Slender Man in television

So I was catching up on the latest episode of Lost Girl (don't judge me) when I was struck by a very blatant reference to ol' Slendy. Blatant, in this case, meaning someone straight up said the words "the Slender Man".

A character was talking about urban legends, and Slendy was mentioned right alongside heavy hitters like Bloody Mary and sewer alligators.

This naturally lead me to wonder whether or not this could really be the first time the Slender Man Mythos is referenced in an honest to Google television series. I figure if he had already made his primetime debut, I'd have found a post during my search here to make sure this wasn't a redundant topic.

How about it? Has anyone ever seen the Mythos spoken of, or even referenced, on the telly before?


(Of note, Slendy did later appear in person in this episode. Kind of. Or not really at all, I guess. This show likes to play it fast and loose with mythological creatures, so the being in question was said to be the creature that inspired the Slender Man stories. Along with other tales, such as the Pied Piper. So, yeah.)

Saw him hosting the Late Show the other night.

BravoBismuth wrote:

So I was catching up on the latest episode of Lost Girl (don't judge me) when I was struck by a very blatant reference to ol' Slendy. Blatant, in this case, meaning someone straight up said the words "the Slender Man".

Is there any way you could link me to it?

Unlikely. I couldn't find the clip on youtube and any copy of the episode online would probably fall under the blanket of "illegally gained", which we are not supposed to link to.

the slender game appeared on tv once though i think a lot of us would prefer to forget that fact

DFW, are you talking about that game's appearance on Toonami when it became like a huge thing? Also, I can't believe I'm saying this, but don't knock the game just because a bunch of fairweather fans got obsessed with it. I'll be the first to acknowledge its flaws and the numerous clones of it are shit, but it still brought a lot of new people into the Mythos, some of which stayed because they liked what they saw. And I happen to be one of those people.

I'm just sick of the hating on this game; that was then, this is now. It's a new year, can we talk about something else more relevant?

As for Slendy on TV... Haven't seen many references. But he certainly has become a bit more pop-culturally noticeable. Whether that's good or bad is up to you to decide; personally I think it's good so long as he's not watered down too much and as long as he's at least still creepy.

Yes, that's the appearance I'm talking about.

Also, I should specify, I'm not trying to hate on the game itself. As far as games go, it's a decent thing, especially as it was made (as far as I know) by non-professionals.

What I didn't enjoy so much was that it really didn't bring a lot of people into the mythos as we know it. I've seen far too many people who think Slender is the origin of Slenderman, and while I respect the right of people to be fans of Slender and nothing else, I'm not huge on the people that go out and claim it's the only thing or WORSE- the ones that call other slenderman related things copies of the game. It's more of a pet peeve I guess than anything, and it's not entirely the fault of the game itself, but it has generated a number fans who don't actually do their research.

I call the people who shallowly skim the surface of a fandom and don't research before getting into it "fairweather fans", because they're typically gone within less than six months. The ones that stay and do the research are the ones who actually care.

Should they have to get into it, though? I loved the Hunger Games movie but found the book too annoyingly written to read. I'll see the second movie but I won't read any of the books. I love comics, but don't read Avengers, yet loved the movie more than any experience with the comic. Etc.

Personally, I was happy to see Slender on Toonami. Then again, I love Tom so seeing him advertise for Slender was awesome for me. I mean, if nothing else the people who made the game get more attention and bigger projects.

Packfong, I don't mean to imply that everyone who gets into something because it's popular or into an adaptation is a bad fan. What I mean is fans who go around thinking that THAT version is the only version that's legitimate or okay and that THAT version is the end-all-to-be-all, the best of the best, when there's more out there that could, objectively, be better. I also liked the Avengers film, but I'm probably not gonna read the comics because they didn't capture my interest that much; I don't consider myself an Avengers fan, just someone who liked the movie. Sure, they probably go more in-depth about the characters and have a lot that the movie didn't, but it's just not my thing and I really don't care enough about it to say I'm a fan of it. I'm not in any way saying that if you prefer a movie to a book, you should feel like you HAVE to like the book too, because I'm not the kind of person who would say "blah blah you must like X Y and Z or you're not a real fan!". I'm not that much of a snob about my fandoms, that's not what I'm saying here, and I apologize if I gave that impression.

Let me tell you a story. I'm a Batman fan. I love the stories and I love the setting and universe of the stories; I love the characters. I love everything from the comics to the films to the animated series, because it is just a cool universe to me. I had obviously known about Batman for a long time, but was introduced into that fandom through the film The Dark Knight back in 2008. I exclusively got into it because I was fascinated with the Joker as a character in particular. For a long time I was a fan of just the films, then later I delved deeper into the character's history and slowly came to love a lot of other aspects of the Batman Mythos as well. That was when I realized that there are some fans who delve deeper because they liked what they saw enough, some fans that stick with the pop culture because they didn't like what they saw in the deeper levels for whatever reason... and then there are those who are only into it because it's "cool", or because it's popular at the time.

Those last people are the fans I was talking about with my previous comment, Packfong, not fans who might just happen to prefer the pop culture version of something to the real story. The difference is between the fan who says, "I prefer this version" and the fan who says, "LOL yeah this is cool and stuff but that thing over there is shinier and newer see ya bye!" Honestly, it's a hard distinction to make - I got a lot of hate from Bat-fans who were really deep into the comics back in 2008 because I was seen as a "Heath Ledger fangirl", something I'm not and never was. What I was was uninformed and still testing the fandom waters at that point. It got so bad that I left dA because of it (that's part of why I don't have a dA account; the other part is because of the stupidity and immature attitudes around certain parts of that site). I'm in no way implying you have to be a hardcore fan of something to like something. I'm probably more well-versed in the Batman Mythos than someone who only likes the Nolanverse films is, but I still consider the other person a Batman fan, and I still don't consider myself a "hardcore" Batman fan even though I know a lot about that universe, and the Joker in particular (I do consider myself a hardcore Joker fan, if you're wondering - anything my Clown Prince of Crime is in I'll probably at least check out).

In the same way with this Mythos - there are the people who read as many blogs as possible, watch as many vlogs as possible and get as in depth as possible, the people who hardly break character ever, the people who might even have created a blog or series of their own... and those people I consider to be the really hardcore Slenderfans, the ones who eat, breathe, and sleep the Mythos. Then you have Slenderfans who might only watch a few vlogs, or maybe read one blog and any blogs that cross over with it. Those people are still Slenderfans; they still enjoy the universe and still have a breadth of knowledge about the subject. I consider myself that type of Slenderfan, but I still have a long way to go in terms of how much about this Mythos I do know.

Then you have the skimmers, who might only like the games or might only keep up with, say, EverymanHYBRID. Those people are still Slenderman fans in the sense that they enjoy Slendy-related things, but I would hesitate to call them "Slenderfans" because to me, that term implies a person that loves many different aspects of the Mythos, not just one small chunk of it. However, I don't see them as any less of a fan than me, and I don't think they aren't "true fans" or whatever bullcrap that is, I just see them more as fans of those specific things than of the Mythos as a whole. And I have absolutely no issue with people loving the games as long as they aren't complete dicks about it and don't insist that's all there is about the character, or try to tell me I'm wrong. Just because Person A prefers a Slendy that actively chases you while you're trying to collect pages, and Person B prefers a passive Slendy that watches a person from afar and Proxifies people they know to attack them and wear them down mentally, does not make either fan better than the other. It's a matter of preference, and it'd be hugely hypocritical of me to hate someone for liking the games because that's how I began testing the waters of this fandom - if the vlogs, ARGs, and blogs are the deep end, then the games are kind of like the shallow entry end for some people.

And finally, you have the people who saw only the game, thought it was the only thing to ever know about Slendy, and insist they're right. These people are sometimes seen with the people who saw this creepy game, played it, assumed things that don't make sense to any other Mythos fan, and don't care about being told otherwise because they're only there because it's cool. They're only here because a popular LPer brought them there, or because their friend brought them there, or because Toonami did a retrospect on it. THESE are the people I can't stand, because they either don't realize or just plain don't WANT to realize that they might not have as much knowledge as they claim they do. I have the same issue with people who insist that ONLY the Surgist Slenderman stuff should count, or ONLY one interpretation of Slendy is right, because they don't know when to shut up either and don't behave in a way that's open to any sort of dialogue, discussion, or interpretation. To me, the hardcore purists are just as annoying as the shallow fairweather fans; neither of them are fun to be around because they don't want to open themselves to new ideas, they don't want to see anything other than their way, and they sure as hell don't want to admit that they might be wrong or misunderstanding others' intentions. Basically, they're all stuck in their own shallow little kiddie pools while we're all having fun in the real pool. And really, they're the ones that are missing out.

But hell, if someone's happy where they are in the kiddie pool, that's fine. If they come to the bigger pool and feel like they just can't swim in it, that's fine. If they come and stay, great, if they dive headfirst into the deep end and stay there for a long time, then I'm cool with that too.

As long as they're not total and utter dicks about the water that they're swimming in, I don't care.