Slender Man--emerging religious crazy

[DeFrauder]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /31387357/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man

I believe these are exempt from breaking?

:geek:

This Slender Man business is intriguing. I have heard children in other countries mention Slender Man to me. Its an interesting phenomenon.

We are living in a time when there are many new religions emerging. In my opinion, the Slender Man mythology is especially interesting because it has risen organically. Some people were fooling around having fun and created this character that has now taken on a life of its own. The original creators do not have control of the character anymore and his persona has been developed over the internet. There are people that think he is real (and I don't mean just the "emerging schizophrenic" girl that murdered people in his name).

I am not saying that Slender Man is a religion. I am suggesting he is a religious figure. It is possible for a religion to spring up around him. He has a growing mythology surrounding him, there are people that believe they can communicate with him, and he can do supernatural things. He has become a "thought form". A lot of youth are interested in him and whatever things he supposedly does. I don't understand why he is so popular or attractive to youth, but there are people that want to emulate him.

Knock knock. Hello, have you heard the gospel of Slender Man?

Anyone out there have an opinion on this?

I know some will say what do you mean? He is a fictional character. He is---but its more than just that.

[Blahblah]

My kids and their friends use him to scare each other. It's the modern day version of the "bogey man". They call him Slendy. It's a creepy game to them, nothing more, nothing less. Instead of playing traditional hide and seek, the person doing the seeking is called Slendy and the other kids, when found, run away screaming in "terror". They know he isn't real, they can tell you he evolved from a creepy meme on the web. They treat him like the troll under the bridge, or Rumplestiltskin. My kids are 10 and 13 and we live in Australia.

[Snarkylark]

I don't know anything about it being a religious figure potentially at some point. I do wonder if these girls can ever be fully rehabilitated and sent back into society. I mean they plotted this for months and knew exactly what they were doing. On the other hand 12 is soooooo young! I just don't know but I hope they really consider the effect on the victim in all of this.

[DeFrauder]

I don't know anything about it being a religious figure potentially at some point. I do wonder if these girls can ever be fully rehabilitated and sent back into society. I mean they plotted this for months and knew exactly what they were doing. On the other hand 12 is soooooo young! I just don't know but I hope they really consider the effect on the victim in all of this.

The one girl is apparently suffering from schizophrenia--although if I was her lawyer I would be basing the defence on that as well. I think she is done. She will probably be confined to a mental health facility until she is 18.

The thing is that there were two of them. It is possible to have "shared psychosis" or whatever the term is, but I think it is really rare. Randy Quaid and his wife are considered to be an example. So the other girl may have been influenced to do this, but not actually be suffering from serious mental illness. She would have a better chance of being rehabilitated--I think.

Regardless of their mental health, they conspired to commit this crime to prove their devotion to Slender Man.

Stuff like this has happened before. The Manson Family is the prime example.

here is a link to a weird page that talks about how to become a proxy for Slender Man. The comments at the bottom are pretty interesting.

.quibblo.com/quiz/jqsdfat/Steps-to-becoming-one-of-Slendermans-proxies-for-those-who-are-curious?story_chapter=1

[WhiteRun]

Ah I remember when my friend sent me the first Slenderman game a few years ago and I played it.

I nearly threw my laptop across the room when the jump scare occurred.

Kids need to stop reading creepypastas and marketing them off as real life.

[DGayle]

Doing something terrible doesn't mean someone has a mental illness. Plenty of sane people are just rotten people, and plenty of people with mental illness follow laws and don't hurt people. At the age of 12, you're old enough to understand death is permanent, and that trying to cause it is wrong. My 5-year-olds know that already! Don't forget that almost no one is against a 12-year-old making the major decision to keep or abort a pregnancy because we trust girls that age to be mature enough to make that kind of decision. If a girl isn't old enough at 12 to know murder is wrong, then is she really old enough to understand what it means to become a mother or abort? Since we trust her to understand, we must accept that she's old enough to understand murder.

Those girls were aware enough to spend time plotting this. This wasn't something that happened some crazy night where they got carried away in a delusion where they fed off each other into a frenzy that went too far. I could chalk that up to the possibility of a mild mental illness, or something they weren't fully aware of. But that isn't what happened. This was planned for months. They had time to think about it. The went through with it.

Part of the reason for prison is to protect the public from dangerous people. Yes this does sometimes mean mentally ill people are imprisoned or kept in mental hospitals for years or decades. The general population has a right to be as safe as possible. Those girls are dangerous.

If you were the parent of the girl who was stabbed, and knew the girls who tried to murder your daughter planned it out, would you want them to get five years and a chance to start over when they're 18, like nothing happened, while being patted on the head and old it wasn't really their fault? You'd probably feel different if it was a spur-of-the-moment frenzy (though still mad). But what if you knew they planned murder, and selected your child, and were aware enough to plan it out and try it? And now your daughter is probably scared to trust her friends, and will forever have the mental and physical scars of what people she trusted did to her.

[FundieFarmer]

The first time I heard about it was from the case DGayle mentioned. I didn't think they had a mental illness, but were instead two young girls who really were fanatic about something. They should've realized it was going too far, but they didn't. Their loyalty to this imaginary figure was mind-blowing to me.

I like your perspective on him as like a religious figure as it seems he has a near-religious following from the fans. It also makes me think of the HP fandom (of which I am unabashedly a part), which is so strong and devoted and "HARRY OR DIE". This sort of thing makes me think of if someone were to worship Voldemort instead of Harry. It seems the psychology is much the same, but the outcome is dangerously different because of the content and what the creepypastas encourage.

[DeFrauder]

Doing something terrible doesn't mean someone has a mental illness.

No---and most people that have a mental illness do not harm anyone or do terrible things.

This story and others like it have someone who is mentally ill at the center of it.

I dunno---its hard. On one hand we might think that people who do really terrible things MUST have had a mental illness. On the other hand we have to do determine what to do when we catch them doing terrible things.

I believe that I am of the opinion that a mentally ill offender needs to get treatment during incarceration. I know that treatment helps them to the point they are released back into society---but I am not sure that is the right thing to do. I really think there needs to be a place where people who have done really bad things due to their mental illness should go.

Perhaps it could be a stages thing:

Prison hospital for people with acute mental illness.

If they get better and have their illness under control they can get more privileges and go to a better facility---not the gen pop --but one for people with mental illness that are stabilized.

If they get really healthy and can be trusted to do everything they can to stay healthy---then maybe they can be moved to a minimum security facility with other reformed and stable inmates. One of those nice ones where they have a golf course and other luxuries. Apparently these places exist or at least we hear about them every election cycle.

In many places--once a person becomes stable--they get released from the facility that is holding them. Sometimes they go into group home--but more or less they are back on the street. For example there is a guy that beheaded and ate a poor dude's head while travelling on a bus. The guy who did it is now allowed to leave the prison on escorted day trips.

[DeFrauder]

The first time I heard about it was from the case DGayle mentioned. I didn't think they had a mental illness, but were instead two young girls who really were fanatic about something. They should've realized it was going too far, but they didn't. Their loyalty to this imaginary figure was mind-blowing to me.

I like your perspective on him as like a religious figure as it seems he has a near-religious following from the fans. It also makes me think of the HP fandom (of which I am unabashedly a part), which is so strong and devoted and "HARRY OR DIE". This sort of thing makes me think of if someone were to worship Voldemort instead of Harry. It seems the psychology is much the same, but the outcome is dangerously different because of the content and what the creepypastas encourage.

Yes, schizophrenia is so far the one girl's defense. I doubt the prosecution will simply accept that and there will be a ton of experts paraded through the trial.

It doesn't take much, it seems, for people to put their faith in something. Jesus aside----we all know the bible story of a group of people that followed a naturally occurring pillar of fire through the Sinai desert for 40 years. That was dedication :-P

[Eighth-of-eleven]

No---and most people that have a mental illness do not harm anyone or do terrible things.

This story and others like it have someone who is mentally ill at the center of it.

I dunno---its hard. On one hand we might think that people who do really terrible things MUST have had a mental illness. On the other hand we have to do determine what to do when we catch them doing terrible things.

I believe that I am of the opinion that a mentally ill offender needs to get treatment during incarceration. I know that treatment helps them to the point they are released back into society---but I am not sure that is the right thing to do. I really think there needs to be a place where people who have done really bad things due to their mental illness should go.

Perhaps it could be a stages thing:

Prison hospital for people with acute mental illness.

If they get better and have their illness under control they can get more privileges and go to a better facility---not the gen pop --but one for people with mental illness that are stabilized.

If they get really healthy and can be trusted to do everything they can to stay healthy---then maybe they can be moved to a minimum security facility with other reformed and stable inmates. One of those nice ones where they have a golf course and other luxuries. Apparently these places exist or at least we hear about them every election cycle.

In many places--once a person becomes stable--they get released from the facility that is holding them. Sometimes they go into group home--but more or less they are back on the street. For example there is a guy that beheaded and ate a poor dude's head while travelling on a bus. The guy who did it is now allowed to leave the prison on escorted day trips.

I have worked in those facilities, with those patients. The last facility I worked in was a maximum security forensic psychiatric hospital with some of the most dangerously mentally ill patients in the United States.

I worked with men who committed horrific crimes, almost indescribable, under the influence of their severe mental illnesses.

We held people under the legal definitions of:not guilty by reason of insanity, or N.G.I., Mentally Ill Prisoners, (who became ill while in prison usually due to the stress of solitary confinement, newly incarcerated, or prison rape.), unfit for trial, (due to inability to assist in own defense due to mental illness), sexually violent predators, and mentally disordered offenders.

Most people who are so very ill, ill to the point that the men I worked with were, do not recover normal life on the street. And they do not move to "minimum security" facilities with "golf courses and other luxuries". These men live very constricted lives. Schizophrenia is a chronic progressive difficult to manage disease. Schizoaffective disorder even more so. Most of the men I worked with, till two years ago when I was severely assaulted and had to retire, did not return to the streets.

They lived out their lives in institutions like mine, very damaged from being transintitutionalised , from prison, to psych hospital, to prison, if they got out, then off meds, back to jail, prison, to my hospital.

Most do not live long. I have deep compassion for this population. I have worked with them for many years. Both in prison,mental hospital, and hospice end.

When I hear of crimes like the above, with fixed delusional elements, and the age range, a diagnosis of schizophrenia already on board. It's something I've been exposed to at work before and I hope that treatment will become available, but I also I know that it will be complex and difficult.

[DeFrauder]

I have worked in those facilities, with those patients. The last facility I worked in was a maximum security forensic psychiatric hospital with some of the most dangerously mentally ill patients in the United States.

I worked with men who committed horrific crimes, almost indescribable, under the influence of their severe mental illnesses.

We held people under the legal definitions of:not guilty by reason of insanity, or N.G.I., Mentally Ill Prisoners, (who became ill while in prison usually due to the stress of solitary confinement, newly incarcerated, or prison rape.), unfit for trial, (due to inability to assist in own defense due to mental illness), sexually violent predators, and mentally disordered offenders.

Most people who are so very ill, ill to the point that the men I worked with were, do not recover normal life on the street. And they do not move to "minimum security" facilities with "golf courses and other luxuries". These men live very constricted lives. Schizophrenia is a chronic progressive difficult to manage disease. Schizoaffective disorder even more so. Most of the men I worked with, till two years ago when I was severely assaulted and had to retire, did not return to the streets.

They lived out their lives in institutions like mine, very damaged from being transintitutionalised , from prison, to psych hospital, to prison, if they got out, then off meds, back to jail, prison, to my hospital.

Most do not live long. I have deep compassion for this population. I have worked with them for many years. Both in prison,mental hospital, and hospice end.

When I hear of crimes like the above, with fixed delusional elements, and the age range, a diagnosis of schizophrenia already on board. It's something I've been exposed to at work before and I hope that treatment will become available, but I also I know that it will be complex and difficult.

This may be a regional thing based on local laws. Where I live people that have done terrible things---like the guy who ate the other guys head, and a guy who killed his children---both determined to be insane at the time of the murders and both underwent treatment while incarcerated, and both were released back into the community after a few years.

[DeFrauder]

BTW I found this interesting slideshow about "nice" prisons.

http://www.cnbc.com/2012/01/19/The-Best ... rison.html

[Eighth-of-eleven]

BTW I found this interesting slideshow about "nice" prisons.

http://www.cnbc.com/2012/01/19/The-Best ... rison.html

There are no "nice" prisons.

[Eighth-of-eleven]

This may be a regional thing based on local laws. Where I live people that have done terrible things---like the guy who ate the other guys head, and a guy who killed his children---both determined to be insane at the time of the murders and both underwent treatment while incarcerated, and both were released back into the community after a few years.

Most NGI patients, nation wide, stay in a long time. If not life. I would be very interested in seeing the documentation related to your local area for commonly released NGI horrific murder cases.

People I have taken care of who have committed grisly slaughters of single persons, or mass murders, or slaughtered their families, or burned their babies alive believing them to be demons...and things like that, generally, tend to stay in maximum security forensic psychiatric hospitals for the rest of their lives. Even when restored to somewhat functional status. Just saying.

[Rubyroo]

Luckily (feels weird to say that for this information), the girls are being tried as adults. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... TE=DEFAULT (news site so not breaking)

If convicted, they each face 65 years. Either way, this keeps them from being released at 18 or 25 with a clean record.

[Eighth-of-eleven]

The long term incarceration in a max security psych institutional setting, prison or hospital will be safest for all concerned.

[DeFrauder]

There are no "nice" prisons.

That may be the case---but the slideshow is asserting there are :-).

And maybe there should be some nice prisons. Harsh punishment is only one model of "prison". Some models are focused on rehabilitation.

[DeFrauder]

Most NGI patients, nation wide, stay in a long time. If not life. I would be very interested in seeing the documentation related to your local area for commonly released NGI horrific murder cases.

People I have taken care of who have committed grisly slaughters of single persons, or mass murders, or slaughtered their families, or burned their babies alive believing them to be demons...and things like that, generally, tend to stay in maximum security forensic psychiatric hospitals for the rest of their lives. Even when restored to somewhat functional status. Just saying.

Here is one example of a dude that is walking the streets again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean

Here is another:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-c ... -1.3093614

[Eighth-of-eleven]

Single anecdotes do not a history make...

[DeFrauder]

Single anecdotes do not a history make...

?? What are you talking about?

These are two examples of people that committed heinous crimes but were allowed out on the streets not many years later. I don't understand what the argument is.

[DeFrauder]

Luckily (feels weird to say that for this information), the girls are being tried as adults. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... TE=DEFAULT (news site so not breaking)

If convicted, they each face 65 years. Either way, this keeps them from being released at 18 or 25 with a clean record.

Interesting.

The victim survived?-right? There seems to be confusion about that as the judge is quoted in the article as saying: "This was an effort to kill someone," the judge said. "This was premeditated murder."

Is it the norm to get 65 years for attempted murder? I am surprised this has not been plead down to aggravated assault or something.

[Rubyroo]

Interesting.

The victim survived?-right? There seems to be confusion about that as the judge is quoted in the article as saying: "This was an effort to kill someone," the judge said. "This was premeditated murder."

Is it the norm to get 65 years for attempted murder? I am surprised this has not been plead down to aggravated assault or something.

They planned for months to kill this girl and leave her. They just didn't realize they didn't actually kill her. But their goal was pre-meditated murder with a long planning period. I think the length of planning factors into their possible sentence a lot but I'm not a lawyer. Attempted murder can carry a life sentence though. I think it's close enough to murder that the penalties are pretty similar.

[Eighth-of-eleven]

?? What are you talking about?

These are two examples of people that committed heinous crimes but were allowed out on the streets not many years later. I don't understand what the argument is.

Not arguing:-)

[DeFrauder]

Not arguing:-)

Ok sorry. I thought you were refuting the examples as relevant.

I think that if someone like Andrea Yates ( a follower of Gothard, apparently) lived in Manitoba or British Columbia---like the two people in the examples do, she would be back out on the street by now. I say that based only on the stuff she has said in the media about what she did etc. She seems to be fairly stable now.

There is another woman---Susan Atkins. Her story is kind of similar to these Slenderman girls in terms of motivation. As a member of the Manson Family she was deluded but she became stable, realized the wrong in what she had done, and turned away from Manson. Out of everybody we have discussed in this thread she might be the most mentally stable of the bunch---yet there was no chance for parole for her. Even on her deathbed they would not give her a compassionate release. She maybe did not actually have a mental illness other than the delusions she suffered while hanging out with Manson.

Apparently, there is a woman in Finland who cooked and ate her BF. She went to jail and was out in a few years. She did the EXACT same thing again.

Anyway--I would think, philosophically, there is a difference between people who kill because they were motivated by greed or something and people who kill because they are motivated by mental illness. Surely people motivated by mental illness are less responsible than people who kill due to greed or bigotry?

Yet, it seems like murderers with mental illness are penalized even worse (in some locales) than murders who kill for seemingly rational reasons.

Personally, I believe that "the criminally insane" should be treated a little more gently. Perhaps they should never walk the streets again, but being housed in a facility that is not designed to make their illness worse is a reasonable idea.

[DeFrauder]

OH I googled for prisons with golf courses :-P

The institution included a complete 9-hole golf course for most of its existence. The course was often played by community groups from the Mission BC area as well as inmates. It was also utilized in training inmates in landscaping, and horticulture vocations, and to foster positive recreational habits for inmates.[15] The golf course was eventually removed due to public outrage.

For several years, Colin Thatcher, a former Saskatchewan politician convicted for murdering his wife in 1984, was housed at Ferndale institution. He was allowed to bring horses from his ranch in Saskatoon to the penitentiary reserve, but after public outrage this special privilege was discontinued.[16]

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferndale_Institution about the Ferndale Institution in British Columbia.

That bit about the politician that murdered his wife getting to bring his horses is hilarious and it reveals the difference in how the rich and poor get treated in some prisons.