1 00:00:10,600 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: In the Phenomenon of Man, written in nineteen thirty eight, 2 00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:20,439 Speaker 1: the idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Tilhard to Chardin 3 00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: makes the claim that evolution is a process that gives 4 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,400 Speaker 1: rise to increasingly complex organisms, which in turn leads to 5 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:34,720 Speaker 1: expanded consciousness. At the book's core is the theory that 6 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:40,160 Speaker 1: as humans evolve and society becomes more elaborate, a collective 7 00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:44,080 Speaker 1: space is formed that allows us to hold and share 8 00:00:44,159 --> 00:00:48,400 Speaker 1: our ideas in order to better communicate with one another. 9 00:00:49,479 --> 00:00:55,000 Speaker 1: Although an abstraction, Tilhard to Chardin imagined this thinking layer, 10 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:59,440 Speaker 1: as he called it, much like the atmosphere and the biosphere, 11 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:03,960 Speaker 1: to be as integral and real as any material aspect 12 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:09,720 Speaker 1: of the planet. Borrowing a term from the pioneering biochemist 13 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:15,840 Speaker 1: Vladimir Vanatsky, Tilhard de Chardin called this space the new sphere, 14 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:22,119 Speaker 1: taken from the Greek NEOs, meaning mind. He believed that 15 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:25,759 Speaker 1: through this organized web of thought, as he termed it, 16 00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:31,319 Speaker 1: our disparate cultural knowledge and perspectives would become so diffused 17 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:36,720 Speaker 1: and universally understood that they would effectively converge into one 18 00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:44,600 Speaker 1: singular point of human awareness. In late October nineteen sixty 19 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:49,480 Speaker 1: nine in the University of California's computer lab, twenty one 20 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:54,480 Speaker 1: year old UCLA student and programmer Charlie Kleine sat on 21 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:57,840 Speaker 1: the phone in front of a keyboard connected to a 22 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:02,520 Speaker 1: computer so large it would barely fit inside a garage. 23 00:02:03,280 --> 00:02:07,880 Speaker 1: Shortly before nine thirty PM, Kline pressed the letter L 24 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:13,320 Speaker 1: on the keyboard and waited. A moment later, the voice 25 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:17,560 Speaker 1: of fellow programmer Bill Duval came down the line from 26 00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:22,040 Speaker 1: his base at the Stamford Research Institute, letting Cline know 27 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:28,240 Speaker 1: that the L had been received. Next, Kline typed the 28 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:33,640 Speaker 1: letter O. After a moment's pause, Bill came back on 29 00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:37,680 Speaker 1: the line to confirm that it too had been received. 30 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:42,520 Speaker 1: The following attempt to send another letter resulted in a 31 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:47,480 Speaker 1: complete system meltdown, but by then the test had already 32 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:53,080 Speaker 1: been a success. Klein and Duval were working on a 33 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:57,880 Speaker 1: project set up by the US Department of Defenses Advanced 34 00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:04,360 Speaker 1: Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPER. Their aim was 35 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:08,520 Speaker 1: to help build a digital communication network that could accommodate 36 00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:12,519 Speaker 1: more than two computer terminals at one time and transmit 37 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:18,240 Speaker 1: information across large distances. They'd been attempting to send the 38 00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:21,960 Speaker 1: word loggin before the computer crashed as it tried to 39 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,280 Speaker 1: process the third letter, like a biblical proclamation. The resultant 40 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:31,480 Speaker 1: low became the first communication across what would later be 41 00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:35,280 Speaker 1: known as Arpernett, the foundation for what we know to 42 00:03:35,400 --> 00:03:40,240 Speaker 1: day as the Internet. It shouldn't surprise us that, like 43 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:44,960 Speaker 1: many of our most advanced technologies, the Internet began as 44 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,440 Speaker 1: a military project. However, it is fairly certain that the 45 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:53,680 Speaker 1: Pentagon had not envisaged the opening up of their secretive 46 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:58,880 Speaker 1: systems of communication to the wider world. So although we 47 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:03,120 Speaker 1: have them to thank or blame for developing the structural 48 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:06,960 Speaker 1: underpinnings of the Net, the spirit that gave rise to 49 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:11,119 Speaker 1: the Internet as we broadly understand it today is more 50 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:16,520 Speaker 1: closely related to the utopian ideals of Pierre Tilhard de 51 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:28,400 Speaker 1: Chardin emerging from the fertile corridors of the European strategy 52 00:04:28,560 --> 00:04:33,359 Speaker 1: for particle physics is cern Laboratory. The Worldwide Web was 53 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:37,680 Speaker 1: first proposed by Tim berners Lee as an open system 54 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:42,000 Speaker 1: whereby we could all store and share information freely and 55 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:49,200 Speaker 1: globally without interference. On the sixth of August nineteen ninety one, 56 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:55,719 Speaker 1: berners Lee launched the world's first website at HTTP. Colon 57 00:04:56,240 --> 00:05:02,240 Speaker 1: forward slash info, dot cern Dota, which explained the concept 58 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:06,240 Speaker 1: of the web as an open invitation to all, even 59 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,200 Speaker 1: providing instructions on how you might get started on building 60 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:15,560 Speaker 1: your own website. Teel hard to Chardin was criticized for 61 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:20,039 Speaker 1: his erroneous reading of evolution as a process which leads 62 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,840 Speaker 1: inevitably to a singular point of higher intelligence. It is 63 00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:30,039 Speaker 1: a common misconception evolution is simply a process in which 64 00:05:30,120 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: the cumulative mutations of a species will result in an 65 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:38,520 Speaker 1: organism that is better suited to its environment. There's no 66 00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:45,920 Speaker 1: guarantee that it would be intellectually smarter than any previous iterations. Nonetheless, 67 00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:48,920 Speaker 1: it is hard not to see something of teel hard 68 00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:52,960 Speaker 1: to Chardin's so called thinking layer, at least in the 69 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:58,280 Speaker 1: functionality of the Internet, this networked repository of data from 70 00:05:58,320 --> 00:06:02,120 Speaker 1: which we now store, share, and receive so much of 71 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:08,279 Speaker 1: our information, our personal lives and minds becoming increasingly merged 72 00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:13,800 Speaker 1: and atomized into this space, all our records, experiences, and 73 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:18,680 Speaker 1: even thoughts backed up on clouds, shared and available for 74 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:23,240 Speaker 1: all to see. Furthermore, with the rise of web two 75 00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:27,719 Speaker 1: point o, a term coined by web pioneer Dale Doughty, 76 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:32,800 Speaker 1: that describes platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit, 77 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:37,800 Speaker 1: which facilitate user generated content. It has never been so 78 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:43,040 Speaker 1: easy to share that information. Never before, as a species 79 00:06:43,440 --> 00:06:47,800 Speaker 1: have we been so interconnected and exposed to each other. 80 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: In an echo of the new sphere concept, tech writer 81 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:56,880 Speaker 1: Tim O'Reilly, in his two thousand and five article what 82 00:06:57,200 --> 00:07:01,160 Speaker 1: is Web two point o published on O'Riley dot com, 83 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,400 Speaker 1: describes the leading Web two pointoo companies as those that 84 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:09,960 Speaker 1: embrace the power of the web to harness collective intelligence. 85 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:16,720 Speaker 1: Visionary utopian thinking, as media scholar Ethan Zuckerman notes in 86 00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:21,680 Speaker 1: his twenty fifteen book Digital Cosmopolitans, drawing on the work 87 00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:26,400 Speaker 1: of historian Langdon Winner, is often catalyzed by the emergence 88 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,240 Speaker 1: of major new technologies, and never more so than when 89 00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:36,040 Speaker 1: those technologies promise to make the world more connected. As 90 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:41,360 Speaker 1: Zuckerman states, today, the Internet stands alone as the fundamental 91 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:44,640 Speaker 1: component at the heart of most of our visions for 92 00:07:44,720 --> 00:07:50,880 Speaker 1: a world made better through connection. Such cyber utopianism can 93 00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:54,880 Speaker 1: be seen in mission statements like that of Facebook, an 94 00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:59,239 Speaker 1: archetypal platform of Web two point zero, which read simply 95 00:07:59,680 --> 00:08:05,360 Speaker 1: bring people closer together. Much in the manner of the 96 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:09,720 Speaker 1: new sphere. The cyber utopian sees the Internet as the 97 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,960 Speaker 1: medium through which we will globally combine us one no 98 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:20,120 Speaker 1: longer restricted by status, class, power, wealth, and geography. As 99 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:23,920 Speaker 1: Heather brooknotes in her twenty twelve book, The Revolution will 100 00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:28,120 Speaker 1: be digitized. It will be a promised land, they believe, 101 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:33,120 Speaker 1: where all of our oppressive and arbitrary social barriers will 102 00:08:33,240 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 1: finally be transcended. However, as our lives become ever more 103 00:08:39,520 --> 00:08:44,280 Speaker 1: entangled with this digital realm, some have been left fearing that, 104 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:47,520 Speaker 1: rather than providing us with the tools of our next 105 00:08:47,640 --> 00:08:53,319 Speaker 1: evolutionary step forward, the Internet is in fact ensnaring us 106 00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:58,080 Speaker 1: in an evolutionary colder sac, a trap from which we 107 00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:10,560 Speaker 1: might struggle to ever escape. Amplified by the accelerated nature 108 00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:15,240 Speaker 1: of technological development, many have become unnerved at the way 109 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:19,160 Speaker 1: the tools of the Internet seem to be undermining the old, 110 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:23,960 Speaker 1: more stable ways, as some see it, fearing that the familiar, 111 00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:29,800 Speaker 1: supposedly solid world they once knew is disintegrating before their eyes, 112 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:34,880 Speaker 1: ushering in a much less certain one, governed by processes 113 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:38,559 Speaker 1: that are out of our control and beyond the comprehension 114 00:09:38,679 --> 00:09:43,800 Speaker 1: of most It is as if from that laboratory at 115 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:48,560 Speaker 1: the University of California back in nineteen sixty nine, when 116 00:09:48,600 --> 00:09:53,000 Speaker 1: that first digital message was sent, a portal to an 117 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:57,720 Speaker 1: abyss was opened, and from its depth the siren call 118 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:02,439 Speaker 1: of a hopeless future emerged that has been growing steadily 119 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:08,880 Speaker 1: louder ever since. That feeling of uncertainty is the true 120 00:10:08,920 --> 00:10:13,280 Speaker 1: horror of the unknown, the fear of chaos, and a 121 00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:16,960 Speaker 1: fear of all the monsters that we are convinced a 122 00:10:17,080 --> 00:10:22,160 Speaker 1: lurking in the shadows, just waiting for that chaos to descend. 123 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:28,560 Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, something monstrous did materialize on 124 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:32,760 Speaker 1: the Internet that might yet prove our worst fears about 125 00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:36,600 Speaker 1: where this new world is taking us. He is the 126 00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:42,520 Speaker 1: personification of the unknown, a messenger of the medium, at 127 00:10:42,640 --> 00:10:49,520 Speaker 1: once new but also strangely archaically familiar. Some say he 128 00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:54,880 Speaker 1: first appeared one night centuries ago in Germany's Black Forest 129 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:59,120 Speaker 1: of Baden Wurtemburg. Others that he lives in a mansion 130 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:04,520 Speaker 1: deep in the heart of Chiquamigan Nikolay National Forest in Wisconsin. 131 00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:09,840 Speaker 1: He is unnaturally tall, dressed in a dark suit with 132 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:16,320 Speaker 1: distended limbs, and in some cases has grotesque cathonic tentacles 133 00:11:16,320 --> 00:11:21,360 Speaker 1: emanating from his back. His face is blank, but some 134 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:26,360 Speaker 1: claim it appears differently depending on the observer. It isn't 135 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:30,360 Speaker 1: clear exactly what he wants, but the triggering a profound 136 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:34,640 Speaker 1: nausea and nose bleeds when he is near suggests that 137 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:39,920 Speaker 1: whatever it is, it isn't good. Some also believe it 138 00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:43,360 Speaker 1: is only possible to see him in the brief moment 139 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:49,200 Speaker 1: before he takes your life. His name is the slender Man, 140 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:54,040 Speaker 1: and one way or another he is coming for us. 141 00:11:54,080 --> 00:12:01,040 Speaker 1: Awe you're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith. 142 00:12:08,280 --> 00:12:11,520 Speaker 1: The first evidence of slender Man came in the form 143 00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:17,040 Speaker 1: of two deeply unsettling, low resolution black and white photographs 144 00:12:17,679 --> 00:12:21,560 Speaker 1: posted to a forum thread on the website Something Awful. 145 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:27,600 Speaker 1: Something Awful was created in nineteen ninety nine by Richard Kyanka, 146 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 1: better known by his screen name low Tax. It began 147 00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:36,440 Speaker 1: life as little more than a website for Kyanka to 148 00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:40,720 Speaker 1: share his comedic and irreverent take on the world, primarily 149 00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:45,240 Speaker 1: through the lens of Internet cultures and video games. As 150 00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:49,480 Speaker 1: the site grew in popularity, its forums became a breeding 151 00:12:49,520 --> 00:12:54,520 Speaker 1: ground for irreverent, in jokey Internet humor. Long before Twitter 152 00:12:54,640 --> 00:13:02,000 Speaker 1: and Facebook. Something Awful forum users, self described as goons, pioneered, 153 00:13:02,280 --> 00:13:05,640 Speaker 1: for want of a better word, the care stick and 154 00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:10,960 Speaker 1: mocking humor that has come to define much of online culture, 155 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,440 Speaker 1: regardless of whether you find the material on Something Awful 156 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:18,840 Speaker 1: funny or not. The website, whose motto is the Internet 157 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:23,160 Speaker 1: Makes You Stupid, has been described by Daily dot Com 158 00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:26,920 Speaker 1: as one of the single most important websites in the 159 00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:32,880 Speaker 1: history of Internet humor. Given or that and its relatively 160 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:36,960 Speaker 1: archaic status in the life of the Internet, it feels 161 00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,800 Speaker 1: a somewhat fitting Locusts for the birth of slender Man. 162 00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:46,600 Speaker 1: The first picture claiming to show him appeared on June tenth, 163 00:13:46,760 --> 00:13:51,840 Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. The photograph seemed, at first glance 164 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:58,000 Speaker 1: to depict twelve anguished children walking towards an unknown destination. 165 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:03,760 Speaker 1: The odd, disturbed look on their faces was unsettling enough, 166 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:08,200 Speaker 1: but what was really creepy was the wraith like figure 167 00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:13,400 Speaker 1: standing behind them. Dressed in a smart black suit with 168 00:14:13,559 --> 00:14:18,360 Speaker 1: strangely distended limbs and a faceless head. It appeared to 169 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:22,000 Speaker 1: be shepherding the children on their way like some kind 170 00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:28,440 Speaker 1: of ghoulish pied piper. The caption below declared we didn't 171 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:32,280 Speaker 1: want to go, We didn't want to kill them, but 172 00:14:32,440 --> 00:14:38,560 Speaker 1: its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us 173 00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:44,160 Speaker 1: at the same time. The photo was marked nineteen eighty 174 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:52,160 Speaker 1: three and accredited to photographer unknown, presumed dead. The second 175 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:56,760 Speaker 1: photo to appear, which again seemed fairly innocuous at first, 176 00:14:57,360 --> 00:15:00,200 Speaker 1: showed a young girl climbing to the top of a 177 00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:05,040 Speaker 1: slide in a small park in Sterling, Australia, while other 178 00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:10,880 Speaker 1: children play happily around her. An authentic looking watermark for 179 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:15,960 Speaker 1: the City of Sterling Libraries Local Studies collection is printed 180 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:21,720 Speaker 1: in the corner. Looking closer, however, you'll find a mysterious shape, 181 00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:25,840 Speaker 1: shrouded in darkness, standing under the trees at the back 182 00:15:25,880 --> 00:15:30,120 Speaker 1: of the shot. Once more, the figure who appears to 183 00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,720 Speaker 1: be keeping a watchful eye on the children is oddly 184 00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:38,680 Speaker 1: elongated and dressed in a black suit. But here there 185 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:44,320 Speaker 1: was something else, a set of cephalopodden arms reaching out 186 00:15:44,560 --> 00:15:49,360 Speaker 1: from behind his back. This time the caption came with 187 00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:54,320 Speaker 1: a little more detail, one of two recovered photographs from 188 00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:59,040 Speaker 1: the Sterling City Library Blaze. It said, notable for being 189 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:03,960 Speaker 1: taken day which fourteen children vanished, and for what is 190 00:16:04,040 --> 00:16:09,320 Speaker 1: referred to as the slender Man. Deformities cited as film 191 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:14,600 Speaker 1: defects by officials. Fire at library occurred one week later. 192 00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:22,760 Speaker 1: Actual photograph confiscated as evidence photographer Mary Thomas missing since 193 00:16:22,920 --> 00:16:34,080 Speaker 1: June thirteenth, nineteen eighty six. As much as they may 194 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:38,760 Speaker 1: have looked like unearthed pieces of a peculiar lost history, 195 00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:42,360 Speaker 1: the pictures were in fact the work of regular Something 196 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:48,080 Speaker 1: Awful forum user Victor search birth name Eric Knudsen, who'd 197 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,000 Speaker 1: posted them as part of a paranormal pictures contest set 198 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:56,200 Speaker 1: up by another user. The caption for the second photo 199 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:01,040 Speaker 1: marked the first direct mention of the terrifying that was 200 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:05,919 Speaker 1: soon to become a global phenomenon. For the next few days, 201 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:11,320 Speaker 1: Surge continued to post further images and allusions to the entity, 202 00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:16,520 Speaker 1: from hysterical police reports to an archive newspaper article about 203 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:20,119 Speaker 1: a young boy from Whichita who'd apparently gone missing in 204 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:26,280 Speaker 1: two thousand and four. Within hours, Surge's creation started to 205 00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:30,679 Speaker 1: draw attention from other forum users, and before long the 206 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:37,040 Speaker 1: legend was spreading. Other Something Awful members suggested modifications and 207 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:42,480 Speaker 1: refinements to the physiognomy, while others made changes themselves or 208 00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:47,120 Speaker 1: chimed in with their own apparent experiences and found pieces 209 00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:53,200 Speaker 1: of evidence. Throughout all of this, something extraordinary was taking place, 210 00:17:54,480 --> 00:17:57,640 Speaker 1: although this creature had only come into existence a few 211 00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:03,400 Speaker 1: days previously. Through the repetity of proliferation enabled by the Internet, 212 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:06,960 Speaker 1: as more people began to add to the mythology with 213 00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:10,080 Speaker 1: every passing day, it was as if it were being 214 00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:16,600 Speaker 1: inserted into pockets of history stretching back centuries. One particularly 215 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:21,199 Speaker 1: striking image, posted a few days after the original, showed 216 00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:27,159 Speaker 1: a bizarre sixteenth century woodcutting print titled de Ritter that 217 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:31,000 Speaker 1: was claimed to have been unearthed at a Haltzburg castle 218 00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:36,320 Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty three, Purportedly made by famed artist of 219 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:41,199 Speaker 1: the day, Hans Frekenburg. The picture appeared to show a 220 00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:45,760 Speaker 1: night doing battle against the skeleton of a mysterious creature 221 00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:50,840 Speaker 1: with distended limbs not too dissimilar to those of slender Man. 222 00:18:52,320 --> 00:18:56,400 Speaker 1: Over the next few months, the slender Man universe expanded 223 00:18:56,400 --> 00:19:00,959 Speaker 1: way beyond the Something Awful forums onto various social media 224 00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:07,040 Speaker 1: and content sharing networks in all digital mediums, from photoshopped images, 225 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:14,000 Speaker 1: text to videos, and online games. Today, the breadth of 226 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,600 Speaker 1: the tentacle like reach of the slender Man mythos has 227 00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:23,760 Speaker 1: left many, including Slender's original creator, Eric Nulsen, and academics 228 00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:29,160 Speaker 1: like folkloreist Jeffrey Talbot, suggesting that the slender universe could 229 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:34,359 Speaker 1: reasonably be considered the first genuine example of digital folklore, 230 00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:39,520 Speaker 1: a myth that has been realized almost entirely through the 231 00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:44,840 Speaker 1: utility of the Internet. Certainly, if you ask anyone who's 232 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,800 Speaker 1: heard of slender Man to explain what he is, they 233 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:53,879 Speaker 1: would describe something much like any other folk legend, his 234 00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:58,560 Speaker 1: origins vague and timeless, the story mutating as it is 235 00:19:58,600 --> 00:20:03,560 Speaker 1: passed from person to person, both wildly or subtly, but 236 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:09,600 Speaker 1: always with the central figure remaining consistent, much like tales 237 00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:13,679 Speaker 1: of the Slavic witch Baba Yaga, who sometimes flies in 238 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:18,200 Speaker 1: the pestle and mortar other times on a broom. One moment, 239 00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:23,320 Speaker 1: she's benign, while the next monstrously wicked. To think of 240 00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:27,920 Speaker 1: her today, it might feel, like slender Man, that she's 241 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:33,679 Speaker 1: always been there, lurking in the darkest peripheries of our nightmares. 242 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:44,640 Speaker 1: Many academics have bought at the idea of something so 243 00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:50,560 Speaker 1: recently conceived as slender Man being considered folklore, despite their 244 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:54,960 Speaker 1: apparent timelessness, Even the most ancient tales had an origin, 245 00:20:55,480 --> 00:21:00,640 Speaker 1: but traditionally this ageless sense of time is significant. A 246 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:04,840 Speaker 1: term first thought have been coined by writer William Toms 247 00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:09,760 Speaker 1: in eighteen forty six. Folklore, as the Oxford English Dictionary 248 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:16,200 Speaker 1: has it, is broadly considered to encompass the quote traditional beliefs, customs, 249 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:21,040 Speaker 1: and stories of a community passed through the generations by 250 00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:26,880 Speaker 1: word of mouth. Such stories can be waited in old superstitions, 251 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:31,640 Speaker 1: serving to impart useful life lessons, or merely the passing 252 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:37,000 Speaker 1: on of rituals, customs, and traditions shared through a common ancestry. 253 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:42,240 Speaker 1: As the term denotes, it is quintessentially about the folk 254 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:47,560 Speaker 1: the people, but more specifically about the passing down of 255 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:53,840 Speaker 1: the shared histories of specific cultures through oral transmission. In 256 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:58,359 Speaker 1: the traditional mode of thinking, folklore is passed down vertically 257 00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:03,720 Speaker 1: through generations. How then, might the myth of slender Man, 258 00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:08,840 Speaker 1: conceived as recently as two thousand and nine, possibly constitute 259 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:14,800 Speaker 1: such a thing. Two academics from the University of Southern 260 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:20,399 Speaker 1: Denmark proposed an extraordinary theory that, although not specific to 261 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,240 Speaker 1: the slender Man, mythos goes some way I think to 262 00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:28,240 Speaker 1: explaining how he might consider it a true example of 263 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:34,920 Speaker 1: folklore in the digital age. Their idea has profound, unsettling, 264 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:42,520 Speaker 1: and for some truly terrifying implications. In May two thousand 265 00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:47,000 Speaker 1: and seven, Thomas Pettit, associate professor of English at the 266 00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:51,440 Speaker 1: University of Southern Denmark, presented a paper at an MIT 267 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:59,400 Speaker 1: media conference titled before the Gudenburg Parenthesis Elizabethan American Compatibilities. 268 00:23:00,320 --> 00:23:06,560 Speaker 1: Pettit's paper marked the first formal outing for the Gutemburg parenthesis, 269 00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:12,560 Speaker 1: a controversial and radical understanding of the digital age. The phrase, 270 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:19,040 Speaker 1: coined by Pettit's colleague, professor Lars ole Sauerberg, encapsulates the 271 00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:23,480 Speaker 1: idea that the five hundred year period following the invention 272 00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:28,679 Speaker 1: of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press in the fifteenth century was 273 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,000 Speaker 1: not the beginning of a change in the way that 274 00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:35,479 Speaker 1: we share information, but was in fact an anomalous blip. 275 00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:40,920 Speaker 1: Inherent in this neat phrase is the idea that, if 276 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,680 Speaker 1: we imagine the history of communication as a sentence, everything 277 00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:49,040 Speaker 1: leading up to the invention of the printing press comes 278 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:53,880 Speaker 1: before the parenthesis. The five hundred years or so following 279 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:59,440 Speaker 1: its invention is the interruption within the parenthesis, and anything 280 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:04,359 Speaker 1: since the emergence of the Internet comes after, in effect 281 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:11,320 Speaker 1: continuing the historical sentence from before. Many believe that Johannes 282 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:16,520 Speaker 1: Guttemberg's ingenious invention, which provided the means to mass produce 283 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,600 Speaker 1: and share information, marks the true beginning of the information age, 284 00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,560 Speaker 1: of which the Internet is simply the latest phase of 285 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:32,560 Speaker 1: its evolution. What Thomas Pettit and Lars O. A. Soerberg recognized, however, 286 00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,440 Speaker 1: was how the Internet, albeit in a far more rapid 287 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:41,960 Speaker 1: and advanced manner, through its various mediums the mechanisms through 288 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,520 Speaker 1: which information is shared on it, has not been a 289 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,800 Speaker 1: progression into the future, but rather has returned us to 290 00:24:49,880 --> 00:25:02,480 Speaker 1: a more medieval and unstable past. In effect, according to 291 00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,720 Speaker 1: the Guttemberg parenthesis theory, rather than providing us with the 292 00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:11,199 Speaker 1: place we confined the true fixed truth of everything, the 293 00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,680 Speaker 1: digital age has in fact returned us to the fluid, 294 00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: mutable way in which information used to be shared before 295 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:25,600 Speaker 1: mass print and the supremacy of fixed authoritative texts reigned supreme. 296 00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,760 Speaker 1: As Thomas Pettitt noted in his two thousand and seven talk, 297 00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:35,359 Speaker 1: prior to the printing press, most knowledge was shared orally. 298 00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:43,040 Speaker 1: It was, as he said, sampled remixed, borrowed, reshaped, appropriated, 299 00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:51,200 Speaker 1: and continually recontextualized the worthy authorial texts of religious institutions, 300 00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:56,960 Speaker 1: and for a select minority access to authoritative academic texts. 301 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,760 Speaker 1: But broadly speaking, for most people, from the plays and 302 00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,879 Speaker 1: the songs we wrote to the sharing of news and 303 00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:09,240 Speaker 1: life events, knowledge was communal, with no fixed origin, and 304 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:17,560 Speaker 1: subject to severe mutation. Its provenance was always questionable. The 305 00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:21,240 Speaker 1: expansion of the slender Man mythos was fueled in part 306 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:26,480 Speaker 1: by our copy and paste meme sharing culture, which epitomizes 307 00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,080 Speaker 1: the way in which information is often shared online, in 308 00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:36,359 Speaker 1: particular through the phenomena of creepy pasta, which first emerged 309 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:41,040 Speaker 1: in the early two thousands. Creepy pasta is the sharing 310 00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:45,440 Speaker 1: and proliferation of short form horror stories, usually in the 311 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,360 Speaker 1: tone of an urban legend, written as if true events 312 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:54,040 Speaker 1: are being recounted. Creepy pasta can take the form of 313 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:59,280 Speaker 1: anything from prose to multipart video, but serves only one 314 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:04,879 Speaker 1: purpose to freak you out. One famous example is a 315 00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:10,680 Speaker 1: video titled the Scariest Picture on the Internet Brackets Reel, 316 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:16,840 Speaker 1: uploaded to YouTube sometime around twenty ten. The video depicts 317 00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,160 Speaker 1: a painting of a young woman with long brown hair 318 00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,920 Speaker 1: and azure blue eyes that was purportedly drawn and then 319 00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:30,119 Speaker 1: uploaded by a teenage girl from Japan shortly before she 320 00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:35,280 Speaker 1: committed suicide. Viewers of the video, which runs at just 321 00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,680 Speaker 1: over five minutes, are warned that quote it is hard 322 00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,439 Speaker 1: for a person to stare into the girl's eyes for 323 00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:47,320 Speaker 1: longer than five minutes. There are reports that some people 324 00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:52,719 Speaker 1: have taken their own lives after doing so through websites 325 00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,560 Speaker 1: such as creepy pasta dot com, created in two thousand 326 00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:01,199 Speaker 1: and eight and later creepy Pasta dot Wikia. Users are 327 00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:06,040 Speaker 1: encouraged to make their own contributions, create mashups of other stories, 328 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,040 Speaker 1: or extend the universe of someone else's original idea. Creepy 329 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:18,880 Speaker 1: Pastor therefore thrives on the fluidity of information, unofficiated, unverified, 330 00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,800 Speaker 1: and passed around from person to person in the manner 331 00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,240 Speaker 1: of the oral tradition, where the story is free to 332 00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:32,720 Speaker 1: mutate with no discernible author. Key to the fluid transference 333 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,800 Speaker 1: of information in the digital age has been the dominance 334 00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:42,000 Speaker 1: of web two point er platforms that facilitate user generated content. 335 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,720 Speaker 1: Platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have for 336 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,520 Speaker 1: many been a liberating tool. Many argue that it allows 337 00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:57,520 Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas to be heard, regardless of financial means 338 00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,280 Speaker 1: or the necessity of having to satisfy by the gatekeepers 339 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:07,280 Speaker 1: of old, be they publishing companies, record companies, TV executives, 340 00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,280 Speaker 1: or the stringent ethical codes of conduct which might otherwise 341 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:17,160 Speaker 1: have dictated what content can be seen or heard. Some, however, 342 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:20,960 Speaker 1: have voiced concern over the way in which Web two 343 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:25,200 Speaker 1: point zero, rather than broadening our awareness and understanding of 344 00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:29,760 Speaker 1: the world, is in fact making us more stupid and 345 00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:41,680 Speaker 1: diluting culture. In the Cult of the amateur, how today's 346 00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:47,600 Speaker 1: Internet is killing our culture, Internet critic Andrew Keane argues 347 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,440 Speaker 1: that rather than enabling us to pool our intelligence, the 348 00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:56,160 Speaker 1: explosion of amateur user generated content has given us a 349 00:29:56,200 --> 00:30:01,080 Speaker 1: world in which sketchy Wikipedia entries are given prominence over 350 00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:06,920 Speaker 1: the perceived erudite authority of the Britannica Encyclopedia, which, as 351 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,280 Speaker 1: Keene says, is leading us to superficial observations of the 352 00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:17,160 Speaker 1: world around us rather than deep analysis. What the Gutenberg 353 00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:21,560 Speaker 1: parenthesis theory suggests, and what Keen is alluding to, is 354 00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:24,760 Speaker 1: that prior to the rise of the Internet, as noted 355 00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:29,040 Speaker 1: by media critic Deek Starkman in his twenty twelve paper 356 00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,720 Speaker 1: The Future Is Medieval. Information came with a degree of 357 00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:38,680 Speaker 1: permanence and containment, which is to say that, regardless of 358 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:44,600 Speaker 1: how undemocratic and elitist it was, information was set, meaning 359 00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,680 Speaker 1: the receiver of it could hold it to account and 360 00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:53,720 Speaker 1: interrogate its veracity. The printed words that stemmed from Gutenberg's 361 00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:58,880 Speaker 1: printing press, as Starkman puts it, were unalterable and thus 362 00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,440 Speaker 1: given a new author authority, whether it was deserved or not, 363 00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:08,640 Speaker 1: that oral communication didn't have in its own way, though 364 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,960 Speaker 1: not nearly as much as the Internet. The printing press 365 00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:18,080 Speaker 1: was also hugely democratizing and egalitarian, to fueling literacy and 366 00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,040 Speaker 1: empowering people by allowing for a wider access to the 367 00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,240 Speaker 1: words that had previously been controlled by the authorities of 368 00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:31,280 Speaker 1: the day. For the first time, many people who hadn't 369 00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,400 Speaker 1: had a voice before could spread their ideas and be heard. 370 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,720 Speaker 1: This in turn allowed for more solid foundations from which 371 00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:45,560 Speaker 1: to build our collective knowledge, which, as Starkman also suggests, 372 00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:50,920 Speaker 1: led directly to the Enlightenment, the foundations for democracy, and 373 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,720 Speaker 1: a rapid explosion of scientific advancement, as well as allowing 374 00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,520 Speaker 1: for challenges to the authority of the religious and feudal 375 00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:05,400 Speaker 1: author oxyes of the period. A post Guttenberg parenthesis world, however, 376 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,720 Speaker 1: some believe we are now living in, is one in which, 377 00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,600 Speaker 1: through the manner in which information is exchanged on the Internet, 378 00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:20,360 Speaker 1: the authoritative, immutable word has been completely untethered. It is 379 00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:23,600 Speaker 1: a return to a world in which there is virtually 380 00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:28,440 Speaker 1: no way of confirming a story's origin or, in other words, 381 00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:33,080 Speaker 1: it's truth. It is a world in which the so 382 00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:38,640 Speaker 1: called stable, reassuring authority of the old established orders are 383 00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:45,040 Speaker 1: being undermined and replaced by gut feeling and entrenched tribalism. 384 00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:49,160 Speaker 1: A place where for some people things might feel a 385 00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:53,880 Speaker 1: little less certain than they did before. A world, you 386 00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,520 Speaker 1: might say, in which the specter of the Slender Man 387 00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:02,880 Speaker 1: can be felt pushing in from the shadows, and if 388 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,480 Speaker 1: you listen now through the silence, you might just hear 389 00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:15,800 Speaker 1: him coming. You've been listening to Unexplained, Season six, episode 390 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:21,080 Speaker 1: twenty eight. The new Sphere, Part one of three, Part 391 00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:30,280 Speaker 1: two will be released next Friday, February tenth. If you 392 00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:32,960 Speaker 1: enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, you 393 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,240 Speaker 1: can now do so via patroon to receive access to 394 00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,800 Speaker 1: add three episodes. Just go to patron dot com Forward 395 00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,720 Speaker 1: Slash Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained, the book and 396 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,840 Speaker 1: audio book, featuring stories that have never before been featured 397 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:52,160 Speaker 1: on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You 398 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:57,960 Speaker 1: can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among other bookstores. 399 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,080 Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced 400 00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,360 Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the 401 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,319 Speaker 1: show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to 402 00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,920 Speaker 1: get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the 403 00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:14,680 Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an 404 00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,200 Speaker 1: explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can 405 00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:21,120 Speaker 1: reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter 406 00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:26,160 Speaker 1: at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. 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