Slendering Away
Let's talk yet again about Slenderman videos.
Exploring SomethingAwful's created monsters has been done online through blogs, videos, a combination of the two, etc. Like anything else created on the internet, they range from interesting and generally creepy to mindcrushingly dumb. There are lots of video series, but the most well known ones (that I've seen people talk about) are Marble Hornets, EverymanHybrid, and TribeTwelve.
Marble Hornets is, as far as I know, the first Slenderman project and probably the most famous, making almost all the projects that came behind it struggling to escape a derivative tone. It begins as the story of Jay going through his friend Alex's discarded film project tapes and discovering there was something really fucking disturbing about them. The more Jay got involved, the more it became clear that not only had something terrible happened to Alex, it was beginning to happen to Jay too. Though it lacks a lot of interaction by followers (limited to, it seems, Jay's twitter page), the videos are often stalked by totheark, a deliciously creepy addition to the strangest and mystery.
Marble Hornets had a lot going for it in its first season that, unfortunately, I think it's failed to capitalize on in the second season. The first season had some genuinely freaky scenes and an overall creepy feel helped by the simplicity of the story: Alex is missing, Jay is trying to find him, and somewhere in the middle is a mysterious monster that has no story, no name, and no apparent motivation. The second season is attempting to tell a story, and unfortunately it's that story that's bogging it down, with extended interactions between Alex and Jay highlighting their lack of acting ability (not that I am faulting them on this, but sometimes it can be cringe-worthy), and downplaying the one character people want to see. totheark remains satisfying freaky and provides some level of ARG to it, but the overall feel of the current series is a frustrating collection of starts and stops in the action.
TribeTwelve, one of those very much derivative works, nevertheless has things going for it that make it worth watching. Noah, struggling with the death of his cousin, attempts to find the cause of his cousin's strange behavior beforehand and gets more than he bargains for. The action and storyline are handled very much like Marble Hornets is, which is a shame, because the series does add flavor to the mythos, incorporating the possible German origins of the Slenderman, taking advantage of the Florida setting for some great shots, and great editing effects that many other series often lack.
Still, however, it is frustratingly derivative, with every possible original idea overshadowed by obviously copied ones or heaped with implausibility (really, Noah? Nothing happened to you leaving someone's house you barely knew covered in blood?). Which is a shame, because there's a stronger undercurrent of storyline to it and some genuinely new additions to the mythos.
The third, consistently my favorite, is EverymanHybrid. Starting out as a jokey exercise vlog with the characters deliberately Slendermanning their videos, the series really takes off when an event makes them realize that someone is taking their joke very, very seriously, turning the series on its head. EMH has a lot of things going for it that other series don't - a good deal of characters, several location advantages (one video highlighting the burning city of Centralia, another in the burned out ruins of a large brick building), a willingness to incorperate other SomethingAwful stories and characters such as the Rake, a strong underlying story, and best of all for many fans, an ARG focus. The EMH videos have a lot of advantages to it, from having the better acting to clearly being mapped out ahead of time.
These advantages strengthen the series a great deal, to the point where several things are happening at once, the characterization is notable and interesting to follow (particularly Evan's clear instability and his friends' varied attempts to deal with it that all, inevitably, are quite inept in that way only friends can be), and the mystery has several different angles to it. It isn't necessary to participate in the ARG aspect in order to follow the plot, although those that do add greatly to it, finding boxes with clues or participating in a strange game that seems to attract unwanted attention. They even kill one of the characters off, and the disappearance of another suggests that her fate too is suspect.
I know I've done this post before, but if you have ANY interest in what you can do online and love creepy things, watch this shit.
Exploring SomethingAwful's created monsters has been done online through blogs, videos, a combination of the two, etc. Like anything else created on the internet, they range from interesting and generally creepy to mindcrushingly dumb. There are lots of video series, but the most well known ones (that I've seen people talk about) are Marble Hornets, EverymanHybrid, and TribeTwelve.
Marble Hornets is, as far as I know, the first Slenderman project and probably the most famous, making almost all the projects that came behind it struggling to escape a derivative tone. It begins as the story of Jay going through his friend Alex's discarded film project tapes and discovering there was something really fucking disturbing about them. The more Jay got involved, the more it became clear that not only had something terrible happened to Alex, it was beginning to happen to Jay too. Though it lacks a lot of interaction by followers (limited to, it seems, Jay's twitter page), the videos are often stalked by totheark, a deliciously creepy addition to the strangest and mystery.
Marble Hornets had a lot going for it in its first season that, unfortunately, I think it's failed to capitalize on in the second season. The first season had some genuinely freaky scenes and an overall creepy feel helped by the simplicity of the story: Alex is missing, Jay is trying to find him, and somewhere in the middle is a mysterious monster that has no story, no name, and no apparent motivation. The second season is attempting to tell a story, and unfortunately it's that story that's bogging it down, with extended interactions between Alex and Jay highlighting their lack of acting ability (not that I am faulting them on this, but sometimes it can be cringe-worthy), and downplaying the one character people want to see. totheark remains satisfying freaky and provides some level of ARG to it, but the overall feel of the current series is a frustrating collection of starts and stops in the action.
TribeTwelve, one of those very much derivative works, nevertheless has things going for it that make it worth watching. Noah, struggling with the death of his cousin, attempts to find the cause of his cousin's strange behavior beforehand and gets more than he bargains for. The action and storyline are handled very much like Marble Hornets is, which is a shame, because the series does add flavor to the mythos, incorporating the possible German origins of the Slenderman, taking advantage of the Florida setting for some great shots, and great editing effects that many other series often lack.
Still, however, it is frustratingly derivative, with every possible original idea overshadowed by obviously copied ones or heaped with implausibility (really, Noah? Nothing happened to you leaving someone's house you barely knew covered in blood?). Which is a shame, because there's a stronger undercurrent of storyline to it and some genuinely new additions to the mythos.
The third, consistently my favorite, is EverymanHybrid. Starting out as a jokey exercise vlog with the characters deliberately Slendermanning their videos, the series really takes off when an event makes them realize that someone is taking their joke very, very seriously, turning the series on its head. EMH has a lot of things going for it that other series don't - a good deal of characters, several location advantages (one video highlighting the burning city of Centralia, another in the burned out ruins of a large brick building), a willingness to incorperate other SomethingAwful stories and characters such as the Rake, a strong underlying story, and best of all for many fans, an ARG focus. The EMH videos have a lot of advantages to it, from having the better acting to clearly being mapped out ahead of time.
These advantages strengthen the series a great deal, to the point where several things are happening at once, the characterization is notable and interesting to follow (particularly Evan's clear instability and his friends' varied attempts to deal with it that all, inevitably, are quite inept in that way only friends can be), and the mystery has several different angles to it. It isn't necessary to participate in the ARG aspect in order to follow the plot, although those that do add greatly to it, finding boxes with clues or participating in a strange game that seems to attract unwanted attention. They even kill one of the characters off, and the disappearance of another suggests that her fate too is suspect.
I know I've done this post before, but if you have ANY interest in what you can do online and love creepy things, watch this shit.