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Slender-man Appearance

Slenderman Appearance

Though adaptation and modification by various authors means that Slenderman's appearance can vary somewhat depending upon the source, the most common features remain the same.

The character is usually depicted as an abnormally tall humanoid, usually wearing a dark suit and tie. Slenderman's face is almost always completely featureless and often either white or a pale grey, though in some depictions this 'blank' face does feature an animalistic mouth.

Slenderman is often said to be able to extend or stretch his limbs, particularly his arms at will, and either has tentacles protruding, just visible from his back or has tentacle-like appendages in place of his arms.

The character commonly inhabits liminal spaces, such as the entrance to woods and forest or areas of abandoned ground on the outskirts of more populated areas.

Whilst there are a wide variety of Slenderman stories out there, much of the character's effectiveness comes from the fact that there is no single definitive version, the initial posts that introduced the character being only fragmentary quotes linked to an image rather than an actual short story or complete narrative.

Much like his appearance however, though the details alter some elements seem to remain as constants, such as the character appearing by woods or forests, enticing children away from their parents and friends never to be seen again. Another common trope that the Slenderman exerts an influence upon the victims making them the perpetrators of crimes or violent actions. The character has also been said to cause illness (particularly a cough know as 'slender sickness) and to induce those who encouter him to suicide. These latter features, namely incitement to violence or suicide became more prevelant and commonly associated with the character in a case of art imitatinbg life after real life violent events or cases of attempted suicide were linked to the character

Origins

Despite some media outlets adding to the aura of the Slenderman mythos by claiming that the figure's origins are unclear, in fact the character's origin is easily traceable.

Slenderman in his original form was created by Eric Knudson under the alias Victor Surge. Knudson was responding to a call on Something Awful, for posters to contribute digitally altered photographs that would then serve as the basis for new mythologies or stories.

Knudson's effort, posted on June 10 2009 showed groups of teenagers and children with the now familiar figure of Slenderman standing in the background. At first glance the images seem normal but the figure's anomalous size and featureless face once noticed give the pictures an eerie and unsettling feeling. Alongside the images, Knudson provided small snippets of out of context text purported to be witness accounts that give hints about the scenes depicted and their relation to the anomalous figure of the Slender man.

By attaching short snippets of text with his images Knudson transformed the lone image into the first Slenderman story, albeit in an nonlinear and fragmentary form. Following this initial appearance, the slenderman character was then picked up by other users, who either fit him into their own narratives or wrote short accounts of alleged encounters with the character, sculpting as they did some of the features recognised today.

With each new detail and new account, posters helped in building a mythos around the character that because of its viral scope and myriad of conflicting details and accounts did not retain a 'canon' version and this process happened fast.

The day after Knudson's post, a user named Leechcode five posted a photo with a backstory featuring slenderman, by 14th June a user name TrenchMaul had used Slenderman in his own story. A user known as Thoreau-Up posted a story about a figure in Germany who stalked children on the edge of the forest, providing an invented historical reference point for the character.