Jack Terry

Host

Slenderman: Who, What and Why?

Jun 5, 2014·15 visitors

Terry Clouth

Cohost

Stage· 88 messages

Jun 5, 2014

It took a horrific crime committed by two pre-teen girls to introduce an unsuspecting population to one of the creepiest inventions on the internet: Slenderman. Join Jack Terry and Terry Couth as they discuss the origins of this horror phenomenon, the effect it and other things like it have on young children and the larger impact it has on society as we know it.

Terry Clouth · 7:00 PM

Good Afternoon!!

Jack Terry · 7:00 PM

Hello?

Jack Terry · 7:00 PM

Hey, there we go!

Terry Clouth · 7:00 PM

This afternoon Jack and I are going to tackle the hot topic of the day...the Slender Man Stabbings

Jack Terry · 7:00 PM

Long time reader, first time writer so bear with me as I kick the tires and light the fires!

Terry Clouth · 7:01 PM

This is typo central Jack...fun!!

Jack Terry · 7:01 PM

I'm the king of typos!

Terry Clouth · 7:01 PM

To begin, Slender Man is an online meme designed as a demonic creature who stalks and traumatizes children in a video game

Jack Terry · 7:02 PM

He is. It's like he's an online version of the boogeyman

Terry Clouth · 7:02 PM

Somehow, this "meme" was able to influence two 12 year old girls into attempted murder!

Terry Clouth · 7:02 PM

Boogey man is exactly right Jack!! We were scared of him...these kids worship him!

Jack Terry · 7:03 PM

It's not too long ago I had to ask my 17 year old nephew how to pronounce "meme" which just goes to show the generation gap in computer knowledge!

Terry Clouth · 7:03 PM

LOL I hear you!

Jack Terry · 7:03 PM

These stories remind me of the "this happened to someone I know" stories we used to talk about around the campfire when i was in scouts.

Terry Clouth · 7:03 PM

this situation is a perfect example of the densensitization of our youth

Jack Terry · 7:04 PM

very much so. So much is available to them without a filter that parents can't (or won't) keep up on.

Terry Clouth · 7:04 PM

online games, video games depicting death, evil and demons have taken all the fear out of the fun!

Jack Terry · 7:04 PM

I was just going to say the most popular video games are all variations of first person shooters.

Terry Clouth · 7:04 PM

Young people have no idea of mortality anyway...

Jack Terry · 7:05 PM

Where's Pac-Man? Where's Donkey Kong?

Terry Clouth · 7:05 PM

then in a video game...just hit reset and you come back to life

Terry Clouth · 7:06 PM

The Slender Man stabbing has taken things to a new level...what are we to do?

Jack Terry · 7:06 PM

That should be how these video games should work. You pay $50 for it and you play until you die. If you want to play again, another $50. They'd stop being so popular real quickly.

Jack Terry · 7:06 PM

Well, it gets into the issues of "internet neutrality' and protected speech.

Terry Clouth · 7:06 PM

Those two girls are possibly being tried as adults due to the fact that they had been planning to kill the girl since December...premeditated big time

Jack Terry · 7:06 PM

There's a rating board for movies and video games, but the internet is like the wild west.

Terry Clouth · 7:07 PM

There must be a line that parents draw...but how do you keep your kids from crossing it when they are at a friend's house?

Jack Terry · 7:07 PM

Apparently they had planned it since February and one early idea was to duct tape her mouth and stab her in the throat.

Terry Clouth · 7:07 PM

It's up to parents to regulate what kids can or can't access

Terry Clouth · 7:08 PM

but like I said, there's a big old world out there that is wide open...

Jack Terry · 7:08 PM

Not to sound like a crotchety old man but that's the difference. Our parents didn't have to worry about something like this because when we went to a friend's house the worst we could possibly do is find an old Playboy.

Jack Terry · 7:08 PM

They knew we were going to play outside, run through the woods, ride bikes.

Terry Clouth · 7:08 PM

Or hit the liquor cabinet!

Jack Terry · 7:09 PM

Now kids are less active than ever and they spend all their time exploring the internet looking for things their parents have no idea about.

Terry Clouth · 7:09 PM

The girls lured her into an innocent Hide-n-seek game...

Jack Terry · 7:09 PM

The liquor cabinet raiding came later in life!!

Jack Terry · 7:09 PM

Right? This girl was their friend!

Jack Terry · 7:09 PM

That is almost the creepiest thing about it to me. They planned to kill a friend of theirs!

Terry Clouth · 7:09 PM

She had been at a sleep over but the two "killers" chickened out I guess.

Terry Clouth · 7:10 PM

to gain the graces of Slender Man and live in the woods with him

Jack Terry · 7:10 PM

That's going to be interesting to follow as all this unfolds. Was one more in charge than the other?

Terry Clouth · 7:10 PM

The influence games of this nature have may or not be to blame for this behavior but I'm thinking it doesn't help right?

Jack Terry · 7:11 PM

Yeah, what's up with that? Why was it so important to live in the woods with Slenderman? What is missing from their home lives?

Terry Clouth · 7:11 PM

Really...and I'm sure there is a leader, there always is

Jack Terry · 7:11 PM

It doesn't help at all. It's simply another form of bullying on one side and wanting to fit in on the other.

Terry Clouth · 7:11 PM

This time it was Slender Man

Terry Clouth · 7:12 PM

My curiosity is about the creator of such a demonic figure in the first place...

Jack Terry · 7:12 PM

Old enough/smart enough to find these stories and learn about Slenderman, but young enough/not smart enough to understand that none of it was real.

Terry Clouth · 7:12 PM

I mean I love horror and monsters and all that spooky stuff but...this seems almost cultish

Jack Terry · 7:12 PM

I looked into that, and it dates back five years.

Jack Terry · 7:13 PM

A website had a contest for people to digitally alter photographs and create "real event" horror stories.

Terry Clouth · 7:13 PM

Yea and it went viral right away...gaining great popularity in pre and teen aged kids

Jack Terry · 7:13 PM

Not surprising. Everybody likes to be scared a little.

Terry Clouth · 7:13 PM

There have been hundreds of Slender Man sightings across the country too!

Jack Terry · 7:13 PM

If not we wouldn't have haunted houses and rollercoasters.

Terry Clouth · 7:14 PM

Exactly...but I've never stepped off of a roller coaster and thought to myself, I"ll stab one of my friends

Jack Terry · 7:14 PM

Of course. Everyone has a story about how their cousin saw him, or a neighbor, or even themselves, one night, on a dark street, when they were alone...

Terry Clouth · 7:14 PM

That makes the whole thing so creepy...

Jack Terry · 7:14 PM

Well, there have been a couple of rollercoasters I thought about killing the person who made me ride it, but that's another story.

Jack Terry · 7:15 PM

That's what make these stories extra creepy. The sense that they really happened to someone.

Terry Clouth · 7:15 PM

Slender Man abducts children and traumatizes them...could the sightings be leading to copycats?

Terry Clouth · 7:15 PM

There has already been a Slender Man stabbing...

Jack Terry · 7:16 PM

Of course. the target age for these stories still have impressionable minds. They read something like this and think "If Slenderman can do this so can I."

Terry Clouth · 7:16 PM

Sick degenerates creeping around in the shadows snatching up children for fun...hmmm?

Terry Clouth · 7:16 PM

I hope I am soooo wrong about that.

Jack Terry · 7:17 PM

And it's like you said, the desensitization (I think I just made up a word) makes it so they have no idea that there are any kind of repercussions.

Jack Terry · 7:17 PM

Think about the guys in Cleveland who had those three girls for ten years.

Terry Clouth · 7:17 PM

exactly...producing sociopaths...the unfeeling

Terry Clouth · 7:17 PM

OH lord....there's another Tawk entirely!

Jack Terry · 7:17 PM

Or that guy from outside Los Angeles who was just caught a month ago. Kidnapped his girlfriend's 15 year old daughter, held her for ten years, even "married" her and had a kid.

Jack Terry · 7:18 PM

Oh I know. So much creepy craziness we could be here for days!

Terry Clouth · 7:18 PM

Those are a different kind of human being

Terry Clouth · 7:18 PM

If I can really call them human

Terry Clouth · 7:19 PM

At least, the very least, Slender Man is thus far, fictisious...spell much?

Jack Terry · 7:19 PM

Okay but think about this. let's take the guys from Cleveland. If I remember right they were around thirty or thirty five when they kidnapped the first woman.

Jack Terry · 7:19 PM

Honey, that's what spellcheck is for!

Jack Terry · 7:19 PM

When they were twelve, Slenderman didn't exist. But what if he had?

Terry Clouth · 7:20 PM

On the bright side, the victim of the Slender Man Stabbing will survive. She is doing well in the hospital. What a mental mess she will be though!

Terry Clouth · 7:20 PM

Evil knows no bounds, Jack...

Jack Terry · 7:20 PM

The explosion of what's available online is making it easier for people who may have sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies to reveal themselves earlier and earlier.

Terry Clouth · 7:20 PM

It's influence can come from anything, anywhere...you know that

Jack Terry · 7:21 PM

Yes, thank God her "friend" weren't good enough at what they were doing.

Jack Terry · 7:21 PM

Still I long for the good old days when you just had to watch out for the kid who tore the wings off of flies. Wait a second. I used to do that...

Terry Clouth · 7:21 PM

Apparently Slender Man isn't much of a "leader"

Terry Clouth · 7:21 PM

LOL...NIce tawk Jack...I look forward to more in the future...

Jack Terry · 7:22 PM

Definitely. Let's do this again sometime!

Terry Clouth · 7:22 PM

You're on! Have a great Day and don't let Slender Man strike!!

Jack Terry · 7:22 PM

I sleep with the lights on! BYE!!!