The nation was shocked a few weeks back when two twelve-year-old girls, stabbed their friends in an effort to impress the fictitious Slenderman. Than in early June, a couple shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers in a CiCi’s pizza, before killing a citizen inside a Wal-Mart. Now it has been reported that one of the cop killers occasionally cosplayed as Slender Man. What is it about this strange character found mostly in memes, that attracted so much chaos?
Two week’s ago two Wisconsin tween girls stabbed another girl in the name of Slenderman.
According to the police report one of the girls claimed:
"Many people do not believe Slenderman is real [and we] wanted to prove the skeptics wrong."
Slenderman is a fictitious character who started popping in internet stories since 2009. Slenderman is a fixture on the website Creepypasta. After the stabbing, the Creepypasta wiki released a statement about the incident that reads in part:
“ALL WORKS PRESENTED ON THIS WIKI AND OTHER SITES (INCLUDING SLENDERMAN, JEFF THE KILLER, BEN, SONIC.EXE, ETC) ARE FICTIONAL STORIES AND CHARACTERS
Of course, only a small minority of people (mostly newcomers) on the wiki (and the Internet) truly believe what they read here. And for most people, they will not attempt replicate atrocities presented in some of the literature on the wiki. Something like this was bound to happen, considering the size of the Creepypasta community. All it takes is one person to do something insane and radical in the name of someone or something.
“This is an isolated incident, and does not represent or attribute the Creepypasta community as a whole. This wiki does not endorse or advocate for the killing, worship, and otherwise replication of rituals of fictional works. There is a line of between fiction and reality, and it is up to you to realise where the line is. We are a literature site, not a crazy satanic cult.”
It has now been revealed that one of the two Las Vegas shooters from this past weekend’s killings would dress up Slenderman. This according to a neighbor who told KTNV-TV that Jerad Miller [shooter] would dress up as Slenderman and the Joker.
People cosplaying as Slenderman is nothing new. Plenty on reasonable minded individuals can dress up as the character and enjoy his mythos without being labeled as murdering psychopaths.
Where the Las Vegas shootings were not done in the name of Slenderman, the connection to the character will certainly put the urban legend in crosshairs for concerned parents, like video games and horror movies have been for years.
