August 4, 2025 • 10 mins
What happens when a story goes too far? In this week’s episode of MAKE YOU SCREAM, we’re peeling back the shadows on one of the internet’s most chilling creations: Slenderman.
Trigger warning: this episode contains discussions of violence, mental illness, and real crime.
From his haunting origins on a Photoshop forum to the tragic real-life stabbing that shocked the world, we trace how a creepypasta became a cultural phenomenon—and a psychological trigger.
We cover:
🔪 The 2014 Slenderman stabbing and trial
🌲 The myth, lore, and evolution of Slenderman
🧠 How belief can manifest monsters into reality
💻 Why the internet is the perfect breeding ground for modern folklore
🌒 And the real psychological effects behind stories that go viral
This one’s a deep dive into belief, horror, and how fiction can bleed into real life.
If you’ve ever whispered “he’s watching” while walking alone in the woods... you’re not alone.
👻 Submit your story at: makeyouscreampodcast.com
🕒 New episodes every Monday at 1PM EST
#Slenderman #Creepypasta #TrueCrime #InternetHorror #UrbanLegends #PsychologicalHorror #MAKEYOUSCREAM #ParanormalPodcast #Folklore #ViralMyths #HorrorDeepDive #DigitalMonsters #ScaryGames #ScaryGame
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're alone in the woods. It's almost midnight.
Your flashlight flickers, barelycutting through the thick trees.
Every rustle makes your heart race.
You swear you see something out of the corner of your eye, a
figure tall and still, just watching.
But when you turn your head, there's nothing there.
But you know what you saw, or atleast you think you do.
(00:21):
Welcome back to another episode of Make You Scream.
On today's episode, we're deep diving into a figure who rose
from Internet obscurity to global infamy.
His name? Slender Man.
Slender Man isn't your typical ghost story.
He wasn't born from folklore passed down through generations.
He was created. He was crafted on the Internet
by users like you or me. And yet, despite his artificial
(00:43):
origin, his impact has been disturbingly real.
From sparking online hysteria toinfluencing a horrific real life
crime, Slender Man's story is a chilling reminder of how digital
mythologies can bleed into our world.
So today, we'll unpack his origins, dissect the terrifying
game that made him a household name, and take a sobering look
at the crime that shook a nation.
(01:04):
This is not just about fear. It's about belief and how
stories we tell ourselves onlineor off can become something far
more powerful and sometimes far more dangerous than we ever
intend. Slender Man's origins trace back
to a simple forum posted on June10th, 2009 on the website
Something Awful. A user named Victor Surge, his
(01:25):
real name ended up being Eric Knudsen, submitted a doctored
photo as part of a paranormal image contest.
His entry depicted a group of children with tall faceless
figure looming behind them. He accompanied it with
disturbing fake historical captions that implied mysterious
disappearances. Unlike other entries, Surges
Post didn't just scare people, it actually inspired them.
(01:47):
Users responded by expanding on the mythology.
They described Slender Man as impossibly tall with tentacle
like appendages and a blank paleface.
He wore a black suit and was often seen in wooded areas just
watching and waiting. Within days, fan fiction,
videos, photo manipulations exploded across the Internet.
(02:07):
Slender Man quickly became more than a spooky image.
He became a collaborative legend.
And unlike typical folklore, which evolves over centuries,
Slender Man's mythos formed in real time, shaped by thousands
of voices across the globe. It's like everyone was creating
this spooky story time together.In 2012, Slender Man leapt from
a myth to media with the releaseof Slender The 8 Pages, an indie
(02:30):
survival horror game created by Mark J Hadley.
The premise was hauntingly simple.
Basically, you're dropped into adark chorus at night with a
flashlight, and you have to collect 8 notes scattered around
the landscape. As you gather more pages, the
atmosphere grows increasingly more scary, and Slender Man
appears, watching from the shadows, moving closer and
closer each time you look away. There's no combat, no
(02:50):
soundtrack, only ambient noise and the sound of your own
footsteps. The static begins to distort
your screen, the fear inescapable.
It's the psychological dread of being hunted by something you
can't fight and can barely comprehend.
I've played it myself and it's pretty spooky, especially when
you're a kid. Now.
The game went viral. Youtubers scream through
playthroughs, and millions of downloads followed.
(03:12):
It inspired sequels, fan games, and entire creepypasta
communities dedicated to decoding the Slender Man mythos.
For many, this game was their introduction to the legend, and
people didn't really know about it before.
It seemed to leave a permanent impression.
Now, as Slender Man's popularitysoared, a new phenomenon began
to emerge. Ritualize interactions.
(03:34):
And that's how it's ending up onthis podcast because children
and teenagers across the globe began inventing their own ways
to summon Slender Man, often mixing traditional folklore
practices with Internet mythology.
So to do this ritual, which I donot suggest that you do, it
includes drawing his symbol, a circle with an X through it on
walls or notebooks, walking intothe woods at night while
(03:57):
chanting his name, or even leaving offerings to him.
It mirrors older games that we've talked about before, like
Bloody Mary or the The Night Game, but it feels more
immersive and more sinister, especially because you're out in
the woods. Slender Man became a figure that
you didn't just read about anymore.
You could challenge him, test him, provoke him.
The boundary between the game and reality grew thinner, and
for some that a line eventually disappeared.
(04:19):
And that brings us to trigger Warning.
A murder on May 31st, 2014 in Waukesha, WI.
The world saw the darker side ofbelief. 212 year old girls
Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weyer lured their friend Peyton
Leutner into the wooded area after a sleepover and what
followed was one of the most disturbing crimes in recent
(04:41):
memory. They stabbed her 19 times,
leaving her for dead. Their motive?
They believed it would please Slender Man.
After this happened, we found that the attack was part of a
month long plan. The girls had to research
Slender Man extensively online and believed that by killing
someone, they could prove their loyalty to him and become his
(05:03):
proxies. They thought that this would
grant them access to his mansion, which they imagined was
hidden deep within Wisconsin's National Forest.
Miraculously, though, Peyton actually survived despite
suffering stab wounds to her chest, liver, stomach, and arms,
including one that narrowly missed her heart, and she
crawled her way to a nearby bikepath where a passing cyclist,
(05:27):
someone literally just on a bikeriding by, found her.
And thank God that they did well.
This incident sparked global outrage and concern because how
could 2 seemingly normal children be driven to such an
act? And how much responsibility to
this fictional character hold for what happened?
Like Slender Man told him to do it right?
So Morgan and Anissa were both arrested.
(05:48):
Hours after the attack, the police found them walking along
a highway, still clutching the knife that they used in the
stabbing. They were calm and they believed
that Slender Man was real and they were trying to reach him.
In the court case, both girls were tried as adults.
Psychologist diagnosed Morgan with early onset schizophrenia,
said that she experienced hallucinations and delusions,
including visions of Slender Manand Anissa.
(06:10):
Will Not psychotic was said to be susceptible to shared
delusional thinking and heavily influenced by Morgan's beliefs.
So in 2017, both girls were found not guilty.
Which is so crazy? Not guilty by reason of mental
disease or defect. Morgan was sentenced to 40 years
in a psychiatric institution andAnissa received 25 years.
(06:33):
And I understand why they would plead not guilty by reason of
mental disease or defect, but the months of planning just to
get not guilty is so crazy and Ithink probably if they were
older they would have been foundguilty.
In 2021, Anissa was granted conditional release with GPS
monitoring and strict restrictions.
(06:54):
As of 2025, Morgan is still institutionalized with her most
recent petition for release and denied by the court.
This case is one of the most extreme examples of Internet
lore influencing real life. It challenged society to
reevaluate how young minds absorb and interpret digital
narratives and what safeguards need to be in place.
Like these girls seriously believe that Slender Man was
(07:17):
real and that they should commitmurders to go be with him in a
mansion. I mean also like their parents
didn't have any idea this was going on.
Maybe my parents were just nosy but I feel like they would have
known in like a week if I was planning something like this.
The aftermath of that stabbing sent shockwaves through schools,
parent groups, media platforms. Websites like Creepypasta
temporarily shut down sections, Minecraft removed Slender Man
(07:40):
inspired mods, YouTube demonetized content featuring
the character, news outlets painted Slender Man as the new
boogeyman, and debates flared online about responsibility.
But Slender Man hasn't disappeared.
OK, he's still haunts horror games, YouTube videos and tick
tock trends. And there's this theory that not
only applies to Slender Man, butto many modern myths.
(08:00):
Encrypted. There's the idea that belief can
manifest into reality. So in a lot of paranormal
circles, this is sometimes called tulpa.
It's a concept borrowed from Tibetan mysticism, where a being
or object is created through intense mental focus and belief.
So basically, if you believe hard enough, something can
become real. Applied to Slender Man, some
(08:21):
researchers and believers suggest that the collective fear
and attention and storytelling surrounding him, it created an
entity, almost. And if enough people believe in
something, especially with strong emotional energy, does
that thing start to exist in some form?
Maybe not physically, maybe physically, but at least
psychologically or spiritually. Now we've seen this theory pop
(08:42):
up with other cryptids. To Mothman, the Jersey Devil,
the Black Eyed Children. In Slender Man's case, the sheer
volume of content, from YouTube videos to fan arts to personal
accounts to story times, createda kind of cultural egregore, a
thought form that takes on a life of its own.
So maybe This is why people claim to dream of him.
Maybe it's why children claim tosee him in the woods, why two
(09:05):
young girls believed he was waiting for them.
Why, If you do with the ritual, he might actually show up.
Now, whether or not Slender Man is real in a physical sense
might not matter. What matters is that he became
real enough to inspire devotion and violence, and that's the
terrifying power of belief. So what do we make of Slender
Man now? He's a ghost of the Internet,
born from a joke, fed by fear, immoralized by tragedy.
(09:28):
His story was a warning. Belief has power and stories, no
matter how fictional, can changethe real world.
So anyways, that's about it. But thank you for joining me on
this deep dive into the strange and terrifying tale and ritual
of Slender Man on Scary Stories That Make You Scream.
I'm Nikki, be your host, and we post every single Monday at 1:00
PM EST. Now if you have a story of your
(09:49):
own, make sure to submit it and make youscreampodcast.com.
Until next time, sleep tight.
You're alone in the woods. It's almost midnight.
Your flashlight flickers, barelycutting through the thick trees.
Every rustle makes your heart race.
You swear you see something out of the corner of your eye, a
figure tall and still, just watching.
But when you turn your head, there's nothing there.
But you know what you saw, or atleast you think you do.
(00:21):
Welcome back to another episode of Make You Scream.
On today's episode, we're deep diving into a figure who rose
from Internet obscurity to global infamy.
His name? Slender Man.
Slender Man isn't your typical ghost story.
He wasn't born from folklore passed down through generations.
He was created. He was crafted on the Internet
by users like you or me. And yet, despite his artificial
(00:43):
origin, his impact has been disturbingly real.
From sparking online hysteria toinfluencing a horrific real life
crime, Slender Man's story is a chilling reminder of how digital
mythologies can bleed into our world.
So today, we'll unpack his origins, dissect the terrifying
game that made him a household name, and take a sobering look
at the crime that shook a nation.
(01:04):
This is not just about fear. It's about belief and how
stories we tell ourselves onlineor off can become something far
more powerful and sometimes far more dangerous than we ever
intend. Slender Man's origins trace back
to a simple forum posted on June10th, 2009 on the website
Something Awful. A user named Victor Surge, his
(01:25):
real name ended up being Eric Knudsen, submitted a doctored
photo as part of a paranormal image contest.
His entry depicted a group of children with tall faceless
figure looming behind them. He accompanied it with
disturbing fake historical captions that implied mysterious
disappearances. Unlike other entries, Surges
Post didn't just scare people, it actually inspired them.
(01:47):
Users responded by expanding on the mythology.
They described Slender Man as impossibly tall with tentacle
like appendages and a blank paleface.
He wore a black suit and was often seen in wooded areas just
watching and waiting. Within days, fan fiction,
videos, photo manipulations exploded across the Internet.
(02:07):
Slender Man quickly became more than a spooky image.
He became a collaborative legend.
And unlike typical folklore, which evolves over centuries,
Slender Man's mythos formed in real time, shaped by thousands
of voices across the globe. It's like everyone was creating
this spooky story time together.In 2012, Slender Man leapt from
a myth to media with the releaseof Slender The 8 Pages, an indie
(02:30):
survival horror game created by Mark J Hadley.
The premise was hauntingly simple.
Basically, you're dropped into adark chorus at night with a
flashlight, and you have to collect 8 notes scattered around
the landscape. As you gather more pages, the
atmosphere grows increasingly more scary, and Slender Man
appears, watching from the shadows, moving closer and
closer each time you look away. There's no combat, no
(02:50):
soundtrack, only ambient noise and the sound of your own
footsteps. The static begins to distort
your screen, the fear inescapable.
It's the psychological dread of being hunted by something you
can't fight and can barely comprehend.
I've played it myself and it's pretty spooky, especially when
you're a kid. Now.
The game went viral. Youtubers scream through
playthroughs, and millions of downloads followed.
(03:12):
It inspired sequels, fan games, and entire creepypasta
communities dedicated to decoding the Slender Man mythos.
For many, this game was their introduction to the legend, and
people didn't really know about it before.
It seemed to leave a permanent impression.
Now, as Slender Man's popularitysoared, a new phenomenon began
to emerge. Ritualize interactions.
(03:34):
And that's how it's ending up onthis podcast because children
and teenagers across the globe began inventing their own ways
to summon Slender Man, often mixing traditional folklore
practices with Internet mythology.
So to do this ritual, which I donot suggest that you do, it
includes drawing his symbol, a circle with an X through it on
walls or notebooks, walking intothe woods at night while
(03:57):
chanting his name, or even leaving offerings to him.
It mirrors older games that we've talked about before, like
Bloody Mary or the The Night Game, but it feels more
immersive and more sinister, especially because you're out in
the woods. Slender Man became a figure that
you didn't just read about anymore.
You could challenge him, test him, provoke him.
The boundary between the game and reality grew thinner, and
for some that a line eventually disappeared.
(04:19):
And that brings us to trigger Warning.
A murder on May 31st, 2014 in Waukesha, WI.
The world saw the darker side ofbelief. 212 year old girls
Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weyer lured their friend Peyton
Leutner into the wooded area after a sleepover and what
followed was one of the most disturbing crimes in recent
(04:41):
memory. They stabbed her 19 times,
leaving her for dead. Their motive?
They believed it would please Slender Man.
After this happened, we found that the attack was part of a
month long plan. The girls had to research
Slender Man extensively online and believed that by killing
someone, they could prove their loyalty to him and become his
(05:03):
proxies. They thought that this would
grant them access to his mansion, which they imagined was
hidden deep within Wisconsin's National Forest.
Miraculously, though, Peyton actually survived despite
suffering stab wounds to her chest, liver, stomach, and arms,
including one that narrowly missed her heart, and she
crawled her way to a nearby bikepath where a passing cyclist,
(05:27):
someone literally just on a bikeriding by, found her.
And thank God that they did well.
This incident sparked global outrage and concern because how
could 2 seemingly normal children be driven to such an
act? And how much responsibility to
this fictional character hold for what happened?
Like Slender Man told him to do it right?
So Morgan and Anissa were both arrested.
(05:48):
Hours after the attack, the police found them walking along
a highway, still clutching the knife that they used in the
stabbing. They were calm and they believed
that Slender Man was real and they were trying to reach him.
In the court case, both girls were tried as adults.
Psychologist diagnosed Morgan with early onset schizophrenia,
said that she experienced hallucinations and delusions,
including visions of Slender Manand Anissa.
(06:10):
Will Not psychotic was said to be susceptible to shared
delusional thinking and heavily influenced by Morgan's beliefs.
So in 2017, both girls were found not guilty.
Which is so crazy? Not guilty by reason of mental
disease or defect. Morgan was sentenced to 40 years
in a psychiatric institution andAnissa received 25 years.
(06:33):
And I understand why they would plead not guilty by reason of
mental disease or defect, but the months of planning just to
get not guilty is so crazy and Ithink probably if they were
older they would have been foundguilty.
In 2021, Anissa was granted conditional release with GPS
monitoring and strict restrictions.
(06:54):
As of 2025, Morgan is still institutionalized with her most
recent petition for release and denied by the court.
This case is one of the most extreme examples of Internet
lore influencing real life. It challenged society to
reevaluate how young minds absorb and interpret digital
narratives and what safeguards need to be in place.
Like these girls seriously believe that Slender Man was
(07:17):
real and that they should commitmurders to go be with him in a
mansion. I mean also like their parents
didn't have any idea this was going on.
Maybe my parents were just nosy but I feel like they would have
known in like a week if I was planning something like this.
The aftermath of that stabbing sent shockwaves through schools,
parent groups, media platforms. Websites like Creepypasta
temporarily shut down sections, Minecraft removed Slender Man
(07:40):
inspired mods, YouTube demonetized content featuring
the character, news outlets painted Slender Man as the new
boogeyman, and debates flared online about responsibility.
But Slender Man hasn't disappeared.
OK, he's still haunts horror games, YouTube videos and tick
tock trends. And there's this theory that not
only applies to Slender Man, butto many modern myths.
(08:00):
Encrypted. There's the idea that belief can
manifest into reality. So in a lot of paranormal
circles, this is sometimes called tulpa.
It's a concept borrowed from Tibetan mysticism, where a being
or object is created through intense mental focus and belief.
So basically, if you believe hard enough, something can
become real. Applied to Slender Man, some
(08:21):
researchers and believers suggest that the collective fear
and attention and storytelling surrounding him, it created an
entity, almost. And if enough people believe in
something, especially with strong emotional energy, does
that thing start to exist in some form?
Maybe not physically, maybe physically, but at least
psychologically or spiritually. Now we've seen this theory pop
(08:42):
up with other cryptids. To Mothman, the Jersey Devil,
the Black Eyed Children. In Slender Man's case, the sheer
volume of content, from YouTube videos to fan arts to personal
accounts to story times, createda kind of cultural egregore, a
thought form that takes on a life of its own.
So maybe This is why people claim to dream of him.
Maybe it's why children claim tosee him in the woods, why two
(09:05):
young girls believed he was waiting for them.
Why, If you do with the ritual, he might actually show up.
Now, whether or not Slender Man is real in a physical sense
might not matter. What matters is that he became
real enough to inspire devotion and violence, and that's the
terrifying power of belief. So what do we make of Slender
Man now? He's a ghost of the Internet,
born from a joke, fed by fear, immoralized by tragedy.
(09:28):
His story was a warning. Belief has power and stories, no
matter how fictional, can changethe real world.
So anyways, that's about it. But thank you for joining me on
this deep dive into the strange and terrifying tale and ritual
of Slender Man on Scary Stories That Make You Scream.
I'm Nikki, be your host, and we post every single Monday at 1:00
PM EST. Now if you have a story of your
(09:49):
own, make sure to submit it and make youscreampodcast.com.
Until next time, sleep tight.
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