• DOI:10.1080/1369118X.2011.642889
• Corpus ID: 143297005

OPEN-SOURCING HORROR

@article{Chess2012OPENSOURCINGH,
  title={OPEN-SOURCING HORROR},
  author={Shira Chess},
  journal={Information, Communication \& Society},
  year={2012},
  volume={15},
  pages={374 - 393}
}

• S. Chess
• Published 13 March 2012
• Art
• Information, Communication & Society

On 8 June 2009, a member of the online forum Something Awful began a new thread, challenging members to ‘create paranormal images through Photoshop’. For two days forum members created the expected fare: a variety of ghostly or generally creepy images (often adding half-seen spirits into backgrounds of real pictures). On 10 June, the tenor of the forum shifted dramatically, though, when a user posted two ‘photos’ and a news story identifying a faceless ‘Slender Man’ in a suit who stalked children. Almost immediately, an obsessive interest in the Slender Man took over the forum discussions. Near constant additions were added to the Slender Man mythos with new photographs, drawings, short fiction, and even wood cuttings showing his appearance in different times and places. Additionally, the story was made into a web show called Marble Hornets. In many ways, the development of the Slender Man character as an ‘open-sourcing’ of generic horror conventions can be understood. Within this process, the communal construction of the Slender Man sheds light on genre negotiations in online spaces. In what follows, the Open-Sourcing, creation, and negotiation of the Slender Man as an Internet-born horror villain, paying specific attention to final iterations as they have been portrayed in Marble Hornets is discussed. By exploring how specific (yet, anonymous) individuals construct, debug, and de-construct a newly forming horror monster, the ways that generic form is negotiated both through ‘social action’ and pre-established expectations are examined.