Monday, August 11, 2014

Slenderman Stabbing: Update

My long-time readers will remember my past posts about Creepypasta, the Slenderman Stabbing and the expected fallout. There's new information that the press isn't making as public. The shine is off the apple.

First of all, one of the stabbers has been ruled unfit to stand trial. This was expected from the moment the story was reported. The insanity runs deeper than even I suspected. In addition to trying to kill to impress Slenderman, the girl believes in Unicorns and communicates with Lord Voldermort. Of course that's crazy: Voldermort died in the 90s.

The court is giving her one year to become competent, with therapy. The other girl has yet to be evaluated.

In more positive news, the victim went home from the hospital a week after the stabbing, got a purple heart anonymously, and an ongoing GoFundMe fundraiser has raised almost 60k for her.

And what about the fallout for horror aficionados, like myself? The Creepypasta website went down for a while, out of respect. The person who runs the site got death threats. Not even the creator of the original photos: just the person running the site they were hosted on. There is an age calculator on the site now, to screen out the honest young.

The original photo manipulations, by Victor Surge.

There have been other crimes tenuously linked to Slenderman, but no big media bombshells. Nothing they can latch on to and decry us weirdos who read Stephen King and watch Freddy Krueger. We on the margins of society who turn out for the annual installments of SAW or Paranormal Activity on Halloween. So the story has died.

I've often told the story of being approached by a woman with christian tracts outside of the library because I'd borrowed a copy of The Exorcist. My husband gives me weird looks when I wax philosophic on the art of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. I'm used to the stigma attached to horror.


None of these little things bother me. The horror fan stigma has been around since the inception of the art. People were mocked for reading penny dreadfuls like Varney the Vampier, even as it reached best-seller status. It's something I'm used to. But I don't have to like it. I don't have to sit back while artists get death threats because sociopaths latch on to their work instead of religion or poltical dogma.

I have a blog and a loud voice. Shouting at the theater about Slenderman may get me some attention, but it won't win me any fans. So I'll stand on my digital pulpit and shout my normalcy.

No. Not my normalcy. My assertion that normalcy doesn't matter. Art matters. Freedom to enjoy the art matters.

Fuck anyone who thinks I'm a psychotic freakshow because I watch American Horror Story. If I am a psychopath, just hope I'm influenced by something as mild as Stephen King. The psychopaths devoted to religion and politics are far scarier. 

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