Morbid - Let’s Boogey: The Boogeyman Around the World (Vol. 1)

Episode Date: August 29, 2026

Weirdos! For August's BONUS EPISODE we are focusing on an entity that has MANY faces and wears MANY hats: The bogeyman! For as long as people have been telling stories, these supernatural beings have been lurking in the woods, or in the dark alleys, or under the bed. They might look different depending on the culture they come from, or be called by another name, but their function in society is consistent: to invoke fear! References Briggs, Katharine. 1978. Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, & Other Supernatural Creatures. New York, NY: Pantheon. Carbonell, Ana Maria. 1999. "From Llorona to Gritona: Coatlicue in Feminist Tales by Viramontes and Cisneros." MELUS 53-74. Delsol, Christine. 2012. "Mexico’s legend of La Llorona continues to terrify." SF Gate, October 9. Jones, Abigail. 2014. "The girls who tried to kill for Slender Man." Newsweek, August 22. Leddy, Betty. 1988. "La Llorona in Southern Arizona." Perspectives in Mexican American Studies 9-16. Newsroom. 2019. "Who was ‘Spring-heeled Jack’ who scared the women of Scotland?" The Scotsman, April 29. Peck, Andrew. 2015. "Tall, Dark, and Loathsome: The Emergence of a Legend Cycle in the Digital Age." Journal of American Folklore 333-348. Polidoro, Massimo. 2002. "Return of Spring-Heeled Jack." Skeptical Inquirer 22-24. Simpson, Jacqueline, and Steve Roud. 2000. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP. Strebel, Erika. 2015. "Judge says keeping Slender Man case in adult court will prevent repeat of crime." Wisconsin Law Journal, August 10. The Times. 1838. "Spring Heeled Jack - Outrage on a young lady." The Times, February 25: 7. Times, The. 1838. "The late outrage at Old Ford." The Times, March 2: 7. Vickery, Roy. 1983. "Lemna Minor and Jenny Greenteeth." Folklore 247-250. Warner, Marina. 1999. No Go, the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling, and Making Mock. London, UK: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Young, Simon. 2019. Folklore Pamphlet: The Sources for Jenny Greenteeth and Other English Freshwater Faries. Pamphlet, Simon Young. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, you weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Maldit. It's a bonus episode, everybody. Honey, happy August. She has a bonus episode. Hey, it's almost September. I was going to sing something, but then... I didn't know why you were pausing. I was like, it is, right? No, we're wicked close. I was going to sing something and then I didn't know what to sing. That's okay. It happens to the best of us. It does happen. It's Friday. It's Friday. It's Friday. I love Friday. And today is a bonus episode. So it's a little loosey-goosey, a little different. You know, we've been doing the twilight of it all. Got some guests on.

Some book clubbies. And today we're going to start like a new little series that might go through like spooky season. Yeah. Might dribble them in there. I like it. We're going to talk about boogeymen. We're going to talk about boogeymen, the folklore involving them, the social attitudes around them, how they come to be, what they are. Different places.

Yeah, different places that they come from. So today we're going to talk about like three. different boogie men or boogie people, I should say. Boogie people. This is an inclusive show. It is. And we'll follow this up with three more and we'll keep sprinkling them in every once in a while because these bonus episodes are fun. They can kind of just be. We should name them Let's Boogie. Let's Boogie. That's the series. Let's Boogie. That was so clever. How did I come up with it? That was amazing. It was tough. So this first one, we're talking about boogie men around the world. men and women around the world. Okay. So let's get right into it. Tell me everything about these boogie

humans. So the boogeyman is kind of like this ambiguous figure. And in different cultures, like there's tons of boogeymen all around the world. Oh yeah. And cultures can kind of project their specific fears and anxieties onto their specific boogeymen. Yeah. You know, that's kind of where they come from. And according to historian Marina Warner, they belong neither in literary or visual manifestations of art, but in that indeterminate, elusive territory that has been called folklore. I love folklore. I do too. There are a broad category of monster supernatural being that circulates within a culture as a warning. Bogeymen are definitely warning signs for sure. Their warnings to avoid certain places or to behave in certain ways. Or people. Yeah, that's how they

come about. And as Warner points out, although they have shared and accepted descriptions and tend to appear in cultural texts and products, they are not themselves literary figures or characters that exist for entertainment or any kind of amusement usually. There are exceptions. But they exist as kind of like a societal way of control or a way of encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors, especially with children. Yeah, it makes sense. Now, the primary defining characteristic of a bogeyman is, according to the dictionary of English folklore. Tell me. Any figure deliberately used to frighten others, almost always children to control their behavior. It's fucked up.

Yeah. For example, Cranpus. Oh. The horned half-demon helper of St. Nicholas. Cranpus is a boogeyman because he exists to frighten children into good behavior. Yeah. But something like Bloody Mary, which could also, like, you know, it teeters the line there. Because what's the lesson there, really?

Bloody Mary kind of exists outside of the boogeyman. Yeah. So a second and only slightly less significant. characteristic is the bogeyman's kind of like amorphousness, like shapelessness. It's this quality that allows them to exist in cultures literally all over the world without a precise or even remote physical description sometimes. Societies again can project onto their boogeyman whatever they want or need to, you know, achieve that like social control aspect.

Do you know who my eternal boogeyman is because I saw the Blair Witch Project too young? The Blair Witch? The Blair Witch. How did you figure it out? Yeah. Yeah. And you know what the lesson is? Stay out of the fucking woods.

Don't go camping. That's such a valid lesson, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm so scared of the Blair Witch to this day. I stand by the fact that the Blair Witch is a great fucking movie. It's a scary ass movie. It's scary.

Yeah. And it's scary without all the bells and whistles. It is. And I was there when the movie. marketing campaign happened, and it was the best thing that has ever happened. Jealousy. It's so good. Now, the final primary characteristic of the boogeyman is that it is typically, though not

universally, but like this is just kind of like typically, typically they're like a lurker. Yeah, you know. They be lurking under your bed, usually. They do be lurking. Like the primary audience for the messages conveyed through the bogeyman lore, again, our children. And so it kind of like naturally follows. follows that he's probably going to be found in dark and potentially dangerous places. Yeah, under your bed.

You're a closet. A dark corner of a room. Yeah. A sewer. He's this amorphous creature just under your bed. Like, don't go under there. And this isn't because the space itself is inherently frightening. Like, under your bed is not supposed to be inherently frightening.

Honey, you don't know about under my bed. But it is frightening. It is, it's kind of put there to ensure that once they are put to bed for the night, they will stay there. Because there's a fear of being grabbed by the creature if they get up. That's also just like fucking terrifying. That is terrifying.

That's fucked up. So you're like, stay in bed or else. Or the boogeyman's going to get, that's fucked up. Maybe you should try that. Oh, my God. Your kids are always getting out of bed. Honestly, if I haven't tried that yet, no one has an excuse to try that. It's crazy.

Now, as children get older, though, the boogeyman starts to be in more public places that they end up going, like dense forests, the banks of rivers and lakes, or like a dimly lit city street at night, places that they are now going to be entering that they might encounter real world danger. Yeah. Now that boogeyman is being put out in the real world. He's kind of elevated. He levels up.

He does. Yeah. He evolves with the kid. Well, it's useful to know like the historical and social context and defining features of the boogeyman. obviously the best way to understand the figure and it's very diverse applications everywhere all around the world is to see how it operates at various points of time. All right. So this one we are going to talk about first is La Yarona. Oh, not to be confused with my Sharona. They are not the same.

Vastly different individuals. Yeah, they are very different. This is also known as the crying woman. Oh. Now, ironically, as we've seen, before, one of the most famous bogey men of North America is not a man at all, but a woman. La Yerona. Again, sometimes called the crying woman or the whaler. The whaler. I don't know if I love that. Yeah, she's a figure in Latin American folklore who haunts the banks of lakes and rivers, mourning deaths of her small children. Oh. Those who encounter La Yerona, I keep wanting to say La La Rona, because I'm very... So American. American, unfortunately. So unfortunately, deeply American. La Yarona can expect to suffer a similar fate as her children, and unfortunately.

Or at the very least, experience a very long run of extremely bad luck. Now, like any proper boogeyman, the point of origin for La Yerona is kind of difficult to identify. But by most accounts, the story seems to go back more than 500 years. In the most widely shared account, the story begins with Maria, a strikingly beautiful but extremely vain woman. Maria uses her beauty to win the... affections of a wealthy rancher, and they go on to have two children. Good for her. I see nothing wrong with this so far. You will. Unfortunately, after just a few years, you know, the happy couple became not so happy. The rancher spends a lot of his time wandering the fields, working, and when he's

home, he kind of ignores Maria, but he heaps love and attention onto their children. Okay. Uh-oh. One day, while she's out walking near the river with her children, Maria spots her husband having a picnic with another woman from the village. What a dick? In a fit of a wrap, She turns her rage on that which her husband loves the most. And she throws both of her small children into the river. It's not an appropriate reaction, Maria. Very disproportionate response. As soon as she does this, she immediately regains, like, her senses and realizes what she's done

and is immediately stricken with terrible regret. But she can't swim. So Maria ran back and forth screaming out for her children, but it's too late. inconsolable and unable to live with what she had done, she threw herself in the river and drowned as well. Now, soon after, she was found by the villagers and given a proper burial, but that night, villagers reports seeing Maria wandering the banks of the river in a long white robe crying out for her children. Oh, that's really awful. Yeah.

Now, the thing is, so she was given a proper burial, all that according to the legend. But because she has technically murdered her children and taken her own life, Maria's denied entrance to heaven or the afterlife and must wander the earth forever. It's like curing the terrible moment. Over time, as the story evolved in tellings and retellings, Maria's spirit became a vengeful ghost who would steal any child who wandered too close to the water or a child who disobeyed their parents. Now, because it has existed in various cultures at various points in time, there are many variations of the story of Laliurona. In one version from Guatemala, the woman has an affair with a wealthy man and becomes pregnant. Okay. Because she's married and doesn't want anyone to find out, she gives birth, but then drowns the baby in a river. As a result of her actions, she's condemned to spend the afterlife wandering the banks of the river looking for but never finding her lost child.

Oh my God. It's really sad. That's bleak. It's really sad. Like, these are not, you know. Bogie men don't come from like happy origins. Yeah, exactly. Now, in another version specific to Venezuela, the woman becomes pregnant as a result of an affair with a soldier.

Okay. Who abandons her soon after. Dick. Unable to care for a child on her own and wanting to avoid the shame and stigma of being a single mother, she drowns the child in the river. I feel like there are better options. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, immediately again, ceased with regret, the woman begins crying out for her child, which draws the attention of her neighbors. And after seeing what she's done, the people of her village curse her and throw her out of the village, sending her fleeing into the mountains. Wow. From that point on, she takes on a spectral form and becomes a vengeful spirit who claims any children who wander too close to the rivers or streams of Venezuela. Okay. That one's scary. That's all pretty terrifying to be frank.

Although most of the legends involve the death of children by drowning, some don't involve children at all. I like those better, I feel. In one of the earliest accounts from Mexico around 1550, the weeping woman is said to be the ghost of Dona Marina of Portugal, who had repented her conspiring with Cortez that led to the colonization of Mexico and was now condemned to wander the streets, weeping, quote, for her sin. Okay. So not for children, just weeping. Just because she fucked up. Yeah. Other variations omit the murder part entirely, focusing instead on the death and grief part.

Okay. And a variant from Arizona. La Yerona is a widow whose young son drowned while playing by a flooded river. Grief stricken and changed by her, you know, profound sorrow because of this. The woman wanders the region near the river seeking to kidnap any small children she sees. Not a valid response. Not a valid response. According to the legend, quote, her fingerprints are found.

on windows or screens are torn where she tries to enter homes. Ew. I know. I thought she's supposed to be by the riverbanks. That one gave me yuckus. Fuck that. That one gave me lots of the yuckies. Oh, don't tear my screen, man.

Yeah, I didn't like that. That's fucked up. And fingerprints on windows. Oh, I hate that anyway. That shit pisses me off. Now, as these cultures evolve and societies evolved, the story of La Yarona also evolved. Initially, to come into contact with her meant instant death. Yeah.

But as more people like, you know, especially because this started like way in like 1550 and all that, like when people learn to swim, like stronger swimmers, when societies and land became less threatening. Because back then everything was threatening. True. Potential contact with Lawyerona became less consequential. Okay. Now you would expect just like some bad luck if you catch a glimpse of her wandering the banks of the river. Or maybe you'll suffer no consequences at all and you just have a cool story. Oh, wow, that's quite the toss-up.

There's still some that, you know, we'll use the story as like, don't go near the river. I'd stay away from the river if I lived in any of these ridgions. I would. Why did I just say ridgins? Rigeons if I lived in any of these ridgons. These ridgons. Hey, people in these ridgans. How are you doing?

People in Arizona are like, ash? Let's talk about Jenny Green Teeth. What the fuck? What the fuck? You're just going to move on from La Yerona and bring me to a place of Jenny green teeth question mark? Why did it also sound like you were like switching into an ad? All right, everybody. Today let's talk about Jenny green teeth.

With my code morbid, you can get 20% off your green teeth remedy. The fuck? Oh, man. Tell me about Jenny. I'll tell you about Jenny. Why she got green teeth? So obviously bodies of water like rivers and streams have. always been a pretty common part of life, particularly for rural or, you know, like, places that

we all have been around. Like, you're always around up some kind of body of water somewhere. Unless you're landlocked. Unless you're, but like little ponds, even, stream, like things that don't technically, a crick, the things that don't technically need the ocean to, like, pour into them. Fair. It makes sense that a lot of cultures would create boogey men to warn children away from the potential dangers of drowning. Yeah. In the English countryside, there have long existed various folk tales like about goblins, fairies, sea hags.

I love a sea haggs. That are all said to reach out from the depths and grab small and attended children, dragging them to a watery grave. I always feel like when I'm like in a lake or something, that somebody's going to pull me down. Yeah, that's why I don't go in lakes. I do it for the thrill. You just love. I am risk averse. Yes. So as we figured out. Yes. Now, one such figure is Jenny Green Teat. It's Jenny Green Teeth. I need to know everything about this bitch.

Not to be confused with Jenny Garth. No. Yeah. So also known as Wicked Jenny. Wicked Jenny. Now she's from Boston. Or simply Grinned Teeth. Grin teeth.

I was going to say, I feel like I've known a wicked Jenny or two. You know what I mean? I've known. You've definitely known a Wicked Jenny or two. In fact, you've known. You've known two such wicked jenny's in recent years that we've come across. Unfortunately. Fucking grint teeth.

This particular Jenny, Jenny Green Teeth, she's a water hag. Period. Specific to the region in and around Lancashire, England. Oh, that's fun to say, Lancashire. Lancashire. According to folklorist Catherine Briggs, Jenny Green Teeth is a variation of the more widely spread stories of the Grindalow, a supernatural fish-like humanoid. Stop it.

Like many water bogeys, Jenny was designed to keep children from rivers and ponds, and she has said to, quote, seize children in her long green fangs and drag them down into stagnant pools at the river's edge. Damn, Jenny. Which is going to give them brain amoebas. So, like, that's fucked up, genuine teeth.

If they don't drown first. Yeah. Now, like all... Why is your name Jenny? That's the most, you know, like, it's not really a thing. threatening name. Like, if you're you and me, it feels that way.

Like, her name is Jennifer Green Teeth. I just need that right. Jennifer P. Green Teeth. Like, Jennifer Green Teeth. Now, like all good, boogie men, boogie people. Jenny Green Teeth. Jennifer Green Teeth has been nasty. Jennifer Pea Green Teeth.

Has an ambiguous appearance. Aside from her green fucking teeth. Aside from her dental hygiene issues. Her appearance tends to change, depending on the teller of the story and the time the story is being told. Jenny's versatile. According to one source, Jenny Jennifer had pale green skin, green teeth, very long green locks of hair, long green fingers and fingernails. Wow.

And she was very thin with a pointed chin and very big eyes, which is a wild visual when you put it all together. There's a lot to take in all at once. That's a lot. Yeah. Now, the exact origins of Jennifer green teeth aren't clear. But she appears to date back to the mid to late 80s. 18th century. As a so-called nursery bogey.

Nursery boogie. Her story is intended for very young children. That's not good or recommended. It's a lot less detailed and complex than something like La Yerona. Yeah. It's also largely specific to the areas around northeast England and is related to a particular aspect of the landscape. Okay. Figures like La Yerona exist, at least in part, to warn young people away from moving bodies

of water, like rivers and streams, where they're not. They can be pulled in and legitimately swept away. Yeah. However, in Northeast England, a much greater danger to small children are the still pools of stagnant water. Like, that's the issue there. Because according to folklorist, Roy Vickery, quote, in summer, such pools are frequently covered by a dense mat composed of thousands of floating duckweed plants. So that their surfaces appear to be solid. Oh.

These pools can be quite steep and really difficult to kind of. I'm out of. So an unsuspecting child could accidentally fall in and have a really hard time getting out or not even know that it's a pool at all. They think it's a solid surface. Yeah, that's terrifying. Yeah. So because it's a story for small children, and again, the details are kind of scant and there aren't a lot of variations of Jenny Green Teeth. According to Vickory, one version of the story claims that, quote, Jenny had descended from the water spirits of Gothic mythology. I'm obsessed with that. Whose great seductive beauty. was somewhat marred by their green teeth.

Just somewhat. Just a little bit. It was something you could get past. She's a 10, but she's got green teeth, you know? Now, one resident from Liverpool recalled hearing the story as a child. And apparently, Jenny would quote, entice little children into the ponds by making them look like grass and safe to walk on. Damn, Jenny. As soon as the child stepped onto the green, it, of course, parted, and the child fell through into Jenny green teeth clutches and was drowned.

The green weed then closed over, hiding all traces that the child had ever been there. That is so fucked up. Which is really scary. According to author Simon Young, there's a variation of the story that appeared in the mid-19th century. Quote, nuts were plentiful in our forefather's days. They were to be met with in the hedges enclosing every field and lane, and especially in the clothes and near brook sides. To deter children from gathering the fruit before it was ripe, they terrified their young imaginations by awful accounts of a demoness, the guardian of young catkins, nuts, and nut trees. In conjunction with her were associated clapcans, who made a loud jarring noise by beating cans

with sticks. To restrain their children from venturing to near the numerous pits and pools, which were to be found in every fold and field, a demoness or guardian was stated to crouch at the bottom. She was known as Jenny Green Teeth and was reported to prey upon. on children who ventured too near her domain. She really said, stay away from D's nuts. Stay out of those nuts. What the fuck? Where are we right now?

Regardless of the version, the meaning of the Jenny Green Teeth's legend is clear. There are many dangers in the natural world and some can be quite deceiving. And Jenny will get you. If you don't keep your wits about you, they might find yourself in serious trouble. You don't step on the pool. Now, let's go. get a little more modern, shall we? Yeah. As early as the 1990s. It was the 90s. The internet allowed users from all over the world to connect with one another through chat programs and message boards.

It might have been the worst idea anyone's ever had. In 26, I believe, we fucked up. Yeah. We fucked up. We are too connected, bruh. Here's the thing. I know the idea was awesome. Yeah. So awesome. And in the 90s, we were. We were. We fucked up. We are too connected. We are too connected, bruh. Here's the thing. I know the idea was awesome. So awesome. And in the 90s, we You're okay. Hell yeah. Forget a pen pal. We're not killing it this year. We're not.

We're not. But you know what? Back then, you could share stories, both fiction and nonfiction. And in the mid-2000s, a form of scary storytelling known as creepypasta became popular on the website, something awful. Creepypastas are really fun. Creepypastas. I love creepypastas. Yeah.

I wish this is what the internet was all about. Just creepy pasta. Just creepy pastas and like adorable old people. And little animals. And little animals. Yep. Yeah. And recipes.

In recipes. There you go. For real pastas. Now, like the folklore and urban legends that came before them, creepy pastas were short, generally vague, scary stories that were shared around the internet. Yeah. While most were like just really cool horror stories, some took the form of an urban legend by purporting that they were true stories. They had actually happened. They weren't saying, this is a creepy pasta I came up with here reading.

It's scared. They were like, no. This girl in my class. her cousin experience this, and it is 100% true. Which when you really look at it is back to the olden days of folklore saying, no, this happened once. Yeah. And it gets passed down and down and down.

And eventually you can't tell if it happened or not. I honestly love an urban legend. Yeah. And again, they would, a lot of times these certain creepy pastas would, they'd say they were true stories. They would locate it in a very specific place and it would convey some kind of moral message sometimes, like an urban legend. In the summer of 2009, something awful forum user, Eric Nudson, I believe it is, writing under a

pseudonym, by the way, posted a story about a supernatural boogeyman, he called Slender Man. In the original post, he shared two photographs of people walking or playing in the foreground, like two young people. While in the background, an incredibly tall, thin, humanoid man in a black suit, can be seen just lurking. Those original pictures, fuck me up. Yeah. They're so scary.

It was a brilliant, brilliant idea. This story, I think it was such a good idea. That's spooky. Because also Slender Man, his face lacks any distinguishing features, which makes it even scarier. Yeah, 100%. And under the second photo, he added the caption, quote, one of two recovered photographs from the Sterling City Library Blaze, notable for being taken the day which 14 children vanished.

and for what is referred to as the Slender Man, which is scary. And again, really smart. And you had a fire into it. I mean, come on. This is going back to Blair Witch. Yep. That's what Blair Witch marketed themselves as. This really happened.

Here's the pictures. Here's the video. Here's the audio. You can see how these people came to disappear. Yeah. Which was one of the biggest parts of Blair Witch being what it was. that's what Sunderman was. It was like nobody could tell.

Some people knew it wasn't real. But some people didn't know it wasn't real. They were like, is this like for real? Like younger kids, they would have no idea. Like Aidan's like, hi. I'm a gullible bitch. He was like, hi, me. I believe in Sunderman.

And it would be easy to because it's being told to you like here's two fucking photographs. Yeah. And it was in the early days of Photoshop. And you couldn't really like fact check it. Yeah. Like there wasn't that many avenues to go down. Exactly. Like the internet was just different.

It wasn't like 78 gazillion pages like it is now. Now, among other things, Slender Man is notable because he is a rare boogeyman whose origins are not only known, but were also created with the intention of hoaxing users of other message boards. The message board thread was created as an invite to users who wanted to contribute photoshopped images that they could pass off as authentic. Regardless of that origin, Slenderman took hold of people's. imaginations in a way that few legends have in recent years. Yeah.

And maybe it was like, you know, the digital nature of the transmission. It's able to be shared quicker and easier. Yep. But it emerged also at a time when fears of children being preyed upon by adults online and scary boogeymen online, we're at an all-time high. You know what the precursor to that was? Do you remember those fucking chain text messages? Yes.

Where it would be like you have to forward this to like 16 people are this way. woman will be at the foot of your bed. Yes. And it was like, and it would sometimes it would have a scary story to begin with. And it would be like, that's going to happen to you if you don't forward this. Yeah, I used to get so fucking pissed when I would get those. Chain letters were fucking crazy. They were awful. And you probably got them on email before text was even a thing. Oh, I didn't even know you were talking about text. I thought you were talking about email. I saw that on your face. Yeah. I didn't operate. Like me and my friends didn't really communicate via email. Oh, it was all email before. Yeah. It was always the like capital, not capital, capital, capital, not capital writing.

I forgot those. The asterisks and little, like, squeakly lines. Like, yeah. Yeah, those were terrifying. Ugh. Now, in the years that followed, the legend of Slender Man evolved on message boards and websites all over the world. Again, when it comes to Slender Man, there is endless lore.

I know it. There really is. You could go on for days. Yeah. And what's cool is it's like it kept getting added to. Like, it was such a fun. It was just like this big community-based, like, grand story. that kept, like, just getting bigger and better and scarier and more complex.

But to distill some of it into something just because there is so much to it and you don't want to just, like, skim over it. And I heard this from Aiden told us this whole lore because he was, like, part of this, like, whole community in the beginning. It, like, loved this stuff when it came out. Like, he was, like, the perfect age for this. Yep. On June 20th, 2009, the first video of a YouTube web series. came out. It was created by Troy Wagner, Joseph Delage, and Tim Sutton. And it came from the images on the Something Awful Forum of Slyman. Now, this series kind of revolved around a film student named Jay,

who was investigating this unfinished film from his friend Alex. And he was doing this by reviewing various tapes from the project. And during the course of the film, he realizes why the project was canceled. And it gives this, like, really good. like early aughts like text on the screen beginning explaining to you that this was a film

that was canceled and it was you know he was reviewing the tapes and like Alex was starting to become paranoid and like losing his grip okay it kind of gives you it gave me

like Hell Health's LLC vibes especially because the main character's name is Alex the one that was losing grip on reality and in Hell House LLC Alex is the one that's like pushing them further into the haunted house. And it starts off with like those like like investigators like asking everybody

questions. Yeah. I was like that's fun. Now apparently the reason it was canceled was Alex had come in contact with an entity that was referred to as the operator. The operator. Which I do love that. This was a different name given to the Slender Man. Now the series, it just like built more on that lore like I was saying it like just added to it. And it also built off of the lore that was already there online about Slender Man. And we're just like, one of the biggest parts of the lore that we had briefly mentioned when speaking about the Sunderman stabbing case was the idea of proxies. Yeah.

Because when taken out of real world horror and brought into like a more fictional horror world, the idea of a proxy with this kind of entity is really cool and like very interesting and like a fun addition to it. I hate that it was taken out into the real world and turned into. to something violent and awful. Right. But apparently proxies, the whole idea of it actually was like a misinterpretation by fans because of how characters in the series were acting or behaving.

Okay. Fans interpreted that they were acting brainwashed and as brainwashed servants of the Sunderman himself. Like he was controlling them. Oh. So that would later lead to fan fictions online with fans writing about this kind of proxy situation going on, but then like how they were being elected to become the next proxy. Oh, that's like fun, but also so scary.

So scary, but so fun. Right. Until it's taken out in the real world and damaging human beings. It's like, keep it where it belongs. Let fiction be fiction, everybody. Now, in 2012, and I remember this because Aiden actually showed me this game, and I remember vividly being like, this is so scary. Oh, no.

It was in 2012, Slender the Eight Pages came out. It was like a fan game where the player could collect eight pages in this dark woods, like this dark creepy forest. You had to go find the eight pages without being caught by Slenderman. It is so scary. And the pages in the game were based on notes and scribbles left from characters in the Marble Hornets series, which is what that web series was. So it came full circle.

Yeah. So that original series, that was the web series on YouTube, those pages are like from that. Oh, that's fun. So it kind of expanded on that. Like an Easter egg kind of vibe. Yeah. And it was genuinely terrified.

Like, I remember Aden showing me this and I was like, what the fuck? I don't know if I can do this. And with the gaming scene at that time really kind of exploding. It was like gaining a lot of popularity. And then Slender Man was kind of starting to like kind of figuratively reach his tentacles out into different forms all over the web and, you know, becoming far less, more common to run across while you were on the internet. This game really relied on this anticipatory scare where you would be running around in this dark forest trying to find these pages and he's anywhere. And when you would find you, it was like

the whole screen would go static and it was loud and jarring and he would like attack you. So it was just like, ah. I hate it. So, but that's like the perfect kind of game for like YouTubers to play. And stream for like tons of views because you're you're anticipating it along with them waiting for them to get caught. So it was that kind of like beginning of that kind of thing. And this is where Slender Man went like really mainstream at that point. Okay. Yeah. Now unfortunately, this was all like really fun.

This is how humans should operate. It was kind of like not lighthearted but like in a way it was. Lighthearted in the sense that like this is horror. Yes. And it's supposed to scare you. It's supposed to be something that you go, is this real? Is it not real? It's supposed to be something fun like that.

Right. Unfortunately, the legend of Slender Man took a terrible and tragic turn in 2014 when two 12-year-old Wisconsin girls, Morgan Geiser and Anisa Weyer, used the legend as an excuse to stab their friend and try to kill their friend. Quote, in order to please Slender Man. Yeah.

According to the press, in May 2014, the two of them lured their friend, 12-year-old Peyton Loitner, into the woods, and stabbed her 19 times. I need you to remember these are three 12-year-olds. Yeah, we covered this before. Yeah, and they left her for dead. Peyton managed to crawl to the road where she was discovered by a bicyclists who called 911. And when they were asked why should they did it, they claimed, quote, they wanted to prove themselves worthy of Slenderman. In their interview to police, they claimed that they believed Slender Man was.

real and they wanted to become quote unquote proxies, thereby proving his existence to countless skeptics online. Jesus. They spent months talking about this plan, choosing a victim, and plotting every detail of their intended murder. And again, that's very rare behavior for, that's very rare behavior for girls, especially young girls of their age. In 2017, Morgan Geiser agreed to plead guilty to attempted first-degree murder.

harder. And in doing that, she avoided jail time and was instead sentenced to 40 years in a psychiatric facility. Anisa Weyer went to trial and a jury determined that she was mentally ill at the time of the attack. She was sentenced to 25 years in a psychiatric facility. Now, Slender Man evolved from a traditional boogeyman to something entirely different. He was no longer a source of fear or social control, but was now a motivation for violent behavior. the exact opposite of what a bogeyman is supposed to be. Right. The stabbing incident set off a short-lived moral panic

in which parents became exceedingly worried about what their children were doing online, to which I say, you probably should have done that to begin with. That's just me, though. At the same time, the violence inspired by the character took away most of its power. And by the end of the decade, most of the online community that had given rise to Slender Man

had kind of moved on from him. which is so sad that it got one that you can't that it's like it took away the fun of that you know that whole lore and everything and that these girls would take it to such a place to then destroy the life of Peyton yeah who now I'm sure you can come across Slender Man any old place you know like on the internet it's it's in a lot of places still or even like in like um like at the He's on, like, shirts and shit. Yeah, like, it's a thing. So it's like, now Peyton has to sit there and live her entire life.

She's a badass, by the way. Yeah. But she has to live her entire life worried about coming across an image of that. I can't imagine what that would do to you. Yeah. And it's just like, what the fuck. Now, again, from the visceral fears of child death contained within the legends of La Yerona and Jenny Green Teeth to the anxieties of modern dangers that are in the legend of Sunder Man, The Wigyman has completely crossed cultures all over the world for centuries.

But again, these are only a few of the endless list of bogeys that have haunted societies for as long as people could tell stories. I mean, there's some wild ones that we're going to talk about the next time. I'm so excited. There's one called The Sackman. I think I've heard of Sackman. Yep. There's Kate Crackernuts. Haven't heard of her.

English lore. Okay. Bloody bones and rawhead from the American South? Bloody bone. Rawhead sounds like that Rob Zombie film. Yeah. It sure does. 31, right?

Yeah. It does. Maybe he would be part of that. Yeah. We're going to cover some of those. Hell yeah. I like this. Let's buggy.

Let's boogie. We just dipped our toes in today. So hopefully you guys thought this was fun, especially for spooky season for some bonuses. This is really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Those are just some boogies. Period.

Let us know if you loved this. And don't let us know if you didn't. Yeah. Only if you loved it. All right, guys. Well, happy bonus episode. We love you. We hope you keep listening.

And we hope you. Keep it. Weir. But not so weird that you didn't want to boogie with us. Let's boogie. Let's boogie, baby.