Creepypasta Feels Compelled To State That Its Stories Are Fiction & It's Not A Satanic Cult; Thanks Everyone...

from the we're-a-tech-blog,-not-a-crazy-satanic-cult dept

Wed, Jun 4th 2014 1:12pm — Timothy Geigner

I won't say I told you so, but...you know what, screw it, I told you so. I told you the horror story out of Waukesha, Wisconsin, where two girls attacked a friend, nearly killing her, invoking the name of Slender Man, the creation of one user on internet site Creepypasta, would result in yet another moral panic iteration. Truth be told, it wasn't a difficult prediction to make and I certainly wasn't going out on a limb. This kind of thing is sadly as predictable as the weather in San Diego, but not nearly as pleasant. Already the focus is being cast exactly where it shouldn't, even by police officials.

"This should be a wake-up call for all parents," Russell P. Jack, Waukesha's police chief, said in a statement Monday. "Parents are strongly encouraged to restrict and monitor their children's Internet usage."

That's an absolute joke. Not that I disagree with the Chief's statement, it just has no relevance to this particular case and it casts everyone's eye towards a scary internet when the obvious truth is that there may not be a more clear example of disturbed children than this one. That results in gems of sentiment such as this tweet.

@diannaw1976 - @OfficialCPWikia take this sight down your breeding killers

The internet, specifically Creepypasta, were essentially bystanders to these disturbed young girls. Something was going to set them off and Creepypasta just happened to be the ones this time. Meanwhile, this very loose and stupid talk about taking Creepypasta down entirely has caused the site to put forward this post, including this section of the statement.

ALL WORKS PRESENTED ON THIS WIKI AND OTHER SITES (INCLUDING SLENDERMAN, JEFF THE KILLER, BEN, SONIC.EXE, ETC) ARE FICTIONAL STORIES AND CHARACTERS

There's also this:

We are a literature site, not a crazy satanic cult.

Congratulations, general public and major media outlets, you've brought the rest of us to a place where a website that tells ghost stories has to put out a disclaimer that their stories of the supernatural are fictional. The very fact that this has to be written is the latest indictment on a scapegoat-seeking public that is far more interested in feeling better by blaming an innocent third-party than actually tackling the problem with which they're presented or the reality in which they must endure. Instead of simply confronting real evil, or real mental illness, or real murder and real crime, let's all just heap our outrage onto a website, because the internet is scary and calling for censorship without thinking it through is just so tantalizingly easy.

So way to go, all of you blaming a website for the very real attempted-murder of a child committed by two children. By attacking a site dedicated to ghost tales, you're the horror story now.

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Filed Under: creepypasta, fiction, moral panics, murder, slender man, slenderman

46 Comments

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That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 11:46am

I don't think they're going far enough actually. Along with that warning, in larger font and bolded text should be:

'IF YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS NOT, YOU'RE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM, NOT THE WRITERS OF THIS SITE.'
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- mcinsand, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:27pm
  
  Let's take it a bit further
  TOG, while you're on the right track, I think we need to tweak your directive a bit:
  
  'IF YOU CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS NOT, THEN PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS DECENT, DO NOT REPRODUCE AND DO NOT VOTE!!! IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN, PUT THEM IN A FOSTER HOME WITH PARENTS THAT ARE CAPABLE OF LOGICAL THOUGHT. IF YOU ARE IN A STATE THAT HAS NO VOTER ID LAW, THEN PLEASE GIVE YOUR REGISTRATION CARD TO SOMEONE WITH INTELLIGENCE THAT IS EITHER AVERAGE OR EVEN MARGINAL (I.E., STILL HIGHER THAN YOURS).'
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Ima Fish (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:25pm

I'm glad I bought my kids a copy of Alvin Schwartz's Scary Stories trilogy before they were banned and burned.
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- art guerrilla (profile), 5 Jun 2014 @ 10:14am
  
  Re:
  the absolutely dunderheaded aspect of this, is the little monsters are absolutely shielded from ANY and ALL of even the slightest, tangential, hint of S.E.X., etc; but then get out of school and go to their friends house and surf pron (if not perform pron), dead body sites, whatever sick and stupid shit kids are ALWAYS into when they are kids...
  (its called 'being kids', and -in some cases- 'being adults')
  
  'cause, all it takes is ONE loudmouth, ignorant, uptight useless mouth-breather of a 'parent' to bitch about SOMETHING/ANYTHING, and the school admin will back down 99.99% of the time simply to avoid 'the controversy'...
  
  ...and *that*, kampers, is a race to the least common denominator...
  
  it is INFINITELY easier to play to sheeple's fears, than to have them aspire to be better...
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Zos (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:25pm

if i could promote that i would
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Baron von Robber, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:30pm

@diannaw1976
Dear @diannaw1976,

I hear they are going after stupid people next. You may want to find a hiding place soon.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:04pm
  
  Re: @diannaw1976
  Last I checked they still kids reading Edgar Allan Poe in English classes around the country which obviously now have the ability to cause kids to start killing each other so let's start there. That's got to go. In fact a lot of things kids could read might do the same thing so for the sake of keeping them safe, we need to simply stop teaching them to read.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:21pm
  
  Re: @diannaw1976
  People like this need to be mocked publicly into oblivion where ever they pop up.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Zonker, 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:01pm
  
  Re: @diannaw1976
  Dear @diannaw1976,
  
  It appears that you weren't paying attention during the "where do babies come from" lecture. You see, breeding children is what happens when mommy and daddy love each other and have unprotected sex together. If those children become killers, that means either mommy and daddy didn't raise them right or the child is born mentally ill. Thus, only the mommy and daddy can be "breeding killers", not fictional ghost stories (yes, that is redundant) people post on the internet.
  
  As for your request to "take down this sight", we refuse to blind ourselves just because you can't see the forest for the trees.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:27pm
    
    Re: Re: @diannaw1976
    And of ocurse....
    "There is no one so blind as he who will not see."
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Jessie (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:38pm

You see, the problem here isn't what people believe to be true or not, it's actually copyright. If the original creator of slender man had easy tools to prevent fans from building on his work, then obviously there would be no stories on Creepypasta and as such, none of this would have happened.

We need to immediately improve the copyright industry's control on the internet, for the children.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:44pm
  
  Re:
  Exactly. One great idea would be to force Google to disable copying and pasting web content so the stories which cause violence can't be spread over the Internets.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - JP Jones, 5 Jun 2014 @ 11:08am
    
    Re: Re:
    Obviously the solution is to ban violent media.
    
    Wait, where did all the news networks and history channel go?
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:41pm

I blame stupid/bad, parents/parenting for raising stupid kids.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:45pm
  
  Re:
  That's not entirely fair since some people do actually have mental problems which are not caused by external factors like their environment.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:56pm
    
    Re: Re:
    In which case, assuming they don't have financial or other problems that would prohibit them from getting help for the kid, it's still their fault.
    
    If you know there's a problem, but don't do anything to fix it, when the problem blows up in someone's face, yeah, it's at least partially your fault for ignoring it.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:01pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Yeah, sure, IF you know there's a problem AND you could have sought treatment but deliberately chose not to, that would certainly make you a bad parent.
      
      Both of these are huge, hilarious assumptions, but it would be interesting to find out how (un)realistic they are, i.e. what percentage of murderers with mental problems have parents who knew about their mental illness and were perfectly capable of arranging suitable treatment but chose not to? I would guess this is a very low percentage, but it's just a guess.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:04pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Would certainly be worth investigating, out of curiosity if nothing else, though given the massive blind-spot most parents have regarding faults/problems with their children, the information would likely be very difficult to accurately gather.
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        Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:07pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Exactly. Without that data it's amazingly ignorant to shout 'I blame the parents.' Glad we all agree.
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        That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:12pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Partially. Parents have an enormous influence on their children, how they see the world, being able to tell the difference between fact and fiction and so on, so if a child can't tell the difference between the two, either they're very young, have a mental problem(undiagnosed or not), or the parent(s) has/have failed in their job of raising the kid properly.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:19pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I've already agreed that yes, in some cases, the parents could be to blame for a murder committed by their child.
        
        You've already agreed that yes, in some cases, the parents could not be to blame for a murder committed by their child.
        
        We both agree that we don't know what percentage of parents are to blame for any murders committed by their child.
        
        Without that data, it is completely ignorant to blame (or defend) the parents every time a child murders (or tries to murder) someone. There is no 'partially' here. It's pretty simple. I've been withholding judgement of your intellectual capacity so far, but if you double down on your position at this point I'll have to assume you're mentally deficient.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:38pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        I should clarify my position then. I'm not saying 'Blame the parents', so much as 'It's something that should be looked into as a possible cause/factor'.
        
        Like you said, sometimes they could have done something, and therefor share some of the blame, sometimes they couldn't, and therefor don't, but far too often it seems society and the press(especially the press) goes out of it's way to blame, or investigate, everything but the parents anytime something tragic happens, and given nothing should have a larger impact upon the development of a child and their mind, that's not something I think makes much sense.
        
        All potential causes should be investigated, with blame only assigned once a definitive cause has been determined(and even then it's likely going to be several factors).
        
        Also, might want to hold off on the personal attacks, simply having a different opinion on something is not an indication of being 'mentally deficient', and saying such comes across, whether you intended it as such or not, as a rather pointless accusation, and one skirting rather close to an ad-hom argument('I don't agree with your position and/or argument, but rather than discuss your points I'll dismiss you and your argument as mentally deficient').
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 1:53pm

Wait, TD isn't a satanic cult?

....What am I going to do with this snazzy ritual black robe and sacrificial goat NOW? You know how these things work,the resale value of sacrificial goats drops to almost nil the second you drive them out of the lot.
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- That One Guy (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:01pm
  
  Re:
  Umm, no, when you sign up for the 'Cult of Masnick/TD' you should have received a stuffed shoulder parrot, an eye-patch, and a shirt with 'ARRR!' super-imposed over a trinity of Floppy disc, CD, and computer.
  
  If you got a robe and a goat, sounds like your order was mixed up with some other group, hopefully whoever got your gear is enjoying the eye-patch and parrot.
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  - Dark Helmet (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:03pm
    
    Re: Re:
    "If you got a robe and a goat, sounds like your order was mixed up with some other group"
    
    His soul belongs to ME KNOW. Muahahahahahhahahahaah!
    
    (Please contact to contribute your 10% of salary tithings)
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  - ltlw0lf (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:09pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Umm, no, when you sign up for the 'Cult of Masnick/TD' you should have received a stuffed shoulder parrot, an eye-patch, and a shirt with 'ARRR!' super-imposed over a trinity of Floppy disc, CD, and computer.
    
    Yeah, but shhhhh... That is only for us insiders. Don't let the A/C know that. (I say, proudly wearing my this shirt has been seized/motherf*cking eagle shirt hidden under my business attire at work. Yes, I am doing it wrong.)
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- CK20XX (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:54pm
  
  Re:
  Give the goat back to Coffee Stain Studios, please.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 3:32pm
  
  Re:
  Sacrificial goat?! You kids today. Back in my day we had to sacrifice babies and we were grateful. We also had to walk uphill to Hell, both ways.
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  - David, 5 Jun 2014 @ 2:44am
    
    Re: Re:
    You don't need babies for basic Windows support. Goats are fine for that.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:03pm

This is hardly surprising
"Congratulations, general public and major media outlets, you've brought the rest of us to a place where a website that tells ghost stories has to put out a disclaimer that their stories of the supernatural are fictional."

This problem seems largely confined to two regions on the planet:

1. "third-world" countries with serious problems including poverty, illiteracy, lack of educational opportunity, lack of civil rights, repressive governments, religious cults, hunger, misogyny, racism, etc.

2. The United States.

The rest of the civilized world seems to be smart enough to discern reality from fantasy, but there are actually living breathing walking talking people in the US right now who think ghosts are real and global warming is not.

There doesn't exist a large enough cluestick to solve this problem.
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lars626, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:30pm

Twisted
Twisted and homicidal twelve year old girls.
Blame the web site!

The police should be looking at the parents and other friends of these two little monsters. Somebody started them on the road to hell, and it wasn't a web site.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 2:35pm

And here we go.... http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/06/slender-man-deadly-internet-games-knockout-game-ghost-train/
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Trevor, 4 Jun 2014 @ 3:03pm

Hypocrisy
Someone is mad that girls don't look at him and uses it as an excuse to shoot 7 people: IT'S NOT GUNS, IT'S A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE.

Someone thinks Slenderman is real and uses it as an excuse to almost stab someone to death: ITS VIDEO GAMES AND THE INTERNET BAD BAD BAD.

So...

GUNS don't kill people, CRAZY PEOPLE do. AND ALSO VIDEO GAMES. TOTES THE INTERNET TOO.

What.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 3:26pm

"@diannaw1976 - @OfficialCPWikia take this sight down your breeding killers"

@diannaw1976 It's "site" not "sight" and "you're" not "your." Take this tweet down. You're breeding grammar Nazis.
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- Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:30pm
  
  Re:
  Not "breeding Grammar Nazis," demonstrating illiteracy.
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Get off my cyber-lawn! (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:25pm

It's all REAGAN's fault
If that website is responsible for these two disturbed children's actions then Ronald Reagan is responsible for John Hinkley's!

What that doesn't make sense? Neither does blaming that website.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:33pm

@diannaw1976 "Bon jour!"
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Internet Zen Master (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 4:43pm

Speaking as a Writer/Artist in the Creepypasta community
We've been a little on edge the last few days because of this whole shitstorm. A huge chunk of the community is worried we'll all get demonized as satanic cultists or crazed, child-manipulating psychopaths by the media because of this. Personally I'm more worried about the younger writers getting their budding talent squashed by ignorant parents seeing them posting stories to creepypasta websites and going into moral panic made

There's currently a collaborative fundraiser in the works by several of the more active members of the community to help pay for the victim's medical bills (how they plan to get the money to the victim's family, I don't know, especially given how unorganized this community is).
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jun 2014 @ 5:16pm

why is it
If the Internet has that much influence on all of us simple minded folks, why is it we don't see more press regarding all the good things the Internet has forced people to do. I mean, I never see any major press about how the Internet made someone do something nice for someone. That, usually, is credited as coming from the heart. . . Not the Internet. Influence is influence. Isn't it?
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bob, 4 Jun 2014 @ 5:38pm

creepypasta did not create slenderman
Just an FYI. The article states slender man is a creation of creepypasta. He is not.

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slender-man

Slender man is a creation from a Photoshop contest on the Something Awful forums.
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- Internet Zen Master (profile), 4 Jun 2014 @ 6:07pm
  
  Re: creepypasta did not create slenderman
  Creepypasta did not originally create Slenderman. This is true.
  
  However, Slenderman has effectively been the unofficial 'face'/mascot of Creepypasta for the common person for at least the last few years, thanks to the various pastas written about him getting so much approval within the community, along with all the ARGs[EMH, Marble Hornets, TribeTwelve, etc] and Slender: the Eight Pages. He's pretty much got the most staying power and name recognition within the Creepypasta genre, despite not originally being part of the Creepypasta world.
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Digitari, 4 Jun 2014 @ 5:50pm

Really??????
Hmmm creepy supernatural stories, Death and Mayhem, So the Bible should be next then I suppose Right? Right?

(and it really does have a cult following)
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GEMont (profile), 5 Jun 2014 @ 12:32pm

The internet made me do it...
I find it kinda odd that nobody has yet offered the simple idea that maybe, just maybe, the 2 girls are lying. They wanted to off the girl they stabbed and decided that they could get away with it if they blamed it on the internet.

Just a thought...
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John85851 (profile), 5 Jun 2014 @ 1:41pm

The media
As usual, the media has a choice about what to report on. And which is easier: a 30-second soundbite about how someone was led down a dark path by the Internet/ movies/ comics/ rock n roll/ newspapers/ whatever else OR try to explain that the teenage girls had undiagnosed (or maybe totally diagnosed) mental problems.
One has an easy-to-see solution: shut down the site/ stop the movie studio/ ban rock n roll/ ban comics, and so on. But the other one means taking a look at why these girls were disturbed, what their home life was like, whether they were bullied in school, and so on. Whew- that's too much work! Let's just blame Marilyn Manson and "Vault of Horror" comics.
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- John Fenderson (profile), 5 Jun 2014 @ 2:08pm
  
  Re: The media
  I don't think it's laziness, actually. I think it's that between the choice of two stories -- one where some mentally ill kids killed someone and one where something your kids are doing caused some otherwise normal kids to kill someone, they'll go for the latter every time.
  
  That's because stories that scare people sell. It's the same reason why you get so many nonsense stories like "your toothbrush can kill you -- tune in at 11 for the whole story!"
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  - JP Jones, 6 Jun 2014 @ 10:12pm
    
    Re: Re: The media
    "That's because stories that scare people sell."
    
    You know, this makes a disturbing amount of sense. Think about how many cheesy, terrible horror movies are out there. They have no logic, terrible acting, and feed off cheap emotion rather than encourage people to engage in their content.
    
    Now apply that same definition to big media. Notice any similarities?
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