The Proxy Phase

I'm finally getting around to watching what might be the second and third wave Slender vlogs, and I'm noticing a pattern. Almost all of them seem strong while setting up the general scenario of the Slender Man haunting. But then they all seem to reach a point where they either have to switch directions or else either start repeating themselves or move into demystifying Slendy by trying to explain him. The universal handling is to switch to dealing with proxies. At that point, the story begins to fracture. It jumps around randomly, becoming filled with vague threats, stalkings, puzzle games, random assaults, and characters on the brink of nervous breakdown. Sometimes this can be engaging in itself, and some of the apparent explorations of subjective states intruding into the objective realm recorded by the camera are highly satisfying.

Rarely, however, does a series seem to rescue any kind of coherent story from the Proxy Phase. They either burn out or just keep stacking one bizarre and nerve-wracking event on another until it becomes just weird for weird's sake. The only exception I've seen (so far) to this is Marble Hornets, where they've managed to keep some semblance of a story going. There, I think Jay's level-headedness and the text-based narrative format have a calming effect.

I started thinking about this after introducing my nephew to Slender Man stories. He quite liked Marble Hornets and I was excited to show him Everyman Hybrid. Once we were watching EMH, though, he couldn't follow it and I realized I couldn't actually explain to him what was going on. It all seemed to make some sense to me when I initially watched it as a series of lone entries, but once we tried to watch them all together, it was a jumble. This seems to happen when HABIT, EMH's apparent equivalent of a proxy, begins to drive the story.

So I guess I'm wondering what thoughts anyone might have on this observation. Have I simply sampled the wrong set of stories, or is this as universal a tendency as it seems? Either way, where does it come from? Is this Proxy Phase inspired by Marble Hornets and Masky? Did this become standard issue in the blogs, of which I admittedly know no more than I've learned from CompileTruth? Are there any Slender Man stories out there which don't seem to gradually collapse in on themselves? Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong, and need to be reeducated in how to follow a Slender Story?

This is why I think it happens. I think the Proxy Phase is itself a step to the storyteller's apparently ultimate goal of unraveling the mystery present in the story. The Proxies in a way give Slendy a voice and motivation, which he never has in the beginning of the story. After Slendy's intentions are revealed through the actions of the Proxies, the only place to go to give the story a climax is to unravel the mystery of Slendy himself; the only way to do that is to explain Slendy's existence and reason for being there in the first place, since we already know his motivations. If his motivations aren't revealed in the Proxy Phase, then they would be here.

I think the Proxy Phase is one step in the storytelling goal of giving the story a climax.

That makes sense. It does also sound like a halfway measure, if one of the reasons to introduce proxies is to avoid demystifying Slendy by explaining him, yet the ultimate story climax would still need to move in that direction.

Why does the initial Slenderman haunting phase tend to be well-structured, though, while the Proxy Phase tends to be confused and jumbled in so many cases? I wonder if I am still overlooking those series in which this second part of the typical story is presented as clearly as the first part.

With respect to Marble Hornets' greater success in structured storytelling, it occurs to me that MH is as much a detective story as a horror story, allowing the series to use select aspects of both genres. Many other series are merely horror or lose any problem-solving quality as the proxies wreak their havoc. But I admittedly haven't given this angle much thought. I'll stop now, before I start with muddled musings about CaughtNotSleeping picking up a bit when Natalie begins to play Watson to Caught's Holmes.

I think you said this in so many words, but it's a good device to take the focus off Slendy long enough for a big scare when he does pop up a again. The Proxie could build tension for this or just become a distraction.

Also there seems to be a canon about him having minions and or anti-minions. It would be interesting to see a good story where Proxies and "Anti-Proxies" are not involved.

I really do agree. EverymanHYBRID was really doing good for awhile, but all of those random videos keep popping up. It's gotten to the point of where their videos have to be explained, which isn't good news for any video maker. If Vince keeps on making these weird, cryptic videos instead of giving us a good storyline, it'll be a pretty tragic ending to a once-good series.

If EverymanHYBRID decided to bring some extra characters into the story, I'd be more interested. If they were to explain what happened to the characters (Evan and friends) and then introduce the characters, that would be crazy.

I should clarify. I am not taking a stance against proxies, nor do I seek to derogate EMH. In fact, I have nothing against any of the series I've watched so far. I'm thrilled at this explosion of creativity. Love a creative underground, me. I'm just beginning to note certain patterns and what look like standard storytelling pratfalls, which may have less to do with the story being told by any given series than with the general Slenderstory framework, the set of canonized ideas.

The Why of proxy use in a story seems fairly clear. If there's a problem, and I think I see a basic dilemma cropping up, I suppose it's with the How of the proxy. The way they're used. To avoid overexposure of Slender Man, the proxies end up being overused. It reminds me a bit of the Mary Sue problem in fan fiction, where a minor character takes over the story.

Part of what I'm noting -- the chaotic, jumbled aspect -- may just be due to the ARG element in many series. As that develops, and it seems to do so more during the Proxy Phase than the Slendy setup phase, the communal creative process alters the nature of the storytelling. There are gaps in the video documents, where other media were central to the developing story. New strains appear, influenced by audience interaction. There's a role playing game in progress, so the resulting story will differ from one with a single creative vision being imposed. But if this could be seen as a role playing game, where's the Dungeon Master, to pull things back in the desired direction?

One begins to wonder if many series start out wanting to "do something like Marble Hornets", or something like some other existing series. They really shine while setting up Slender Man. I love most of what I've seen, of that first story phase. But then they perhaps run up against a problem with serialized storytelling: knowing when and how to wrap it up, once you've said everything you had to say. Is the Proxy Phase so confused because that's where a series has an audience, the creator wants to continue having the attention and creating new material, but they've reached the end of their initial creative vision? I think of Heroes, the TV show. Arguably the first season was pretty good. The creator had a definite idea of what he wanted to say. But then it was a success and the network forced him to keep telling stories with the same characters, rather than move on to a new set of characters, an exploration of a wholly new aspect of the fictional world. The show faltered, lacking creative vision, seeming to just keep throwing things out there until something worked with the audience. And it died an ugly death.

Perhaps the problem isn't the proxies as such, then, but a broader difficulty of telling a story within the established Slender Man setup. If one can't explain Slendy and one can't even explore him too much, where can the story go? Some series just seem to stop, at the point where the Proxy Phase would begin. I think Silver Selenide and Tulpa Effect may be stronger for (at least apparently) having ended at that point. But just stopping also evades the issue. Where can the story go, what is ultimately being expressed by a Slender Man story?

I think I'm waffling now, usually an indication that I'm writing before I've had enough coffee. Ahem.

I understand what you're saying. A lot of ARGs/Vlogs/Blogs get to the point where if you do too much Slendy, he gets too predictible and not scary enough, but when they switch to a proxy, the proxy becomes overused. I'm actually planning on a ARG blog that I hope won't have this problem.

Anyway, I think the problem is balance. You can't have one proxy because that just completely changes the villian in the middle of the story, but if you have a bunch of them they become like zombies. In my opinion, you need to change the proxy approach or use the looming threat of Slendy and the distraction of the proxies to sidetrack the characters. Then, Slender Man time.

Just my opinion.

Neomenia wrote:

I should clarify. I am not taking a stance against proxies, nor do I seek to derogate EMH. In fact, I have nothing against any of the series I've watched so far. I'm thrilled at this explosion of creativity. Love a creative underground, me. I'm just beginning to note certain patterns and what look like standard storytelling pratfalls, which may have less to do with the story being told by any given series than with the general Slenderstory framework, the set of canonized ideas.

Trust me-I had no intention on degrading EMH either. It was the first vlog I watched, and I've enjoyed it since. And proxies really have a need to become part of the storyline so Slendy isn't overused. I totally agree, which means...

I accept the value of the proxies in Slender storytelling, but I'm not convinced that they're necessary. Surely that isn't the only possible way to tell a Slender Man story, particularly in written form. In an amateur video project there may be a greater actual need, given all of the production constraints. In writing, the imagination can run wild. There, the only real "need" for proxies would seem to come from following the formula, the recipe which has grown up over the past few years, for a Slender Man story. It begins to seem to me that the Slender Mythos is becoming (or is at risk of becoming, if creators can't push against the boundaries) rigid and a bit narrow, with some danger present of creative stagnation. Already, even a dummy like me can see limiting patterns cropping up in the storytelling. If that continues, the entire mythos could suffer the same quandary that greets individual stories currently, that of falling prey to repetition and redundancy.

Dang, I'm just grumpy tonight. Sorry about that.

Neomenia wrote:

Perhaps the problem isn't the proxies as such, then, but a broader difficulty of telling a story within the established Slender Man setup. If one can't explain Slendy and one can't even explore him too much, where can the story go?

I think this is pretty much it. Solving the mystery of the Slender Man, or defeating him, would take a bit of nerve. For one thing, it would cut your blog/vlog/Broadway musical off from the rest of the Slenderverse. This is less than ideal if you've already done cross-overs with other blog/vlog/puppet-shows.

I think this is why Troy and Joseph and the gang have been careful not to mix their story with the others. I suspect they're going to resolve at least a little of the Operator's story.

But in the mean time, what to do? You can't tease the audience forever, and you usually can't explain or kill Slendy. So you have to present a mystery you can solve. MH has given us the Masky Squad/totheark, and the question of what happened to Tim and whoever Hoody is and whoever TTA is (if it's not Brian; my money is on Jay) to make them proxies. EMH has HABIT and the Rake and Dr. Corenthal and their alternate realities.

You get the idea. These are mysteries they can solve without messing with the basic Slender Man mythos.

Perhaps from that perspective the trouble is that conveying a mystery effectively requires careful attention to structure, if you want the viewer or reader to be properly engaged. In the case of ARG scenarios, the rules will differ and if the game is actually working there's a form of audience engagement in place. I've been watching these as video narratives, though, and from that perspective the mystery tends to be buried beneath the horror and surrealism.

Maybe part of the trouble is that the character who is trying to solve the mystery is often also the victim of the stalking/abuse/horror. As the victim, things happen to them. Horror fiction presents an inexplicably threatening world that we can't control. A mystery story presents a world that can be explained, brought under control to some extent through understanding. The horror format and the mystery format perhaps tend to work against one another, then, and a mix of the two needs to be approached carefully. Even after Jay meets the Operator in season 2 of MH, he still remains calm and rational and presents us with a logical universe where problems can be solved, even if there are some horrific and unexplainable elements. Contrast this with Tribe Twelve, where Noah is a decent problem solver until the Proxy Phase really amps up, after which he's almost always the victim of events and is often in emotional collapse. The detective moves events most of the time, the horror victim is acted upon by events.

I think one way to blend horror and mystery may be to take it out of the first person mode which is common in Slendervlogs. Jay is trying to solve the mystery of Alex and, latterly, Tim, who are the victims of horror. Jay himself tells a first person story, but the horror is largely in the third person. We get to see Jay move events, solve problems, and make this world comprehensible. While horror can befall Jay in the first person, that can be treated as the horror from Alex's world periodically intruding upon Jay. There's a narrative framing device here which helps meld the two genres.

There are other ways to frame a horror story which could help with such a meld. I'm not that bright and I'm not a writer or student of literature, so I don't know all of the approaches, myself. I would look over H.P. Lovecraft's stories, for different ways of approaching the problem of a mystery in horror. It's been years since I read his stories, but IIRC he uses a number of different approaches for the relationship of the narrator to the horror, and how the horror itself is finally revealed to the audience, solving the mystery.

What lies at the end of these proxy-driven mysteries? Are there answers? Or do we run up against more things that have to be left unexplained? If there are no answers, you don't have a mystery story, you have a puzzle game. Sooner or later, an audience will grow weary of that, I suspect. The chaotic world presented by the proxy phase is good for horror, but it works against the mystery aspect, where you need the grounding of a world which can be understood. The proxies present a sort of conditioning schedule, mixing the certainty of abuse with unpredictability and forcing upon the victim and/or narrator, and the audience, a sense of learned helplessness. The detective, the one solving the mystery, can't be helpless forever. The detective can take his knocks, but he needs to be allowed to rebound and solve the mystery.

Mystery and Horror are not as separate as you might think. Edgar Allen Poe invented the modern mystery by adapting the Gothic romance; H.P. Lovecraft invented modern horror by adapting Poe.

I've long thought that one very common structure for horror is "trying to solve a mystery while something tries to kill you." What makes it horror rather than a violent thriller is the nature of a mystery. If the investigation uncovers a ring of counterfeiters or a spy, you've got a mystery. If it uncovers a cannibal cult or an eldritch abomination, you've got horror. Look at the movie Angel Heart, which starts as a missing persons case and spirals into Voodoo and diabolism and a missing soul case.

As to mysteries presenting a logical universe, there is a difference between a mystery and a detective story. In a mystery, figuring out who done it (and what it was that was done) is central to the story. In a detective story, the mystery is secondary, it's the vehicle for uncovering the twisted world of the people involved in the crime. It's the difference between Sherlock Holmes and Phillip Marlowe.

The detective story does not have to present a logical universe. In fact, attempting to solve the mystery simply reveals that the world is more chaotic than previously thought. Consider the movie Chinatown, where the murder mystery is fairly simple, but the politics and abusive family secrets behind the murder are messy and crazy.

Of the two, I think the detective story is a better format for a Slenderstory.

The degree of ARGness of the story also matters. One of the reasons I think that EverymanHYBRID has gotten so incomprehensible is that half of what's going on is happening in HABIT's games. Marble Hornets, on the other hand, isn't much of an ARG (beyond decoding totheark's codes), so all the important stuff is there in the videos. I'm liking the way Caught Not Sleeping is handling the balance of ARG and story; Caught's trip to the Weird House is a great example of doing audience participation in a way that doesn't lose the folks who weren't there for the voting and debate.

Lovecraft's works were almost entirely first person, and mostly from the point of view of the person subjected to the horror. The current crop of Slender blogs/vlogs are quite a bit closer to his stories than they are to the rest of modern horror.

Woo hoo! Someone who can set me right when my preconceptions run amuck. Thank you. I start babbling and away I go. I think I like your ideas better than mine.

So, taking the vlogs as storytelling, do you think I am off-base in seeing a general problem with the proxy-driven part of the story?

I still wonder whether I might simply be watching these the wrong way, trying to impose a bookish paradigm when I should be regarding them from another perspective. Rather than considering short stories, perhaps reality TV, video games, or horror movies would be a better reference frame? These are all areas I don't follow, but I gather they may have varying degrees of influence on the Slender vlogs. I'm not sure how to assess those things.

I think your difficulty with the proxy stories is only partially a matter of your approach to the series. Many series are more game than show, and just watching the games is going to get progressively more frustrating as time goes on.

For vlogs that are trying to be more show than game, or equal parts, I try to watch them as horror/mysteries. There is something strange going on, and I want to know what it is, but sometimes the mystery angle will take a back seat to the horror angle.

In all honesty, I think that many series creators simply handle them badly, more out of a lack of planning than a lack of talent. Some series feel like the proxies are thrown in because all Slender stories need a proxy, rather than having a plan for them right?

Look at how the big three handle proxies. They're all good, but for different ways and for different purposes.

Totheark and Masky gave Jay a bad guy he could do something about. At first, we all thought they worked for the Operator, but season two has made clear that they're opposed to Alex, at least. The Operator is still in the background, but still connected to the plot. The Masky brigade is still a mystery, but it's still a facet of the larger mystery, as its origins are linked to Alex's relationship with the Operator. What minimal ARG elements Marble Hornets has come in the form of puzzles from totheark, and don't really impact the story so much as give extra depth. They're more easter eggs than audience participation.

Adam of Tribe Twelve invented the Observer as a stalling tactic when his plans for his Thanksgiving episodes fell through. He's since handled it very well. By making the connection between his proxies and the Slender Man clear and up front, that allows him to keep Slendy mysterious without making it feel like the Observer and his pals have upstaged Mr. Slim. The mystery isn't about how the proxies are related to Slendy, but about how they're related to Noah and Milo and their families.

For EverymanHYBRID, the proxies became the center of the ARG elements of the story. The vids and the twitter are working in reaction to what goes on in the ARG, which has moved mostly away from the YouTube channel. This is great for the players of that ARG, but not so good for folks wanting to just keep up with the story or those trying to join midway through.

Other vlogs, like Dark Harvest and TJA projects, had proxies, but they were hit or miss. Dark Harvest has a Slendy-worshiping cult as part of their ARG, but the handling is clumsy, with too much filler and not enough explanation. TJA's proxies wandered in and out and didn't actually add much to the story, though that was probably because the girls were having a hellish time in their lives and no doubt what made it to film wasn't what they'd originally planned.

Anyway, in both those cases, the proxies took over for Slendy, making things feel like a bait and switch.

The lesson? If you're going to use proxies, know how you're going to do it, and do it so that they become part of the overall Slendy mystery and not something that pushes Slendy aside. Decide how much ARG you want, and accept that you can't have something that does both perfectly.

Yes, I like your conclusions. I tend to get... carried away a wee bit. Ahem, koff. I think I panicked somewhat after watching TJA, which (while engaging and well-produced) sort of went bonkers during the proxy period. Until it looked like one of the proxies (the dead boyfriend?) was being built up as some kind of odd Neil Gaiman metaphysical whatsis. After that, I noticed similarities between vlogs, at the expense of differences, becoming carried away with concern for the apparent patterns in place.

I do still have concern about how the proxy business can be handled, or mishandled, but that should be left to the individual visions of the creators.

Regarding HP Lovecraft, I think I was earlier remembering The Thing on the Doorstep, The Call of Cthulu, and Herbert West: Reanimator, as cases which stood out for me with the narrator not being the direct victim of the horror. IIRC, there the narrator is reporting events which befall someone else. Herbert West uses something very like the Watson-Holmes storytelling approach. My favorite, and the one which scared me as much as Slender Man, was Dreams of the Witch House, which made me sleep with lights on, just like MH. Brown Jenkin creeped me out, hoo boy. I guess I have issues with the idea of something creeping up on me while I sleep. That one, at least, was in third person. Umm. Not that it's important.

Those Lovecraft stories are pretty good exceptions to his usual style. MH started out like that, with Jay telling us about Alex's encounters. I wonder if a Slender blog could pull that off indefinitely, though. Jay had to get involved directly, to keep the format from getting stale.

TJA had problems with production that had nothing to do with whether or not the creators knew what they were doing with the story. If they'd had the time and support to finish like they wanted, it might have been fantastic. We'll never know for sure, though.

Back to Lovecraft, though... Think of using proxies like he used the Cthulhu cult in "The Call of Cthulhu."

I think it might be harder to vary the existing Slenderstory format, for an amateur vlog. There would generally be so many constraints of time and resources that the story would need to be kept fairly simple and immediate, or so I assume. I still think it could be done in a written format, but perhaps more in the form of a traditional story than a blog. The blog/vlog format would tend toward first person, present tense, journal style entries, much as we see now. A written story, though, could theoretically be anything at all. I wish I had the skill myself to try it, because I'd like to see a Slender Man story which tries to find another approach.

I don't mean to sound critical of TJA. I don't know where everyone is getting the inside story and background details for so many of the vlogs. I feel like I'm missing half of the story in most cases, much less the context which informs how the story should be interpreted. Possibly I need to learn to understand Twitter now, after all this time.

It having been 20 years since I read most of Lovecraft (I *think* I managed to read all of them, eventually, but I recall only a handful now), it's surprising to me that I actually remember what I do about those standout stories. Memory's a funny thing.

I picked up what little I know from reading the UnFiction forums.

Hmm. I can't help but think of something structured like The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, in which Ward becomes a proxy instead of being replaced by his undead ancestor...