Internet Nostalgia

Let’s Revisit Slender Man

Careful what you make when bored online …

Welcome to part 27 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: Milkshake Duck. This week: Slender Man.

When: 2009.

The Story: Back in 2009, one of the most popular, creative forums online was Something Awful, a forum for just about every wild, often-charming Internet denizen who just wanted to make stuff and be weird. (The site was sold last October and appears to be in a state of permanent limbo right now.) It was a place for smart Web people, and defiantly uncorporate ones. It was a place to fun shit.

One day, in 2009, a thread emerged in which users decided to use Photoshop to “create paranormal images.” (This was the sort of silly, why-not thing you did on the Internet in 2009.) One user, a man named Eric Knudsen, did something very simple: He put up a picture of two children, in black and white, next to “a tall, thin, spectral figure wearing a black suit.” He gave…