Truth With Light

𝖤𝗇𝗍𝗋𝗒 #𝟣𝟥: 𝖬𝖺𝗋𝖻𝗅𝖾 𝖧𝗈𝗋𝗇𝖾𝗍𝗌

The following series analyzed has already been confirmed on multiple occasions to be an ARG (Alternate Reality Game), and is purely fictional. Unlike my previous analysis entries, this is focused more on quick facts as opposed to detailed, critical opinions. 

• Marble Hornets is one of the first known documented web-series to feature a figure like Slender Man.

• The web-series took place over the course of precisely five years—with the first entry posted on June 20, 2009, and the final entry (#87) uploaded on June 20, 2014.

• Before the YouTube videos, the plot of Marble Hornets was introduced in the thread on the SomethingAwful forums where the first images of Slender Man spawned on the internet. A user by the name of ce gars (protagonist Jay Merrick) recalled how his college friend drastically changed over the course of directing a student film in a heavily wooded area. With the recent discovery of Slender Man, he suspected something larger potentially took place in the filming process.

• The Slender Man figure central to the series is a separate entity known as the Operator. Most of their traits are shared characteristics, but a definitive difference between the two is that the Operator—unlike Slender Man—does not have tentacles/tendrils.

• Joseph DeLage (co-founder and co-writer of the series) confirmed the Operator symbol ( ⊗ ) received its name and design due to a mathematical symbol of the same name. 0 (zero/zed) was also used to represent the Operator symbol throughout the series, as its corresponding key on older phone models was identified as the operator key.

— The design of the symbol was additionally considered in regards to the Operator's appearance. The O signified the shape of a face, while the X symbolized its lack of features.

• Masky and Hoodie's characters originated from Marble Hornets, though they weren't canonically created as proxies. The duo rarely interacted with each other on-screen, and were often depicted as evading the Operator's influence.

— Among the creators, the two were addressed as The Masked Man and The Hooded Man respectively. Upon neglecting to openly give these names to the alter-egos, the fandom took to their own devices and made them Masky and Hoodie instead.

• Coinciding with the Marble Hornets series is a supplementary YouTube channel named totheark. The channel's content consisted of messages directed at the characters in the main series through the use of various ciphers. Though not explicitly stated, it was implied that Masky and Hoodie were large contributors to the channel.

• Following a month after the first appearance of Masky on the totheark channel, one of the first "shitposters" in the Slenderverse community released a parody video mimicking the channel's visual elements. Upon decoding the ciphers used in the parody, viewers found the text translated to a basic recipe for key lime pie.

— Commenters took to well-humored remarks toward the concept of Masky resorting to making a pie while anticipating a response from Jay. Unfortunately, these statements warped into ammunition for internet trolls as well, as they concluded other similar desserts must be responsible for Tim Sutton's (actor of Masky) recent weight gain. The context to these comments were lost over time, and they instead evolved into the fanon concept of Masky's obsession with cheesecake.

In other words, please don't be rude and make one of these jokes, my friends. It's not cute. It's just disrespectful.