On these many episodes, we'll be exploring the strangest viral phenomena of the World Wide Web. I'm your host, Chelsea Weber

Smith, and this is American Hysteria. Very frightening-looking figure is telling them you should kill

yourself, and this is how.

Music When a 12-year-old girl was stabbed nearly to death by two of her classmates in 2014,

reports surfaced that the two young suspects were under the influence of a powerful internet urban legend.

The character, known as Slender Man, is the darling child of something called creepy pasta,

which is essentially a collection of original scary stories that have accumulated over time,

shared on message boards like Reddit, 4chan, and Tumblr. The lore expanded out by those who interact with the legends, spawning fan fiction, doctored photographs,

videos and games, all within the universe where the stories are completely true.

That's a big part of the phenomenon of creepypasta.

You interact with the stories while suspending your disbelief.

You make a choice to believe.

Slender Man has long arms and legs, a white featureless face. He's a too tall figure wearing a suit,

lurking always in the background, waiting to abduct children. Both girls responsible for the

attempted murder later stated that they had believed that they needed to become something called proxies to Slenderman,

and that this act, this killing of their friend, would give them access to Slenderman's mansion inside a Wisconsin National Forest,

and would gain them good favor with him, who they believed could kill their entire family in three seconds.

This incident sparked a brief moral panic about the character of The Slender Man, about creepy pasta, about the internet's effect on young people, and what it could make them do.

But the creature is not just scary.

It's her message that has child psychologist concerned.

It's just, it's spiraling faster than honestly than they can control.

We want to warn our viewers.

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