The woods. Long before Little Red Riding Hood set off for her grandmother's house, we loaded that dark, damp place with our fears. Full of brambles and beasts, the woods are where we get lost, where we stumble upon gingerbread houses, witches, werewolves, vampires and child-snatchers. So, start with some woods and add a bogeyman. Everybody loves to fear a bogeyman. Let's make him faceless for universality and added creepiness. Make him tall and weirdly skinny and give him long, tentaclelike arms to up the ante. So, somewhere in the fearful woods there's a thin, faceless bogeyman with long, long limbs who lures children to him. Once he gets them, they're gone forever. The plot is familiar. Now add two more crucial ingredients: Photoshop and the Internet. Mix all these elements together and you've got a cultural phenomenon - a nightmare figure appearing in multiplying stories by multiple authors. And that border blurs so much, the bogeyman begins to creep into the real world.

This is Slender Man. Far back in the mists of time, in 2009 to be precise, a Photoshop wiz named Eric Knudsen, using the nom de guerre Victor Surge, decided to post some of his work on the comedy website Something Awful. The invention became a meme. As a meme, Slender Man has had a robust life on the website Creepypasta, a forum where people post spooky stories. He also appears in YouTube videos, alternate reality games, blogs, fan art, cosplay and wiki pages. He can induce madness and an affliction known as "scribbling in," which causes people to draw and write nonstop. In many cases, work devoted to Slender Man claims not to be fiction but, rather, documentary material recording his existence. An encyclopedia-style entry on the Creepypasta Wiki speculates on his long history, even suggesting that certain ancient cave paintings include depictions of him. This "evidence" of his existence seems to have made Slender Man strangely real for some people.

And this confusion between fact and fiction is what brought Slender Man out of the shadowy corners of the Internet and into the harsh glare of mainstream media. It wouldn't be the first time that a faux-documentary fiction would have real-world consequences. Think of Orson Welles' infamous broadcast of "The War of the Worlds," during which some listeners were convinced that a real Martian invasion was underway. In the case of Slender Man, however, the people who became dangerously confused were 12-year-old girls. Language is the original vector for memes, but in the past two decades the Internet has sped the growth and evolution of memes a thousandfold. Three girls wake up from a sleepover, eat doughnuts and strawberries for breakfast, play dress-up for a bit and then head to a nearby park. Bella, the most sociable of the three, walks in front. Morgan, the dreamer, walks behind with the third girl, Anissa. As they stroll, Morgan shows Anissa a steak knife she's hidden under her jacket.

It's a signal that a long-planned event is about to take place. At a public restroom, Anissa and Morgan half-heartedly rough Bella up. But Morgan, who is prone to somewhat erratic behavior, breaks off and starts singing and pacing back and forth. A short time later, the three girls play hide-and-seek. Urged on by Anissa, Morgan jumps on top of Bella and stabs her 19 times in the arms, legs, pancreas, liver and stomach, narrowly missing an artery. Anissa guides the wobbly, screaming Bella deeper into the woods and tells her to lie down. Morgan tries to stanch Bella's bleeding with a leaf, and then she and Anissa wander through the woods to the nearest Walmart where they wash off the blood in the restroom. When the cops interview Anissa and Morgan, the girls explain that by killing Bella they hoped to be initiated into Slender Man's circle. The blood sacrifice would earn their entry so they could be numbered among his minions and live with him in his forest mansion.

During the press conference that follows, the police draw attention to the Slender Man myth's influence on the attack and urge parents to be aware of the danger. Children must be taught the difference between fiction and reality. Suddenly, Slender Man is international news. But blaming Slender Man misses the mark. Many people who commit acts of violence cite figures from pop culture as their inspirations. In 1981, after seeing the film "Taxi Driver" at least 15 times and driven by a desire to get the attention of actress Jodi Foster, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. James Holmes, the young man who killed 12 people and injured 70 at a screening of a Batman film in 2014, claimed to be Batman's nemesis, the Joker. In 2009, Anthony Conley strangled his brother to death with his bare hands, later saying that he identified with the character of Dexter, the serial killer from the TV show of the same name.

Costway US $1438.00 72.5 Inch Modern Fabric Loveseat Sofa Couch with Adjustable Headrest Costway US $175.00 Swing Glider Chair 48 Inch Loveseat Rocker Lounge Backyard-Black Costway US $873.00 72 Inch Small Fabric Loveseat Sofa Couch with Wood Legs-Yellow Costway US $143.00 Steel Frame Outdoor Loveseat Patio Canopy Swing with Cushion-Blue Costway US $171.00 Swing Glider Chair 48 Inch Loveseat Rocker Lounge Backyard-Gray Costway US $323.00 Modern Loveseat Sofa with 2 Bolsters and Side Storage Pocket-Pink Costway US $218.00 Garden Bench Chair Outdoor Wooden Loveseat with Iron Armrest Costway US $255.00 2-Person Double Rocking Loveseat with Mesh Fabric and Center Tempered Glass Table-Black Costway US $225.00 2-Person Double Rocking Loveseat with Mesh Fabric and Center Tempered Glass Table-Turquoise Costway US $348.00 Modern Fabric Loveseat Sofa for with Metal Legs and Armrest Pillows-Rust Red