacles. He don't own tentacles tentacles, you know who does own tentacles Skunjili man in this mini bucket. Yeah, you're gonna bring him up again, huh? What's interesting though is that as a child Lovecraft was also supposedly plagued by slender man like creatures that he called Night Gaunts. Yes. Yes. I always have a whenever I have to take a liquid dump in the middle of the night. I call it my night gaunt. Well, we can edit that out Now it stays

Rubbery to the touch these creatures who also supposedly appeared to Lovecraft's mother arrived as living shadows without faces And they eventually made their way into the whole Cthulhu mythos as something different Altogether they eventually became like winged bad demons. Hmm. Hmm. Cool. As far as those real life crimes went Knutsum was also inspired by a bizarre case from the 1940s known as the mad gasser of Mattoon. But Marcus you have to say it correctly. It's the mad gasser of my toon Have you seen a gasser on that my toon over there? Yes, indeed Well, this person the mad gasser supposedly broke into two dozen houses in Mattoon, Illinois

Over a two-week period and victimized the citizens of the town spraying them with a foul smelling gas That induced nausea vomiting and a debilitating effect that sounds a lot like sleep paralysis With any luck to call me skunk boy Yeah, according to witnesses the mad gasser was a tall thin man dressed in black Who would rob his victims blind leaving behind only the pungent odor of the gas he used To immobilize the good people of Mattoon. Maybe they'll call me the farty riddler I'd say yeah, check the years on this and if you take this up to what I wonder if there was any sort of copycat crimes of this Nature and the 2000s early 2000s in uh, Marquette, wisconsin

We went to school. Uh, I like to trace some of the gas station cameras to some of the activities of the mad gasser on marquette Well, I went to Milwaukee Marquette's the private school over chris farley. We're a good one. Well, yes, marquette is the good one It's the that's the yes. I went to the public school the wonky university go panthers This case was serious enough to warrant a visit from the fbi And the entire town freaked out so bad that a statement had to be made by the local health commissioner Yeah This was that statement There is no doubt that a gas maniac exists and has made a number of attacks

But many of the reported attacks are nothing more than hysteria Fair of the gas man is entirely out of proportion to the menace of the relatively harmless gas He is spraying the whole town is sick with hysteria and surprisingly low on gas Uh, sir, it sounds like you might be the mad gasser. No, absolutely not. My gasses are only the most delicious and fragrant of gasses Please sample something from my gas canister Yeah, uh-huh. Why is that guy making excuses for the mad gasser? I will confess I will confess I've become jonathan. I will confess

I have a warehouse filled with gas canisters that I must move I don't understand you're not taking this seriously enough I was making love to my wife a man broke in and put a bunch of smells in my room Then I passed out and he robbed me blind. This is a big deal I should never go to sleep with your eye if it's the first step right there sleeping in some beds Gas the gas put me to sleep not making love to my wife Now probably the most obvious visual reference when it comes to slender man are the men in black Who also wear black suits are also often tall and thin and more often than not have pasty white skin

And sure enough the ominous dreamlike Disorienting feelings that people report during men in black encounters are the same feelings people report after having supposed real life Interactions with slender man like creatures See after the slender man story started making its rounds people began saying that they'd seen this creature before Now 99 of these stories were fabrications, of course But i'm sure that at least a few of these people truly believed that they'd had an encounter If you listen to any of the uh wild lines calls from coast to coast People have been afraid of skinny people for a long time

Because they have seen some stuff and they always call me like I i'm just calling to tell you george and the other day I saw a man in a suit lying on the ground and I took a picture of it just to show my friends because they I knew that They wouldn't believe I knew and his suit was so black Yeah, it was just a businessman who was hammered after after uh happy hour I think in the end. I'm just scared of the eventual fall of capitalism and what that will mean I'm not ready for the ideological or physiological differences that a socialist universe will provide for me

Yeah, well there you go. There you have it folks From there the story of slender man evolved quickly and amateur writers all over the internet added to the mythos Pretty soon slender man was a passive aggressive creature who stalked his targets for years Using fear and paranoia to drive his victims insane Wait a second is slender man my mother Honestly, it really could be your mother as far as abilities go slender man can turn invisible sprout tentacles control mines and teleport He can also cause nightmares convulsions exhaustion vomiting and hallucinations by infecting his victims

With what's called slender sickness Over here to this side of the day. Yes, indeed. I'll take some of that So by november of 2009 just four months after slender man's creation The character had made its way all the way to coast to coast a.m Once George Norris started talking about the phenomenon. He got caller after caller claiming holy shit I've seen that thing before in the real world. I can't believe it made it all the way to coast to coast a.m Well, no things like the the follow-up articles of the there was like several uk sightings of the slender man Um that were I don't know how to put this

I there were several sightings of the uk slender man, right? There was a fourth and that man that was in charge of it was an investigator. The only way to put it is that You know nick frost the partner of simon peg. Yeah, I love nick frost. Love. I do love simon peg imagine a less masculine version of nick frost Um, and that's the only thing that stands between us and the slender man Okay, well nick frost. I mean in shon of the dead. He did kill a lot of zombies. He was a pretty tough guy He did but I'm saying less than that one step down less than that less than one step. I'm gonna say a couple I'm gonna say a flight

Ah Okay, all right. Well, I don't feel so safe anymore Now all these calls to coast to coast I mean it all could very much be a case of bandwagon jumping and it could also be that a lot of these people Just saw a big scary tree branch that looked like a tall thin creature stalking them in the woods Yeah, but other interesting things were happening on the internet in 2009 besides just slender man That was the same year that a bunch of terribly lonely men on fourchan All got together and began experimenting with the creation of tulpas

And these keyboard occultists began calling themselves topomancers That is a fancy way of saying virgin And nothing's wrong with that Really good walk bag. What a good moonwalk out of that. No problem. I Think that these guys it's interesting Yeah, because we've talked about tulpas quite a bit on this show now what we've realized over time It's like we've talked about tulpas

But now I did a little bit more research and the original idea of a tulpa Was supposed to be just like an envisioning of a 3d version of a gift that you would give in buddhist lore Like you would give to like an entry waypoint like to a god or some sort of an offering on the side an offering You would imagine you'd create an apple like that's an example in your mind And you'd use that in your visual your visualization techniques during meditation, right? But it has turned into a thing For 19 year olds on fourchan in 2009 to want to create like A a fucking pokemon with tits so they can fuck. Oh my goodness

Yeah, I mean ostensibly these dudes were trying to create thought form energy ghosts out of sheer loneliness Hoping to conjure companions out of thin air using nothing but willpower and deep concentration Yes, and it went from we can fuck these things to like or I will use them as my many henchmen And the people that said I would never run a blockbuster And now you'll see I fucking ruined blockbuster with my many floating bees Wow They've all got guns and one of them is my wife and the other one's my new mommy because she doesn't get my tulpas She's understand that I'm a topa man sir now. I don't need a job. Well indeed you don't I'm not sure if you'll be able to get one

Anyway, so I'm happy you don't want one pokemon go henry what you're describing sounds more like a pokemon hoe Uh, wow um Been waiting for that one, huh? Wow. No I actually didn't want to say that wow I'm so upset Yeah, I'll just take a second on that This is just you you've set us back. No, I know. I know it wasn't good. That's uh, that's bad We're back

However, if you listen to the stories from some of the tulpamancers as well as others who tried doing it long before 4chan dead Tulpas tend to have a mind of their own outside of their creators. For example Take jeff the talking mongoose. Oh, honk honk It's appropriate now I know as we said on our episode some speculate that jeff was a tulpa a creation of the Irving family But jeff didn't take orders from anyone. Yeah, dude He was however still a freewheeling fun loving creature for the most part because he was the creation of a loving environment

Yeah, and it shows the difference between nature versus nurture. Yeah, sometimes you have to give love You have to give love you do have to give you want your talking mongoose to not like Rape a bunch of teens You gotta give love. You do have to give love. Absolutely. It creates a much better life for everyone But if a good tulpa can be created then it follows that a bad tulpa could be created as well Oh, no And something that while slender man started off as a throwaway photoshop image He was essentially brought into the real world through collective tulpa mancy

If you do believe in the idea of creating a tulpa most tulpas To be honest, they all go that they all flip into something and they create their own agenda There seems to be jeff was the most innocent of these ideas if that's true But people talk about that original tulpa experiment when they created that the philip experiment And then there's also the stories of a deon Warwick not it's surprisingly not deon warwick. Yeah, it's deon fortune a better name, but also but less talented Okay, she created a this fat monk tulpa that's this kind of this famous like a jolly fat monk that became again Tall and thin

An evil After a while once it gained its own sentience if you believe all this interesting And well within just a couple years of his creation We started to see that there were at the very least Thousands of people who were beginning to believe that slender man was an actual being With very real desires wants and goals walk in the earth Very real desires who wants a hamburger He likes fucking snooch, dude. Yeah. Yeah, and but yeah, man. Well, what is attached to? Oh my goodness. He's a horny man

Wow slender man's a horny horny dog. Well, I'm sure we'll get to it Now most people just believe slender man was a bogeyman an unknowable creature of death and destruction Yeah, but you also had legions of lonely teenagers who were starting to identify as followers of slender man These kids were reading creepypasta stories and believing them to be true or at the very least Pretending to believe they were true because as I'm sure most of our listeners know lonely kids do and believe in some weird shit On purpose the kind of the point is to see who else wants to believe in your own little world with you I really do think there's kind of a it's a collective Choice of your obsessions as a little kid that brings kids together

And there was something about slender man that I think that what you said is kind of true originally about the jack skellington thing That he they built out his mythos to have these proxies right that he had these little creatures that were around him He's sort of like slaves. It's highly it's quote-unquote. It's emo. It's really golf 12 year olds I would have been totally do it. Absolutely. Yeah, it's cool. They there's something about belonging belonging to a group It's kind of like, you know like When people say stuff like Schools weren't there for me. My mom and dad weren't there for me. So that's why I joined the gang You know what I mean? It's that yeah, I joined a gang

You have a great insight into what it is to grow up in a may perhaps a lower income community Struggling to survive Someone who may be streets wouldn't let me out. They wouldn't understand me So that's why I joined the old peanut butter game. You joined the peanut butter again. Yeah, it's a bunch of old guys Okay, so what do these do you bring the peanut butter? Oh, yeah, you bring some initiation, man You gotta get buttered in dude. You get buttered in uh, you've been molested Oh My god, yeah, so you're gonna want to go to therapy for the next 15 to 25 years. I'm already in therapy

Do I gotta pay her double that? Yeah, you gotta triple that up Well, as Henry said these followers identified themselves as proxies Humans who did the bidding of slender man, but since there is no actual slender man giving orders These proxies took existing slender man stories and extrapolated trying to predict Maybe this is what slender man would want essentially They created a self-driven belief system out of a meme Making a demigod from a photoshop image and if that ain't chaos magic running loose on earth

Then I don't fucking know what is It's that's the thing is that it's compelling and the fact that they they took it so seriously Little kids have the ability to really spin this out and we watched this happen In real time over the last 11 years essentially we watched it go from Bullshit to bullshit that gets people killed. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's I mean The collective unconscious of 12 year olds is horrifying horrifying And that's what brings us to walkiesha, wisconsin walka. Shaw walka. Yeah, walka. Shaw walka. Shaw. It's not like the new

Kesha album, but from the midwest. I gave it the fucking texas accent. I'm sorry. All right, you've I'm very sorry In 2014 the story of slender man jumped out of the internet and into the brain of a 12 year old Schizophrenic girl and her lonely friend And the result would be a brutal attempted murder and the name of slender man Marcus, I do want to thank you for pronouncing walka. Shaw correctly. Yes. We did steal it from the native americans But please god get it right I also I'm still halfway on the schizophrenic nature of this little girl I think that this little girl is very dangerous, but we'll get into the story

Now it's interesting that all this happened in walka. Shaw because the town strangely enough has a long history Of vicious murder unexplained deaths and what appears to be a death curse Fuck yeah, hell yeah, dude. That town has a death curse. Yeah, it's called high cholesterol Oh, Henry And it also has a nice dash of local folklore way back in the early days of settlement The first residents told stories about a creature called the water man Who lived in a hidden layer in the deepest part of the rivers? Not very creative, but that's fine. Well, he's in the water He's a man. What do you mean? This congealy man technically has a lot more merit. It's a lot more depth to it

Yeah, but this congealy man isn't real in the water man's room. We'll see what happens This creature walked and talked like a normal man. And if he was wearing a hat He could only be identified by the constantly wet handkerchief hanging from his pocket Yeah hot enough for you Yeah, that's why only my napkins are wet. Well, you know, the water man would sound like oh, I don't have an accent They have an accent They have an accent. You're not over here. I guess you're hanging out in the water water

A hatless water man, however met certain death Whoa, get him a hat a top take water man a fucking lids Yeah, always always a top his head were long tendrils that would drag Unsuspecting victims into the water much like slender man's tentacles were often used to subdue potential targets Is it possible that white people just don't know how to swim? I mean, it's a cautionary tale. This is the type of thing that you tell children So they don't go near the water and accidentally drown themselves. That's where most folklore comes from

Yeah, I mean, honestly, Wisconsin is full of germans and norwegians. We're drowning people You're drowning people. You guys do sink in your heavy bones Yes, but the the the water man and these type of things what's called a it works on a circuit It's a way to technically this is secret schools in a the tiniest version where you tell a story In order to not convey the other the boring information of like you shouldn't swim in there It's dangerous because as soon as they say oh, it's dangerous. Heck. Yeah me and the peanut butter gang are going down there And Gerald and Mortimer from the peanut butter gang. Yeah, but those are two grown men. Oh, yeah, super grown overgrown Teach me how to grow. I also think it's kind of amazing that parents came up with the water man instead of teaching their children to swim

You know, I my parents are very good about that. They threw me in the water right away. I'm a great swimmer They try to kill you. Yes And I keep on coming back like Jason Boris Well, the story of the water man is actually Slavic in origin They called him Vodyanoy and this is cool. Yeah, Vodyanoy and this original creature with the face of a toad Enticed victims to the water's edge and drag them into the water with horrible slimy tentacles Marcus, how does that make you feel a fucking horrified?

I hate I hate I hate toads and a fucking monster with the face of a toad. I don't want to go I don't want to go. All right, let's say like Hottest body you've ever seen Right, right big huge butts with face of a toad. Yeah. Well, everything is nullified by the face of a toad. Yeah, is it? Yes, because it's no longer a human Well, that's just the folklore and naturally no actual deaths were ever attributed to the water man of wakasha The story of the hill of farm outside of wakasha, however is a different story

This farm was said to be cursed and a decades-long string of violent and mysterious deaths seemed to confirm that claim in 1898 the wife of german immigrant farmer john hillah was struck with a mysterious illness Now the doctor on site never figured out what the illness was because he ended up accidentally killing margaret hillah after Accidentally giving her poison instead of medicine. It's a bit of a mix of money. That's a mix. You should never keep your poison needle Right by your like um always separate them with a marker You put a little pee on it for poison is always good. Yes. Yes, absolutely, but then also. Oh my god What's the freaking drug in in Tylenol?

Uh acetaminophen No, it starts with a pee you said it What acetaminophen that's what's in acetaminophen that's what's in Tylenol. I'm talking about the thing that came never mind Is this the worst moment in radio that's ever This is all gonna be edited out. No, I'm saying it's it starts with the pee It's it's the drug penicillin Phenicillin's not in Tylenol. Not in Tylenol. It's an antibiotic. I don't I'm just saying don't put the poison right next don't put the needle of poison right next to the needle of penicillin

We've come a long way. That's what I wanted to say. We come we walked a really long route to get to this Yeah, I know that but it was worth it wasn't it? Just say this kujili man nine times Just do it. Just say we're gonna try maybe later. Well brokenhearted John hilla died soon after his wife and his three children took over the farm But they too would die under either tragic or bizarre circumstances The first was crushed to death by a bull Trampled to a pulp in a workplace accident. It happens on a farm every once in a while. Damn. You're very you're very

Like yeah, that's a little bit like oh that happens trampled by a bull is not even in the one That's not the top 1,000 causes of death. My brother was almost killed that way. Whoa. Yeah. I mean it fucking happens Man people work so much harder than us. Yes, they do The next two children died in quick succession after being swept up in a bizarre blackmail plot See as I said the hill is we're german an anti-german sentiment in america was running pretty high during world war one So in 1918 the hilla family hired a farmhand named claus who worked with an accomplice to blackmail the hill is Hmm claus and his friend told the family that if they didn't pay up He would report all of them as german spies

Damn But instead of paying william hilla grabbed a shotgun Killed claus's accomplice then killed himself in his barn After shooting his horses and his dog. I'm sure this guy wasn't fucking polish. Yeah, what? You just got out of the blackmailing thing. Why would you then kill everybody in the way the horses in the dog? Yeah, what the horses do? I mean leave the horses alone. I mean come on and the dog. Yeah What's going on here bereft with grief the last hilla killed herself by drinking arsenic and slashing her wrists? Shit 20 years later a couple named the ransoms moved in to the same farm and in short order

Two grandchildren were killed one by drowning and another crushed to death by farm machinery and the same barn where william Shot himself this place needs to be burned to the ground. Yeah, there's something going on there Something's in the water or the cheese curd something's happening and reportedly the last person who owned the farm said that while there was no Violent death while he owned it. He regularly saw shadowy figures wandering the grounds But that might also be his mind playing tricks on him because he bought the fucking death farm Well, could be but did he know it was the death farm before he reported everyone in walk of shot knew it was the death farm Okay, did he get a deal on it or do they charge him double? I don't think that it works like maybe who knows nowadays. I think you charge double

He absolutely got a deal on it like actually like last weekend me and carolina took a little uh road trip We drove up to the amityville house the uh the fucking yeah the um defaio murder house Every house around it is extremely nice well manicured, but the defaio house is run down The windows are all fucked up like there's a the paint job is bad because I think at least that The defaio house goes for a lot cheaper than all the rest of the houses in the neighborhood And the people who bought the defaio house didn't necessarily have the funds to keep up a house that big It takes a lot of money to do all the maintenance and then also But there's also the other side of me and like are they just like us and we're like we need to make this place

Look as fucking creepy And the inside's just spotless and modern and incredible All I know is if I was a kid on that block halloween is extra fun Go to that house they got they have to get full size snickers bars. Oh, they fucking better. Yeah, they better get full size Snickers bars But the hila farm curse wasn't even the only incident of tragic death and murder and walk ashore In 1921 the decaying bloated body of a boy killed by a violent blow to the head Was found floating in an old quarry outside of town

He was wearing clothes and shoes much nicer than those worn by the fulcrum walk ashore So the local press somewhat cruelly began to refer to him as little lord funtleroy They're Bitter making fun of a fashionable dead boy Oh, yeah, you know he flew too close to the sun Yeah, I guess somebody who's got time to go do all the shopping and he did go different stores trying to coordinate His shorts and his shirt. I guess he would have time enough to end up dead in a quarry. I guess so. I don't know I'm too busy working to end up dead in a quarry. Well, I don't know if that's true

I gotta go work at the quarry. Yeah, you might die in a quarry. You do understand that, right? My goal is to die next to the quarry. Well, that's also possible. Well, little lord funtleroy's body was never identified But in 2015 a psychic named marie st. Clair claimed that the boy had been killed by a slim man In a dark suit. Yeah, although that claim was made after anisa weir and morgan geyser rebranded walk ashore As slender man usa Rolls off the top. I will say slender man usa is an incredible fashion line But I hate the cuts of their shirts Only do you show off my tits

But I also find interesting as you go through this I find different search results if you type in slender man as one word and slender man as two words They are all slender man Our slender man content. Okay, but everybody can't seem to agree As whether or not slender man is one word or two words. What if you put the hyphen in there? He's not married to gwyneth paltrow. I don't know Conscious uncomplaint. Now. I'm sure most of you followed what is often erroneously called the slender man murders as it was happening or you at least watch the overly long

HBO documentary about the crime called beware the slender man. There's another newer overly long Slender man documentary on the reels channel that is also an hour and 45 minutes And it's them. That's where the slender man. They keep calling him the slender Yeah He has I will say for all of the impact that slender man has made. He has not done well with cinema No, or tv. No everything about him In the artistic sphere is bad. It fucking sucks marble hornets. I'm gonna get in trouble probably with the younger generation I hate marble hornets. I hated marble hornets. Yeah

But to give you a refresh in 2014 two 12 year old girls named annisa weir and morgan geyser Discovered the slender man character on the creepypasta wiki and pretty soon Both had come to believe that slender man was real or at least they were pretending to believe he was real I think they did Now morgan geyser sort of had an excuse because she was in the throes of undiagnosed childhood schizophrenia Which is a malady that her father suffered from as well And this is my most hot takey topic. This is my most hot takey Version of this is that I wonder about this little girl morgan geyser is a troubling. She's a troubling person

I wonder what she did that also was purposefully mimicking her father's own symptoms and the things that she heard To talk about because when you hear the interview the police interview with morgan, she throws her friend under the bus So fucking fast. She's 12. I'm just saying There's there's some conscious thought Happening here. There's some plan going on here. That is I don't know. We'll get into it. It's very complicated You know, I mean because that's the thing is that you know, she did begin Heliciting ghosts at the age of three and that wasn't just her saying that like I've seen ghosts since the age of three It was her mother saying it as well like she used to have full on hallucinations

Yeah, I used to see a man In a bandolero hat Please see him all the time as a kid this this thing, but I didn't know what it was Yeah, what's what's the name of this person at the time? I just thought he was a friendly italian neighbor We grew up in a sort of italian neighbor italian and latino, so I assumed that he was but I guess I mean he was It always smelled like weird he smelled strange, but I just figured that was because he was always at the fresh bait shop That was an onion smell

Yes, huh? I wonder who it could be But anisa had no such mental defect Instead it seemed as if she just got caught up in morgan's delusion Yes, anding herself into playing a part in the brutal attempted murder of one of her classmates See morgan and anisa had come to believe that they were proxies And if they were to demonstrate loyalty Then they thought that slender man would take them away to live in his mansion Located in nicolette's national forest

Oh Eventually geyser claimed to receive a message from slender man that gave her a choice Either murder her best friend patin david and go live in the slender mansion Or watch as slender man murdered both her and anisa's families I like that slender mansion. Oh, no, I want a wide mansion. I want a large mansion I was wrong in slender. No, I don't like railroad mansion. I don't want to be in a railroad mansion I mean, it could it's better than not being in one. I'm gonna need a wrench style mansion well

But my question is that what it seems to me from what did the breakdown of that reels documentary actually did a good piecing together of The tenuous relationships of a bunch of 12 year olds, but patin was a new friend right to morgan and anisa anisa and patin began to began to get really close Morgan was very possessive over anisa and something happened during this time period Where this the slender man issue came up and much like as we see often in pairs that kill One is the driving force and one's in the sidecar, right where morgan morgan started

pitching this idea of like Maybe we could be proxies a slender man that became a thing. She came in there only within their inner mythos Then became I think we got to kill me It became we got to kill patin because patin and anisa started becoming super super close I'm sometimes scared of women friendship circles You know, this is what happens if cartman was a real person and actually fed someone else their own parents until he cooked off The best episode that's very good very good Man, it feels so weird to hear you talking about like and then morgan was talking to anisa

I know because they're 12 years old and patin were like getting like too close and like it's just so stupid It's true. It's really weird. I found my I was like me yelling that at natalie. She was like, that's great The children the babies the night before the attack Morgan had a birthday sleepover and both anisa and the eventual victim patin david were the only guests After a breakfast of doughnuts and strawberries anisa and it's a great breakfast. That's unreal That is a wisconsin breakfast right there. No, man. You're not brought scenario that for me for breakfast I like the sliced one of those like nice like lunch sausages like one of the tv sausages This is breakfast. I that's what I eat for breakfast sliced cheese

Sausage you're not a 12 year old girl who's about to kill their friend. You need to carb a load and also get that Well anisa and morgan after breakfast lured patin to david's park Bringing along a five inch steak knife to use as the murder weapon But when it came time to kill the girl anisa couldn't do it So morgan grabbed the knife from anisa's hands and stabbed patin In 19 times in the arms legs and torso as anisa watched Paton collapsed and her two assailants left her in the woods to die while they cleaned her blood off at the local walmart

Satisfied that they had sacrificed their friend to slender man. They then started walking down i-95 toward nicolette's national forest Absolutely convinced that when they got there slender mansion would be waiting But no one told them and they didn't think about this that nicolette national forest was 30 miles From the murder site. Uh, no, it's actually 300 miles from the murder site. Geez. I mean either way 12 years old It might as well. It might as well have been And the and I know anisa was like but this is then you go into the the Mind of kids where anisa was like and we knew that it was going to be a long walk So I brought plenty of these healthy gummies so we can get our sugars up so that we could walk and it's just really

Sad it's very sad story. Yes. Yeah, and they were picked up and on i-95 Five miles into what was supposed to be a 300 mile journey on foot and they were so close And both were promptly charged with attempted murder as per a wisconsin law that allows anyone over the age of 10 To be tried as an adult now is ever since we allowed a nine-year-old to be mayor of wakashop Nine's too young But as soon as he turned 10 and we sentenced that first man to death Underneath the mayor tyler. We knew that actually 10 years old makes you an adult Yes, apparently it does. I don't think they should have been tried as adults. No, that is me

No, I agree after it was all said and done anisa was sentenced to 25 years in a mental health facility while morgan was sentenced to the maximum term of 40 years to life in a mental health facility For first degree attempted murder But what's really fucking creepy about this whole thing is that the night before the attack Coast to coast am had a long discussion about slender man Specifically on the possibility that slender man had become a tulpa created by the internet The guest bill murphy Actually speculated that the combined power of global thought surrounding slender man could actually be enough to bring him to life

And the next day that exact thing seemed to happen in wakashop You gotta go fight club with it. You can't talk about it You shouldn't be doing the show then Because I am as desperate for context This murphy guy is like well if you keep on talking about slender man a bunch of kids are gonna kill another child slender man slender man slender man You gotta shut up For a while they just thought that slender man would just keep showing up in pictures and like innocent shit Everybody that's involved in the cryptid world never thinks that one of their beloved cryptids is going to be involved in a murder

But you don't know what would happen if you even try to invade a home of the bigfoot. They're so private Oh, that's absolutely true Peaceful though for my understanding. Yes, but they will stand their big foot ground They will and they will make love to your wife If that's so desired Now it could be that these girls heard this broadcast and took it as a sign They did not hear fucking coast to coast they were at listening to Yeah, yeah, we moonlighted as truck drivers. We're the only 12 year old girls. We just love george norris. Him cool voice

But me and Anissa like to do sometimes when we're working third shift over at the tire factory is that we like to go to 7 11 Put on coast to coast AM Hazelnut coffees and then we get some jerky and then we coordinate our shits Yeah, I found it very hard to believe that a bunch of 12 year old girls were sitting around listening to coast to coast AM at a fucking slumber party How much into slender man they were? No, definitely not. No it fucking coast to coast AM is for post divorces and pre divorces Yes, and people going through a divorce. Yeah, you guys remember when you were at fucking sleepovers and you're 12 years old

And you just surfed the AM band to see what was out there Oh, well actually I think it's might well No, man, we were eating pizza hot too. Someone threw up. We would watch scary movies A hut was always consumed until somebody threw up one of my friend group Someone had to always throw up start crying and go home. There was always like five dudes One can't handle the fucking pizza hot. He fucking he bit off literally bit off more than he could chew what at 12 Oh, yeah, dog. Fuck it. We used to get up in it. I started you start drinking by 12. Shouldn't you have more fun than that?

Yes, you know pizza party. No, you were not raised for nine for nine year olds. You were literally not raised Yeah, you're not raised. Yeah, most most kids were still at 12 years old like having a fun time Uh and not we had a great time stealing keystone light from one of my dad's friends or from one of my friend's dad's I was molested That's what i'm here to say. You also remember the peanut butter game. That's why yeah, yeah Yeah, they got mad at me because I brought chunky peanut butter over the first time I hate holding his chunks Austin your town's rolling

Right. Yeah, that's disgusting Well furthermore the plan to kill Peyton david was decided upon days before the slumber party even occurred So while this isn't a simple cause and effect the synchronicity is eerie as fuck Dude, they said that they were fucking planning the murder since december They were planning the murder for fucking months. This is what i'm saying is that like it be that's why it point towards some other Weird impulse and because schizophrenics don't necessarily murder we talked about this with herbert mullen Just because you had like it's actually very rare for you to flip Into hurting other people. It's way more

Obvious it's way It happens way more that you hurt yourself Sure If you're a parent you just gotta go knock knock knock knock knock on the door open it up Be like what you guys talking about so what you talking about and if they like shuffle a bunch of papers around and like put Them underneath their desk and just be like, oh no I'll do it. I'm like, okay. Are you really talking about math? I will do what my mom did to my older sister, which is you just literally remove the door to the room

My they did that move They just remove the door and they removed it and then it led to a lot of drama. Yeah, no that would make sense They escalated. Yeah, they did. Yes. They I mean that the schizophrenia thing like yeah It may not have had anything to do with it because the walk of Shaw's stabbing was only the first in a string of attacks And deaths related to slender man in one form or another and strangely Most of them involved teenage girls the vast majority involved teenage girls You know say what you want about terry the gnome. Yeah, he's mean spirited, but he has never inspired anyone to kill No, the only thing I like to do is I like to get out of squirrel and ride it until it falls asleep

Oh Oh throat fucker fucking woodchuck if I can get out of it, but I tell you what my cock ain't big enough But my head is wow terry the gnome organically coming up in the episode. Yeah, you did this You threw terry the gnome at me Just I've been thinking about terry the gnome Oh That's very good a week after walk of Shaw a 13 year old girl in Ohio obsessed with slender man Attacked her mother with a knife cutting her neck slicing her face open and stabbing her in the back

Three months later a 14 year old girl set fire to her house using a bathroom towel soaked in alcohol While her mother and sibling were still inside Thankfully both survived, but it was found that this girl was also a slender fan Damn She took out because she said it was the uh, she was trying to kill slender man She said that the slender man was in the house and that was the only way she could save her family Was by setting the barn on fire Damn

But perhaps the most bizarre and tragic of stories related to slender man involved the pine ridge reservation suicides between 2014 and 2015 11 Lakotas aged 12 to 24 Committed suicide on the reservation and over a hundred more Attempted it Now, yeah, now we know these suicides probably are more related to the absolutely atrocious conditions of our nation's reservations Where the government asked natives to survive impossible situations in a slow continuation of the genocide that started centuries ago No way more because I think it's slender man

There's no way it's a failings of our country in any way shape or form. It's got to be slender man. Yeah. Well slender man didn't help But what's somewhat chilling about the 2014 2015 suicides is that Lakotas Actually have a legend of a suicide spirit known as walking sam Sometimes also called the tall man Man, it's always one of them. Do not do not get into your height of strants. It's always one of them You never hear the tomato man Well, that's because the tomato man isn't able to kill tomato man. It's not real. Yeah Well, this Lakota creature seven feet tall and slim with long limbs

But no mouth wears a black stovepipe hat like Abraham Lincoln and has the ability to control minds Now most likely this spirit is one of those tales that's meant to explain something that seems Unknowable in this case walking sam is depression because it's not like clinical depression Has it been a part of humanity from the very beginning? Mm-hmm, but in 2015 some said that it was walking sam who inspired a whole group of teenagers to hang themselves All at once from tree branches Although they were thankfully saved at the last minute after the ropes had already been hung They were about to do it. Damn. Do you think this is fucking that? I'm this is a george nori question

Do you think kids are more psychic? Like do you think that kids share collective thoughts more easily than adults and stuff like this like literally A meme living like it is a walking sam this concept first of all all of this sounds like an indigenous peoples version of anime Which is fucking great like it's like fucking serial experiments lane. It's like this is a very interesting story But do you think that they feed off each other more than adults do like we get more isolated as we get older And this is easier for them to have like groupthink Well, I I do know that uh teenage suicides cluster without a doubt like once and like that that happens a lot You know and there was a other of course like other stuff going on on the uh, Lakota reservation. There was a lot of

Yeah, it's awful. Yeah, it was not good. It was good over there. Yeah, obviously I mean, yeah, I mean, I think I think teenagers are definitely more susceptible to groupthink I don't know if that's uh a psychic thing or not, but they're definitely more susceptible especially in this situation So I'm gonna say Adults are pretty good at it too. No This is something else this is like an emotional the fact that you had a bunch of kids Because they said they talked about walking sam Even though obviously they are sad for and they are depressed either clinically or

For straight up just exterior normal reasons to be incredibly sad and incredibly distressed But they talked about walking sam as if it was real and it was a group of kids talking about walking sam as if it was real So there's there's something about their actual sharing of it that kind of did something there was something about it I mean, you know Well as a kicker at least one of the Lakota kids who were successful in their suicide was said by investigators To have been influenced at least partly by this story of slender man outside of walking sam Now I suppose the question here isn't whether or not slender man is real because we know slender man isn't real in the sense It's not real. No, we know it's not real

At least not in the sense that the three of us are living breathing entities with real feelings desires and hopes Because we are real people the three of us are actual real human beings I mean, you're just an image on a computer screen. So I don't know if you're still real But I look at kissle and for my amalgamation of whatever I've created of you is yes, you are you have become real to me I don't know if you exist when I leave you guys have hopes Oh, man, you guys are still holding on to those. I've been switching them. I don't call them hopes. I call them moaps Yeah, yeah Really the question is what sort of power does the character of slender man have

Because while the argument could be made that slender man is encrypted at the internet He's really closer to the old creatures of folklore I mean, for example, no fringe scientist is writing a paper about the foot ridges left in slender man tracks Nor are people calling press conferences saying they've got slender man's body in a cooler If they do they have just killed a person and they put them in a suit You tell me you tell me that every single media outlet in the country would not show up. Oh, yeah, I've been like I got slender man I gotta be huge. Oh my god. That's just eddie redmayne. Oh my goodness leave eddie redmayne alone I think he's a great actor. Fuck him. Fuck his big long mouth

Fantastic beast was terrible Natalie's a fucking super fan all that bullshit Now it comes out Natalie loves redmayne. No, she likes Harry Potter the world a harry potter. Yeah Yeah As do I it's very fun. It's very comforting. She has no alignment to eddie redmayne. She said this She specifically said this. Yeah, he was terrible. Well, you pressed it. Obviously. Yeah Yeah, I brought it. I came up. Okay. Well, and also unlike bigfoots or tupacobras

It's not like there's a species of slender men. There's not a bunch of slender men running around slender men come to la Slender man is singular There's only one which makes slender man more of a living story and a powerful one at that. Yeah If the phenomenon could be compared to anything I'd compare slender man to santa claus Huh while santa claus is not real in the concrete sense The story of santa claus influences the behavior of millions of children every year making him a highly consequential figure To a large percentage of the western world santa claus is a living story

You're not going to give a trigger warning to that to the parents listening with small children in the room right now If santa claus isn't real if you're listening to this if you're listening to this show and your child still believes in santa claus Your child shouldn't be listening to this fucking show. That's true. What if their child is 13 years old? I still want to believe in santa claus. Why are you doing away with the wonderful world of childhood? Because they need to know because you know how many years I spent racked with gilbert because I started early with tugging it Right. I started early with masturbation sure and how many times I had masturbated Knowing knowing fully on in my child mind that slender that's not slender man that santa claus was watching me I still did it and I guess that's what made me a perfect candidate for the peanut butter game

I'm sure a lot of those guys looked a lot like santa claus. Uh, I never believed in santa claus. My parents wouldn't let me Wow, that's where this comes. That's where the bitterness. I destroyed Everyone's mythos when I was growing up because they'd be like santa claus I'd be like, oh, are you that stupid and I was like four years old You were actually more as a libertarian as a four-year-old And now yeah, probably. Wow. This really explains so fucking much. You believed in santa claus marcus. Yeah, you fucking psychopath Why would your parents lie to you like that? I would have been so livid if I found out my parents lied to me like that Why would they lie to me about a bunch of stuff? Yeah. Yeah, they really did. Yeah, instead your parents took you to anti-abortion rallies

I would so much rather You tell me that those babies aren't on tongs Are you gonna tell me that that's not that's not as to chocolate fetus? I'm very real. I'm so sad for you. Yeah, it was an interesting childhood That uh, I'm glad that we got really deep into your into this part of you. Yeah at the very end of the episode. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, well slender man would be a better santa claus. You can fit down the chimney So think about that that's a thing is it yeah slender man is much the same as santa claus Albeit on a much smaller scale and although slender man these days

I mean he's a joke and he was made even worse by what you know, I didn't watch the fucking slender man movie I heard it was absolutely fucking terrible I have to tell you this it takes a lot for me to turn off a movie I can sit through like a lot of horrible movies, especially in the horror genre This was such an affront to the whole genre that it had to be turned off Yeah, but even so it's still fascinating to think that humanity has the ability to create new creatures that have consequence Even if they are sometimes monsters What? Yeah. Oh my god. I smell squid and onion

Skunk, skunk wheelie man Is that the italian cryptids? Is that the i'm coming to get you? Yeah, it's always the theme from good for the godfather I love that's very nice Very nice. All right. Well there it is slender man fascinating It is honestly the human aspect of this really is totally Completely interesting and I would assume this is going to happen again, right? Like I would I would guess this history will repeat. I don't know. I don't know with slender man

But with some other with some other form with some other, you know thing So humanity goes this is just the new this is just the newest monster that that humanity has created Yeah, now we have humans QAnon is like it's like it's just as real as slender man and people are getting killed for it And eventually QAnon will be like you could see it Cryptid eyes like as time goes if it continues to go over the years More and more people think that QAnon is just like a person that exists somewhere and not a collective of 15 year old trolling Boomers QAnon has just become the new deep state. It is unbelievable. That's the thing with the minds of the adult

I think that's what's so much worse. Yeah, I can give the kids a pass I mean for me, it was pennywise the clown. Yeah, I was truly horrified of pennywise the clown I was you bloody Mary bloody Mary. Yeah, totally worked. Yeah, I was candy man Deeply frozen with fear about bloody Mary little boy I used to think that I would do it Like like it was intrusive thoughts It was like my first instance of intrusive thoughts where I thought that like I go in the bathroom And that my mind would just I would just make myself say bloody Mary bloody Mary bloody Mary

And you would and you would see her. Yes. Yeah, I know So I get it man I get a 12 year old going online and the thing that they have the ability to is have a full lower Right in front of them like slender and you're building it too. I totally get this. Yeah This is like the erector set of of cryptids. Yeah, like you just get to build it. Yeah, exactly So you can be a part of it We never got to be a part of it because we were not in the room when we when they wrote it or created No, and then you read the book and you find out all those kids had sex with each other too. That's all the fun

That's why I don't read any books that are based off of movies. All right So thank you all so much for watching. That's a classic kissle joke. This is listening. You'll sit watching. This is we gotta No, I said, oh, yes. Thank you for listening. This is an audio. Well, unless you're staring at the phone just watching I don't know what they're doing the minutes go. That would be so scary. Don't listen to the podcast like that I've done it. I've just stared at I've stared at a logo. I do. I do just sometimes I don't know. Uh, I get over stimulated. You know, huh? There's a lot of stimulation out there. Um, all right, everyone Thank you all so much for listening to this episode and let's see. So let's talk about merch We got some kick-ass new merch new

Our new fan art Like go check it out. It is on last podcast merch.com. Absolutely And of course, we also have all the shows on the last podcast network We kind of got a revamped website there. Hopefully it's a little easier to click around and find what you like We have all of our bullshit. So much fun stuff And the fan art t-shirt comes from alayalto and ig that is alexandra runyan at a l l a y a l to Absolutely, don't forget that the pre-order on that shirt that shirt is only going to be available until July 31st. So if you want to get your hellish rebuke shirt get it soon because it won't be available for long

Hellish rebuke. Uh, yeah, and we got the kind of fun shirt. We got the top bat shirt We got a whole bunch of shirts out there. You got to start pushing that kind of fun merch. Oh, yeah Are you can are you our manager? Thank you post that merch. I know I'm supposed to push the merch I'm pushing right now No, he's pooping. He's pooping. Is that slender, man? And don't forget to go buy your no dogs in space shirt if you want to buy the shirt But don't buy the shirt until you listen to the show this week We're on part two of the cramps part two of a three part series

I know our spooky people out there in last podcast land. Love the cramps. So come on. Listen Well, you know, I actually have been known to buy the shirt First and then force myself to watch the movie or watch the wrestler I have totally done that and I'm like, I'm gonna be a poser unless I see this And then sometimes you realize that it's not great Sometimes you find out that like a horror movie shirt now of a movie You haven't heard of the reason why I didn't watch it is because the image on the shirt comes from the only good scene in the film Yeah, always, you know, I mean, it's like it's the one iconic thing that you could ring out of the movie

So then it becomes the only thing that goes on a shirt But honestly, I have to watch the movie before I buy the shirt. Yeah, I would rent any movie That had do you remember when they would have that plastic film and they would have the fake blood? Oh, yeah on the vhs I would rent any movie that had any flair to it. It was always dog shit always Yeah, it's been all the money on marketing. Exactly. Um, all right everyone. Thank you so much for supporting the show We also have a patreon. We got a new interview this week. So thanks so much for giving to our patreon Uh, hope you're doing as well as you can in these trying times. We'll continue to truck through 2020

Hell man, we're over halfway done. Yep. And we are gonna we're gonna get through this as always Yep, and if I uh may give a small apology to the people of Lubbock, sorry, we're not gonna be able to make it back next year But we will have a belt fight scheduled for 2022 Uh, and it's gonna be huge. It's gonna be huge. Maybe if Lubbock would buy pre-sale tickets, then we would be able to Marcus, you just apologized and now you have to apologize to them again. You walked back to your apologies I know I know I well, I know what it's like to live in Lubbock and and to not have uh people come because you know The rest of Lubbock ain't quite into it. Uh, but yeah, we hope to see you in all the other texas uh dates that we do Uh, and uh, yeah, we'll talk to you all soon. Thank you for supporting us in the first place

Wow, Marcus the amount of passion All right, I have a lot. I have a oh, it's not like Lubbock has just finally rejected me for the last time. It's not like that It's not like I didn't do this It's not like a rejection that texas has made of me my entire fucking life is finally in a concrete form in the sales Do not blame me guys of low ticket sales and someone hit the net texas Honestly get the net Lubbock, you made us get the net Hey, Lubbock, it's the reason why the net first came out by way back in 2006

Yeah, that's what the net got fucking braided. Oh my goodness. All right, everyone. We love you. Hail yourselves Hail Satan. Elgin Magus deletions everyone Hail me. Hey. Yeah, sir. Absolutely inhale the skungili man. Skungili man. No, we shouldn't hail him We should we should be very hesitant to allow the skungili man to get total hold Something's grabbing my Johnson. It's the skungili man