Good evening and welcome back to play Blurry form. I am your host,
Bashar now muste and once again we'll be reading your letters and your concerned trying
to get you in touch with you and putting yourself on the most auspicious life
path we can. All right, First off, we've got a letter from
someone in New York. Dear playblurry for him. I've been dating this girl
for about three weeks now. Things are going great. I think she's a
very lovely person. She's beautiful, she's smart, she's funny, she gets
me. But something's been happening. Last night was the third instance of it,
and I just have to talk to someone about it. I awoke in
the middle of the night unable to breathe, and when I opened my eyes,
my girlfriend was perched right upon my chest. It was an enormous amount
of weight and I was terrified. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe,
and I basically passed out from the terror. When I woke up the next
day, I tried to ask her about it, and she had no idea
what I was talking about. But I'm left wondering, am I dating an
old hag? Sincerely, Breathless in Buffalo. Oh my goodness. Well,
first, I would like to thank you, Breathless and Buffalo, for for
sharing that. I understand that there's a lot of pain and a lot of
confusion, and I'm feeling that, and I respect that. First of all,
communication is the center of any relationship. And if you're trying to build
bridges and she's constantly putting that no crossing barrier down, at that point,
you need to get in your honesty truck and floor it as fast as you
can straight at that barrier, putting a brick on the accelerator, then rolling
out of the car to safety while it heads towards the gas truck of her
emotional center. In the ensuing fireball, both of you will be basking in
the glowing warmth of an open and communicative relationship. I so hope that does
help you out, Breathless and Buffalo. Our next letter comes to us from
a longtime listener in Kentucky. I apply a blurry farm. I got this
problem where these kids are coming over in the middle of the night. I
think they're the neighbors kids. They're coming over and they're looking in our windows
and they're playing in the bushes or some ship. Well, I tried going
out there and hollering at them and tell them get out of here, and
they won't leave. And I know they're kids because they're only about three foot
tall and they're hiding in the bushes and they're climbing up on our tin roof.
I can hear them running around. Well, I'll tell you what we
did, what any sane person would do. We shot at them. Motherfucker's
their bulletproof or something, because they just they spun away, laughing, and
they came on back. It was all night. We stayed up all damn
night trying to get these kids to leave us the hell alone. Finally they
run off when we called the cops in on them. Anyway, long story
short, how do I talk to the neighbors tell them to get their damn
kids off our property and stop bothering us at night? I plumb out of
options here. I've tried hollering, I tried shooting. Now what else am
I supposed to do? If a gun can't fix it, I don't know
what can Can you help me out? Harassed in Hopkinsville? Yes, I
can feel your frustration and your anger. It's certainly disturbing to have one's own
sanctum violated by either children or potentially goblins when shouted obscenities. And twenty odd
buckshot fail, what are we left with at this point? I'll take a
cue from my friends the cetaceans. Have you considered focusing your chakras and your
own internal emotional and psychic energy into a high frequency beam that would be able
to directly connect with their mind? Perhaps using this you can communicate above the
ethereal plane, allowing direct emotional contact with no need for body armor or evasive
action. Once this link has been established and you become one soul with your
neighbor's children, might I suggest that you invite them to your home that they
may explore it with your blessing and permission, and maybe both of you can
enjoy a fun evening on the roof. I sure hope this helps. Now
I must stay harassed in Hopkinsville. Thank you all for all of your letters,
and we do try to reply to each and every one of them.
Once again for Playblurry for him, I've been your host the Shire. No
must stay. I wonder when they're gonna respond to my letter, but sure,
if you're listening. I've got to I've got some questions, bro,
Yeah, can you help me out? Man? I keep trying to hitting
on all these dolphins and they're all like and then they swim away, man,
And I'm like, I just came to party, y'all. Hey,
man, what's wrong all their dolphins? I try and hollered at him.
Oh hey, everybody, I'm David Florida. I'm David Stecko. Oh,
welcome to blurry photos, and welcome to an entirely new year. Oh my
gosh. Yeah, and you're fourteen. That's right. Seen has happened.
It has and good news. Um, I think from an apocryphal end of
Days perspective, a fairly uneventful year, it's anticipated. I don't think there
should be any major eschatological calamities. Very good. You might need an MS
paint TOOFICOD for that one that I will give to myself never sorry, great
cat. Uh yeah, yeah, I don't think there is. And you
know what I mean, We've we've escaped twenty thirteen unscathed. And that's the
year where if somebody forgot to carry the one right, that's when it would
have happened. That was the emergency backup plan for all the people who were
not willing to say they were wrong the first time. Yeah, so you've
you've run out of options, and now you just have to go ask for
your old job back exactly. That elaborate I quit song you wrote doesn't seem
like such a good idea now, No, but you can send it to
us. We'll sing it, Yeah, we will. It's twenty fourteen.
They nothing can touch us. Who twenty fourteen year if we don't give them,
Well, we're sixteen episodes into the year twenty fourteen. Let's take a
look at the foksgiven count and it stands at a resolute zero. Wait wait,
no zero. Can't wait for the new holiday this year? Foksgiving?
Oh man, man, we're starting twenty fourteen off right, Yeah we are,
Yeah, we are nothing but be soll year long. That's right.
Um. A couple of quick questions for you, our listeners. Did anybody
try my new holiday? Yeah? I'm curious as well. I mean I
don't I don't need a playblurry forum letter. No, but um, I
just would like a simple show of hands because I think it's a really good
idea. Did anybody think of a word for it? Anybody think any anything
for a good name could be Yeah, oh god, I can't heer a
reward because I break my problems. But I really would love a really good
name for my um Winter Solstice you will sex holiday. But I'm really trying
to get off the ground. And guys, I mean, it's not just
me, it's all of us. We're a community, we're a team,
and my goals are noble. Did you do anything for it? No,
I'm perpetually single, so no, That's that's what makes it such a magnanimous
act on my part. I'm doing it for everyone else. If if you're
single on it, it's the best night because you just you've an order in
pizza and you play video games all night. I mean, you can do
that any night. This is a holiday devoted to you. About it?
Okay, all right, I'll take that. I mean, I I flew
home for Christmas on the Solstice, so that would have been it's hard hard
to play seex holiday. Yeah, well at an airport, or maybe it's
easier. I don't know. I was with the gef's family, so oh,
so it was a little hard to have a sexy Yule time in the
in in your girlfriend's parents' home, right, don't blame me for that.
That's that's a that's a tough one, and that I think that there's always
going to be some scheduling problems. But I don't set the calendar. I
don't set which night is the longest night. It's just where it shows up.
But I think that I'm gonna I'm not giving up on this. I
will mention this the entire year, Okay, and uh, I'm gonna do
my damnedest to have a situation where in I can personally partake of the Yule
sex Holiday twenty fourteen. Whatever that turns out to be. Sounds good.
Sounds good. Also, both of our parents listen to this, So sorry
about that, but it's just what I'm trying to do. We're adults,
Yeah, at this whole podcast is a seriously adult situation. I don't think
you know who you're dealing, Cereal, right now, it's right, get
off me. Oh man. So okay, that's the future. Let's talk
about the present. Let's talk about it. We are starting the new year
off with I would say the most requested yea subject matter to cover. Yeah,
in blurry photos history, it is. This is the most requested topic,
and we've been really enjoying getting into it. Yeah, it's nice to
First of all, it's nice to come back and record again because, as
we made very clear, we had to precan a couple of episodes for the
holiday, and well, Flora, it's just so good to see you again.
This one. This one's fun. And it's funny because I've asked some
people if they've heard of this subject before, and nobody that I've asked has
ever heard of it. Yet we're still getting all these requests. It's you
know what it is. It's like this is like a cryptid meets folklore meets
Reddit. Yeah, it's like it's like it's for the Internet at savvy,
for the people who like their their minger and yes that's how it's pronounced on
this podcast. People who love their Reddit. This is a This is a
well known quantity, but for people who are not in that subset of the
what nine million people who use Reddit every day? How many? Yeah,
it's up there. I don't understand Reddit, so I don't use it.
It's confusing. I just like Imer because it's pictures and kiddies. Yeah,
yeah, a little too much. Emma Watson for my taste. I'm just
I'm too old for that. I can't meet. I don't find her that
attractive. I mean, listen, I mean you know what though, maybe
if I was fifteen years younger, I don't know, but it just it
seems pervy no matter what. But hey, I'm not here to tell Reddit
or imminger what to do with their lives. Yeah, the moral, the
story is what we're talking about tonight is Flora, the slender Man, Slendermann.
What is that a slenderment overay? Hey, hey mister no face,
but the nice suit. Slenderman. Come over here? Have you eaten you?
Look? You look skinny? Come in, slender Man. Slender Man's
coming to get you, he might be. It's freaky, this thing,
this thing toes the line. Also, I think to add to the list
that you threw out there, toes the line of the old shadow people in
my mind and the black eyed kids. Yes, yeah, it's this this
unknown entity. No one knows where he comes from, where he's going to,
what his agenda is. But he needs people. Yeah yeah, and
people who need people are the creepiest people of all. So about that Yule
holiday, Yeah, so we're going to talk about who or what is Slenderman.
I'm gonna talk about where he came from and if he slash it is
real. Yeah, this is cool. This is this is modern folklore.
This is this is We're getting in much like my sex holiday. We're getting
in on the ground floor of something. This is something that has popped up
within our lifetimes very very much. Actually was in the last five years.
Yeah, jeez man, and now it's something that we have to deal with.
We've we've created another reason to be afraid of the outside. Yep,
yep, yep, another reason to just stay at home with our podcast.
Another problem that neither shouting nor guns can solve. Hollering, holleran. So
let's tell you a little bit about this. Uh, this old son of
a bitch. So the slender Man, I forgive me, but I'm gonna
say Slenderman the whole way thing too. I am Spiderman, Slenderman. The
Slenderman is h He's a tall and when I say tall, I mean around
between seven and fifteen feet tall. Oh. Now, technically the fifteen foot
tall one might have been two of them in a hilariously gigantic overcoat or perhaps
a doctor's coat. It happens, dude. So they're they're very thin humanoids,
humanoids. I guess there's just one, right, there's just a slenderman.
I think there is a slender man. You never even no one's ever
seen more than one at a time, right, right, So okay,
so slender man, very thin humanoid. Where's a black suit, very stylish
with a white button up shirt, skinny black tie, and has a hairless
grayish whitish head and a no face, natureless face. It's zero face,
the goose egg face, dude, goose egg it's the I mean, there's
an approximation. There's sort of in all the photos and everything I've seen,
there's there's the hint of features. There's a sinking kind of where eyes should
be. There's there's maybe some cheek bone, cheek bone, there's sort of
a not like there's not like a nose sticking out, but there's kind of
like a hollow underneath, you know, like there's there's these hints of a
skull underneath it. R right. Many descriptions of it include it having unnaturally
long arms which he can lengthen or shorten at will, and also tentacle like
appendages which protrude from his back. Yeah, that's that was the thing that
surprised me, is that there is My my cursory just standing knowledge of of
of the Slenderman was that it was just a creepy, tall, thin person
in a suit with like, you know, abnormally long limbs and like hands
down past the knees kind of right. But the additional I was surprised at
how common that is of these additional um sometimes arms, sometimes like they said,
tentacle sort of things that seemed to come out of like the rear of
the shoulder, almost almost where where you would put like a wing on an
angel. There's these these additional couple come over the shoulders, couple come under
the armpits kind of thing. Yeah, now you just started playing Marvel Lego.
I sure, dad, I have been enjoying it with the old GF.
I got it for Christmas. I'm a grown man. I got a
video game, and I couldn't be happier. I couldn't wait, so I
bought it earlier. Ladies, it's it's not too soon to start your planning
for next year's le holidays. Oh I forgot. I forgot about that.
That potential name Hard to put that on a card. Hey, mary Fish.
The point I'm trying to make is you'll get there, but you can
unlock Venom in the go. Oh yeah, and he's got a similar thing
going there. Yeah. The character in the game has these tentacles coming out
of his back. Also Carnage, also Superior Spider Man. But you'll just
blew you just you just blew my mind. You'll get there, tentacles out
of the back. That's all the point that I'm making, all right.
So in stories he's been implicated and causing paranoia, memory loss, insomnia,
and even I saw coughing fits. M m yeah, I see nausea,
nausea, yeah, I mean yeah, all kinds of of weird maladies.
Little moth Man in there, little moth manish, yeah, moth mannerisms,
points on the board, damn it. Twenty fourteen, starting right. One
way to tell if he's around is if your electronic equipment begins to malfunction.
Oh man, how many times do we hear that They're like the paranormal is
the enemy of the iPad. Yeah, yeah, like you can't you can't
have electromagnetic stuff. I think is is a cop out because I don't think
people understand it that well. Yeah, technology and bigfoots don't mix except for
EVPs. EVPs, yeah, cross okay, but maybe we can choose,
Bro, he can choose. I know, what's it gonna be, Bro,
you can do this a normal bible. Is that what you got going?
He also has they to teleport at will now there. Now, I
don't know what you saw. I didn't see any evidence or any accounts of
anyone actually seeing him like move like he he doesn't stride, he doesn't walk
around. I've seen him. I've seen him turn. I've seen yeah,
like a head turn, Yeah, things like that. But you don't you
never see him move his body anywhere. If if you go with some of
the stories not to not to dip into the pool here too early before it's
more no, no, no, not too soon you do. There is
one out there where there's a bit of that of long striding movements akin to
really thin trees that are blowing in the wind kind of thing, still walking
kind of a sort of yeah, or like a bindy tree like willowy.
Yeah, but that's getting into Yeah, we'll get there into turtur that we
we don't have the clarence for you. But yeah, the teleportation one thing.
And because this is such a an Internet heavy thing, this is such
a a Reddit anger sort of thing. I'm very often reminded of the Weeping
Angels from Doctor Who, which it's just another thing that that inger and Reddit
worship as though it were a god. It is Doctor Who, and rightfully
so it's a great show. But this is this is a long standing obsession
with this group of people, and so I don't think it's I don't think
it's an accident that the single most popular episode of Doctor Who, of the
new runs of all Doctor Who, sure, I mean, um, the
one that people were most impressed by, the one that people most like to
discuss. Suddenly, in the same time frame that this comes around, there's
this this new thing that it kind of has one of that thing's powers,
you know, blink, Yeah, that's it exactly. So yeah, you
you you look away from the Slenderman and when you turn around, he's like
ten fe sir, yep. That I don't know. I mean, maybe
that's nothing, maybe that's something. But in my mind when I when I
did my research, I was like, man, this is this is real
Weeping Angels stuff. Yeah, And and right around that time frame. You're
right, Yeah, Oh my god, did I just blow the lid off
and just blew it off? I'm sorry, but you're welcome to Dave's Deco.
Here. Now, I need to I need to sell you some water
purification tablets because the government's gonna try to steal your computer. Obamacare will require
three quarts of your blood and you need to purify that water. In the
meantime, colloidal silver. There's the wave of the future. So yeah,
this teleportability just yeah, it's exactly like like you were saying, you see
him from afar, you'll look away, you'll look back. He's ten feet
closer. You look away, you look back, he's in your face.
It's a creepy trope. It's like, also, the same thing happens to
girls around last call at a bar. Yeah, yeah, that guy who
was like on the other side of the room. Every time you look,
he'll be ten feet closer. To be fair, though, they're so trashed
at that point that like two seconds is like actually two minutes. Sure the
guy has already walked up, tried to hit on you, walked away,
come back. Yeah. Everyone everyone is both the victim and the criminal.
At the last call and apparently I saw this. He has Slenderman has an
affinity for stealing children away to the forest. Yeah, he's connected to the
forest. He's definitely connected. He's seen in the presence of children. Yeah,
he'll take children and adults equally. But there seems to be a lot
of like him just being around kids. A lot of those pictures it's children
in the foreground and then him just malurking in the back. Malurking, he's
lodging in the back. He's lodging around with his lard wallet, all right.
So so that's that's what we're dealing with. This is a creepy enough
dude. Also enjoy a silent I like the fact that he's silent. Yeah,
yeah, there are some I don't know, like I would YouTube.
There's plenty of YouTube videos about them, and and they're fun to watch because
they range from like the genuinely like oh this is interesting, down to like
the there's like you know all those like crime Stoppers shows that have dramatizations.
Oh, there's a lot of that good stuff. There's a part that has
an audio recording of like a prolonged discussion with a Slenderman, which I don't
buy My favorite. My favorite Slenderman video is one that's made by a bunch
of twelve year olds that I love these kids. There's some some high drama,
there's some moments of terror. You know, I really enjoyed it.
That's awesome. Let's talk a little bit about where this dude came from?
Yeah, why why is he so popular in these internet circles? Now?
What calls that? There's I mean, and we'll get into both sides of
this, but there's there's multiple origins for this guy. And there's a very
popular doc. I mean, that's the fun thing. A thing that's born
on the Internet. That means that it's it's data somewhere. So we actually
know exactly where the modern idea of the slender Man was born. That's right
down to the date. Yeah, how's that for specificity? Didn't expect that,
did you? Well, maybe you should think about that next time.
And you know, don't underestimate us. We work really hard. And it's
twenty fourteen. Yeah, Flora, when when did this guy show up?
How the start? Well, I'll tell you. In June of two thousand
and nine, there was a forum thread created on the website something awful dot
com. This is the modern origin of the old slendimen. So what is
something awful dot com? Something awful dot com is a comedic website which was
started in nineteen ninety nine. It has blogs, forums, articles, funny
pictures, memes, etc. On it. It's just a comedy website with
a variety of crap on it. Now, if you're if you're playing along
on home, yeah, and you try to go to something awful dot com,
it might give you a little trouble. I had trouble earlier, but
you were just able to pull it up. I see, well, I
can get I can get to the forums, but I can't. I don't
think I can get to the website itself anyway. Something awful dot com if
you want to try it's the forums are all you need if you want some
slendermen. Yeah, that's that's where this thing was. So the forum thread
was a photoshop contest called Paranormal Pictures, in which participants were required to make
ordinary photos creepy through photoshop or some kind of digital manipulation of the photos.
They then had to pass them off as authentic on different paranormal forums. That's
that's part I think was yeah, pretty funny. Yeah, it's kind of
a fun dick contest. Yeah, yeah, it is. So a participant
whose handle was Victor's Surge. That was the user name Deserge likes photoshop.
He's got filter power, max power. His real name was Eric Knudsen.
He posted a couple of black and white photos. In all fairness, it
could have been a soft k just Nudson. Eric would have never gone by
there. All right, fair enough, fair enough. So he posts these
black and white photos of of these different groups of children who looked like it
was kind of early eighties from the from the dress of them, Yeah,
I think from the clothing they were wearing maybe uh. And in the background
you could clearly see a Dexi's Midnight Runner tape cassette in the photo. Well,
one of them, I swear has has a fair faucet hair. I
was like, well, it's it's at least late seventies, early early eighties.
Yeah. In the background of each of these pictures there's a tall,
dark figure standing there. The photos were each submitted with a different description,
and I believe you have the descriptions of the photos. So the first description,
as they submitted it was we didn't want to go. We didn't want
to kill them, but it's persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us
at the same time. Dot dot nineteen eighty three, photographer unknown, presumed
dead. That's the first description for the first photo and the other one one
of two recovered photographs from the Sterling City Library Blaze, notable for being taken
the day which fourteen children vanished and for what is referred to as the slender
Man deformities, cited as film defects by officials. Fire at the library occurred
one week later. Actual photograph confiscated as evidence nineteen eighty six. Photographer Mary
Thomas missing since June thirteenth, nineteen eighty six. So those accompanied the photos
that he submitted. Yep. He posted another one the next day and a
couple of other something awful. Forum users picked up the idea of this slender
Man and created their own stories, kind of like backstory, kind of deals
the talor of Slenderman. Everybody listen to me right now. This is what
happened when you don't eat. Telling these kids you're gaunt? What is that?
That ain't health? I'll tell you what health. He is. So
from there, the idea just snowballed and and virally it begat numerous new creations
of stories of art, media, etc. Including the following story posted on
the scary short story site Creepy Pasta Yeah, or the short scary story site
Yeah. You know one fun fact before you read that that um. For
a long time, I didn't recognize that there was a difference. I thought
that that slender Man was like a fan thing because I didn't having not played
a lot of Minecraft. In my mind, I had confused the Minecraft Enderman
with slender Man, and I was like, Oh, they're just pretending to
be a video game villain and they're talking about it, and I for years
I had the two mixed together in my brain and I thought that it was
like a fan fiction kind of thing. Oh, I didn't. And then
I played Minecraft and I was like, wait a minute, there's a there's
a whole thing about the Enderman coming out after Slenderman did oh because they all
they're also kind of tall, they teleport, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you shouldn't look at them. Although they don't look quite like pictures. They're
not wearing suits. They're just all black and they're just blocky. Andy rectangular,
but they definitely do teleport to and fro. But yeah, they're there,
they are connected a bit um. As a matter of fact, it's
it's actually here in the even in the in the official Wikipedia article about slender
Man, it talks about Marcus Notch Pressing, who created Minecraft, and and
then it was there was a lot of people who drew that conclusions. Okay,
now I'm a little smarter. I feel a little better that I wasn't
the only person who I mean, these people said, oh this was supposed
to be like this. I thought they were the same thing. Um.
But apparently he's very popular in video game world. He's been incorporated into a
number of games. So yeah, there you go. Yeah, sorry for
sorry for the digression. There. Let's know, what are the small folks
that creepypasta have for us? So this is this is one of the mini
pieces of fiction that have been written based on mister Slenderman. Is it?
Is it erotic? No board, But there have been plenty of of those
written. Oh no really Yeah, that's weird and tragic and I'm gonna have
to fight. That goes my day off or is it a day off?
Oh? Google erotic thong Slenderman and Metallica. So this was posted in the
on the Creepy Pasta website, which I don't I don't get that creepy pasta.
I don't get it. Yeah, maybe maybe we're too old for that.
Probably probably hippies. The following is a witness account of an encounter with
the slender Man. After waking up with a jolt, the girl laid in
bed a few seconds longer, Reaching over to switch on her bedside lamp,
she tried to remember exactly what had stolen her sweet slumber away. When she
couldn't, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and heaved herself
up. Checking the time on her phone, she snorted when she saw it
was midnight on the witching hour. She snuffled her way over to her troth
her truffle bin. Knowing that sleep would only evade her. She left her
bedroom for the kitchen, a good cup of coffee on her mind. This
girl makes bad decisions as she passed self sabotaging. As she passed by her
front door, a chill ran down her spine. It's only winter, she
told herself, focusing again on the coffee plan. And you just know the
next day at work, she's gonna be like, I'm so tired and just
bitch about it all day until she has that five hour energy god. Measuring
out scoops water and preparing her cup kept her occupied, but as the dark
liquid boiled, she had nothing left to keep her mind from wandering off.
The chill returned, and she couldn't help but glance behind her to the front
door. It stood there innocently enough, just like always. The dead bulb
was still in place, and she could see nothing amiss with it. Turning
back to her coffee, she did her best to forget about the feeling.
With her cup in hand, she started back towards her bedroom. As she
walked by the front door, she decided that a quick glance at the peep
hole would calm her restless thoughts. The best decision anybody has made in ever,
never, ever, ever, look out a peep hole, ever at
midnight, at any time, at any time. Movies have taught us two
things that either the person on the other side is going to look really weird
and comically fish eyed, or it's a mafia hitman and the gun is already
held up to the whole Have we learned nothing people, peepole's, make them
illegal, get rid of them all. When to pull the trigger like that
though? Yeah, well that's what I always wondered, because I mean,
they just have to guess, I don't know. The chill worsened with each
step she took towards the door and further away from the safety and warmth of
her blankets. She pressed her empty hand against the cold metal door and took
a deep breath before leading her eye to the peep hole. That's a weird
phrase, think, would you would you lead your eye to this microscope?
Please? I want you to look at these blood samples also metal doors.
She's living in a vault. Yeah, anyway, that's a bad living situation.
Well, we've established she's not good at life choices. That's true,
she's self sabotaging. At first, she could only see an inky blackness that
somehow seemed to swirl in itself, which she blinked in surprise. The void
melted away glaucoma. She wished it hadn't. In its place, there stood
what she could only guess was once a man. The limbs were long and
inhumanly awkward, with bulky joints branching off into several arms. Not unlike the
branches of a tree, the creature was draped in a black suit, somehow,
making the thing more nightmarish to her. The icing on the proverbial cake,
however, was what passed as the hellish thing's face. It was as
though her mind blurred the ghastly visage to spare itself further shock and horror.
She shoved herself away from the door. With the hands still pressed against it,
The scalding mug of coffee fell, the liquid burning her bare legs.
As she fell backwards and tried to crawl away from the door, she knew
somehow that her mind hadn't been playing tricks on her. As she crab walked
away from the door, she watched as tendrils as black as the void itself
sneaked around through the cracks. The girl was trapped between the instinct to flee
and the gut feeling to not turn her back on the door, and the
desire for just one more cup of coffee, just another folders in her cup.
Oh, never know, the sweet taste of flavor crystals again, Oh,
the best part of waking out, It's not this. When the door
jolted, they urged to flee. Overcame her and she slipped in the burning
liquid As she tried to make it back to her room. She knew deep
down that she was trapping herself in a corner, but she had to get
away from the door. The girl was halfway down the hallway when she heard
the previously locked door creak open. She screamed and slipped into a wall,
cracking her chin on it and stunning her. After that, there was only
blackness Nicole. A warm male voice snapped the woman out of her trance.
As she turned around, she was met by one of her sister's doctors.
She nodded, not sure if she should say anything, or if she could
even find her voice if she did have something to say. That morning,
she'd gotten an urgent phone call from the hospital saying that her sister, Lindsay,
was there. Before they had even let her see her, the doctors
had pulled her off to the side and insisted that they talked to her about
what might have happened. Phrases like self inflicted an assault had been thrown around,
and Nicole felt her mind real she still hadn't fully understood what they'd been
saying until she saw Lindsay with her own eyes. The girl makes so many
bad decisions that even her family's like, yeah, she just did this to
herself for attention. Her little sister had a bandage wrapped around her head,
covering both of her ears as well as her eyes. They said it was
to keep her now deadened eyes from drying out and to try to keep infection
out of the wounds Lindsey had made to her ears. The doctors had guessed
that either she or someone else had jammed a pencil into them to keep her
off balance or to deafen herself against something. There was the mix of first
and second degree burns on her hands, legs, and feet from what was
assumed to be the coffee her neighbor's found spilled all over the entry way to
her apartment. As Nicole walked into her sister's hospital room the first time,
she thought she'd spied the silhouette of a man in the window that she knew
was impossible. Her sister's room was on the third story of the hospital.
Bum bum bum yeah, floating, Well, that raises a lot of questions,
mostly who the fuck wants a cup of coffee in the middle of the
night. I can't get past that. Mmmmmm ah. I mean, like,
I mean, granted, I don't drink coffee, but I enjoy tea.
I drink a lot of tea when and when I wake up, when
anyone wakes up in the middle of the night, who wants like a hot
beverage? No one ever ever babies. That's not even a hot beverage.
I don't know. Have you seen that? Mom? Whoa? Yeah,
all right, so that's that was on Creepy Pasta. That's one of many
stories actually, but this that was inspired by these photographs. Yeah, and
subsequently some other stories origin stories in mishmash and art, YadA YadA. So
let me ask you this um not at all leading question, Flora. Okay,
if the slender Man has such a definitive beginning and it is takes no
pains to hide this out, the fact that it's these are fictionalized and people
are doing this just for sea giggles, then I mean, how on earth
is it are people taking this seriously? I mean, wouldn't there have to
be some larger historical context than which this can be viewed, which clearly is
not the case. Well, I'm glad you asked spiels. We're like the
worst kind of shills. We can never sell electronics to, like at a
street fair. Wow, that's an excellent question, sir. I don't know
about this, but I'll try it in front of all these people just to
see. Well. I gotta tell you, I'm skeptical, but I really
would like to make omelets in a jiffy. There have been origins that have
predated, or have been said to have predated this uh creation on something awful.
Yeah, we'll go through. We'll go through a few of them and
see if we can tie some string on on the corkboard. Yeah. Now,
because here's now we're left in of fun and interesting crossroads. I mean,
you've got, on one hand, guy makes something up and and good
on him. He came up with a scary concept that resonates with people that
people are kind of kind of enjoy being scared by. Or on the other
hand, this guy kind of accidentally happened back into a pre existing, very
real entity that is actually bucking with people's ship and has been for hundreds of
years now. This guy Knudson, he attributed Nudsen, or he attributed the
creation of Slenderman to influences such as HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, short stories,
games, video games like Silent Hill, Yep, Shadow People, Yeah,
and the old Moffman. Oh, Jay Moffman, the third yep from
Maryland. You know, I'm sorry. No, Nope, that was mister
Goatman, the Goatman, mister goats from from Maryland. It's a my Mothman
is a he's from West Virginia. You don't hear that. To Woten,
We're done, that's moving on. So those are the influences that he said
helped him create this old, this story, this figure. But throughout history
people have have drawn some parallels between this creation of the slender Man and some
other entities that are prevalent in folklore, ye, in mythology, or could
even be maybe the same dude, Oh what well in eternal Boghman through the
ages. Yeah, eternal snogan. Let it's just another boog human. Um
I I just it. Doing that voice is like to me, it's like
snuggling into a blanket. It just feels good to do it. Every everything
is among these days. I know, you can't get away from Batman and
Spiderman. Here's here's a popular one. You're gonna hear of this this character.
Actually, this this piece of art ye wood cutting called it's the written
This is like Jack Ritter. Yes, it's like company. I'm done.
That's it, okay Ritter. Yeah, it's German, which means the night.
Now. Now for the record, though, just to make sure like
that we're all clear, it's uh Richter is like the night k n I
g h T. Right, It's not that I supposed because if it was
the other one, it would be knocked. So it's it's not like is
in the opposite of day. Correct, It's good good to point that out.
This is an idea that's kind of gotten smeared all over the internet.
Yeah, and the story goes a guy named Hans Freckburg in the sixteenth century
did a woodcut of data the night being impaled by the lance like arm of
a skeletal, faceless, multi limbed figure, and also did a woodcut of
a child being dragged from its home by the same very tall, skeletal figure.
The problem is there was no Hans Frekenberg. What and the woodcuts which
are pasted all over these O Slendiman sites were digitally manipulated images of Hans hobiin
the Younger's woodcuts. The actual artist named Hans hobiin who you may recognize from
the portrait of Henry the Eighth. Oh that Hans Hobi. Yeah, that's
the dude. Whoa, that's the one. He was the actual creator of
these woodcuts, and they're from a series called Dance of Death. He did
the forty one of them, I think, and if you flip them all
together, it's a guy tap dancing on a grave. But the one of
the night and the one of the child, it's it's it's ridiculous. The
one of the child in particular. Look, there is no tall skeletal figure
dragging this kid out. It's actually a smaller size skeletal figure leading the child
out. It's completely different from from the woodcut week the night one. Uh,
it is not multi limbed. It is actually looks like a skeletal figure
holding a lance that is that is piercing a night because the night is combating
death. I get it. His series was basically just to say, everybody
dies. It doesn't matter who you are, what you are, You're you're
gonna die. Scorpio, You're gonna die. But in the fifteen hundreds,
I mean, is that something that anyone who to be reminded of. I
mean, like with the Black Death. Yeah, old men were like thirty
six years old. Yeah. Yeah, So this that's one thing that has
gotten spread around as like evidence that the Slenderman has been with us throughout the
ages. That is fall Snoop and you know what and I you know,
in my research, actually I didn't find that out. I didn't see you.
I just learned that. But even before that, it just something about
that, It just it just felt to me like after the fact research,
like like pre presupposed conclusion research, like well, this is what we've got,
So now we have to go and look for things that look like that
so we can say it's always been here. Yeah yeah, I can see
that. And then again, what else what else can we do? Right?
And I mean, and the idea of death is as a tall,
gaunt specter or shade has always been And I think that's one of the reasons
why the slender Man like gains traction. You know, it's it's it's a
slightly interesting little twist on an archetype. Yeah, on an archetype. Whoa
dude, You're you're throwing a live preserver to Captain Carl here. Oh yeah,
you are dragging him into this one. He's not pouring in it at
all. You're bringing him in no, like, oh is this door open?
Well, let's just go on here. I am allowed to have opinions
without Carl sticking as young in this whole the Captain Carl. We get along
the same lines, though, we get this something called the Brandenburg wood cut,
supposedly a sixteenth century would cut by an unknown artist what I don't know
who did it. So if you look at this thing, it's it's a
nice little woodsy path that's in perspective going back to a point on the horizon
with trees on the side, and then a dude in a suit with wavy
arms alongside one of the trees. It looks fake as hall to put it
in a nutshell, so it looks like a bunch of New age bullshit.
You know. I tried to look for the actual woodcut that, you know,
maybe somebody had just stuck this figure in just like old Hans Holbein,
but I wasn't able to find anything on this. Now, maybe I didn't
dig deep enough, But for this one, I'm just gonna throw the old
bullshit flag right now, and they can challenge my ruling on the field if
they want. But yeah, this is like a this is like a high
school project. This isn't a woodcut. That's like an ink trans block,
you know, linoleum blocks. Oh yeah, yeah, that's what this looks
like. I got one. I'm very proud of it. Ain't I did
it from a magic card. Oh seeing, that's cool anyway, Uh stupid,
it's dumb, I don't. I don't think they can they can use
that. So that's another one. That's there's another one that apparently some people
use as as proof that this guy's been around. You're gonna like this one.
It's a Hans Balding painting. I don't know why they're all Hans,
but it's called the Three Ages of Woman and Death and it shows a woman
and well, it shows three different women in different ages of life and then
a very gaunt, ghastly figure which I guess represents death. And the story
goes they had to x ray it for for some reason or another one Oh
yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and the x ray show that the figure
of death had extra limbs that had been painted over. Well, if you,
uh, I don't know. Look at it. You can see that
the limbs have been copied and pasted and inverted. Yeah, and and just
placed in different parts of the arm. Basically, yeah, they just rotate.
I mean, that's that's like the weakest of photoshoppery. Yeah. All
you have to do is look at the damn thing to know that that one't
is bums anyway. Those are your renaissance uh fakes. Now, there is
something that is that is brought up here and there of an old German supposed
old German tale of a being called del Grossman basically means the Great Man,
and the stories go it's a German boogeyman or fairy of the black forest,
and they described it as a tall humanoid that took away bad children who entered
the forest at night and also made misbehaviors disappear, and possibly also goes after
bad people, not just children, and it impales them on tree limbs where
they's so German, that's the most German I believe that one. Yeah.
Now I don't know if this I didn't find whether or not this one is
actually a real figure from German fairy tales or folklore. The jury for that
one is still out because it does sound like something that could be an actual
figure. But there were also a posts and and things that I read on
the Internet saying, you know, I'm German, I've never heard of this.
Yeah, oh man, I fell for it. I fell for it
because when you say, hey, there's an old folk tale about children getting
impaled, I was like, yeah that, yes, I don't need to
check that. That sounds that sounds right, but yeah, I mean it
could be there. There could be out there. So if if you're German
and you know of Derk, oh my god, I'm murdering this, yeah
Rosman, then tell us, tell us if if you've heard of this,
or if if this is just made up, both come on Germans, rally
Germans to me. Let this be off. Find us out there. There
is another wood cutting of Deck Rossman that is kind of like a weird,
lanky, faceless figure. Again, it was even there's even less of it
out there than the stupid high school project one. Yeah, but I don't
know if that one's true or not. But let's get out of Germany and
uh, let's go to the old United Kingdom. Oh my god, in
my mind was like, please say England, please say England. How about
how about some Celtic Italians here? Good, I've got another Goodland tie in
too, So bring bring us your celts and I'll bring you mine. We've
got a figure called the fair Dove, which translates as the black man and
black as in dark disposition. Oh. He haunts footpaths at night, mostly
in forests. He is entirely malevolent. The description of his appearance given is
mostly like a burnt corpse with like the face burnt off, no no features
or anything. But this is a this is another boogeyman. This is this
something that's you know, teaching children to behave or the fair Dove is gonna
get you. Also, um, I think it's another term for the devil.
Oh, okay, all right. In a way, our Scottish and
Irish listeners out there, if you know about the fair Dove, please for
one thing, tell me if I'm saying dof right, Yeah, I like
it. I would have said fear dub, so you're better than me.
It spells fear dub. Yeah, that's that's what I have of music nowadays.
Oh doesn't count. Yeah, that one's interesting. Now what what you
said? You had one? Right? Yeah? And I hate to harp
on this, but um, I have another another villain of the Doctor Who.
Oh um, in addition to the obviously what we talked about with the
Weeping Angels, but also the Silence creepy um. And if you don't watch
Doctor Who, you're still a good person to worry about it. Um.
But there's a lot of people who don't care, who aren't that magnanimous about
it, so I have to get that out there. Sure. Um,
there's another really interesting villain, a creature called the Silence. And they were
they were very tall, very thin. They wore they wore suits, black
suits, white shirt, black tie, no mouths or very i'm sorry,
very small mouths. They're they're like skins stretched over a mouth. Yeah.
They're very gray, like very deep set, large sockets, but tiny little
eyes and a nose and very very spooky looking. But their their trick was
that you couldn't remember them. Yeah, So you see them, yeah,
and then the minute you glance away, you have no idea that you just
saw. So that's but but I mean, they don't have any any of
the actual characteristics of of the slender Man. But but the physical appearance is
very, very slender Man to the point where I would be shocked if that
wasn't where they were going with it. Sure, sure, because in the
Coming from Yeah, in the in the TV show, these people had been
around for hundreds and hundreds of years. They'd always been kind of guiding and
shaping mankind for their own dark whatevers um. But just as far as things
that are inspired by this idea, it's too close to my mind to be
a coincidence. Slenderman is usually really passive aggressive. Yeah, he's like yeah,
he's like, oh, is that what you're gonna wear? Actually,
I jumping ahead a little bit. That's his sassy brother Trenderman. Oh it's
not a pun. It is a pun, but it's not my pun.
It's an actual thing that people have come up with because somebody took a picture
of a mannequin wearing gap or something and they're like, oh, look it's
not Slenderman, it's Trenderman. And so he's like the sassy brother, like
passive aggressively tells you want not to wear Wow, I'm glad that you told
me about that, so that I didn't accidentally repurpose that pun. Yeah,
I wouldn't have come up with it anyway. Welsh mythology has something called the
faceless one. Yeah, I mean that sounds pretty good. That a poem.
Yeah, you get yourself some free poetry with that one. Le'll tear
it floor. And I'm gonna need to hear this with some accent. I
I'm just saying I'm gonna need to. Sorry, I don't. I don't
know a Welsh accent very well. It's like between English and Irish. I
don't know that I can do it. I mean, I just get our
our listeners pissed off at me. I don't. I didn't ask for a
good one. Let me throw some Australian and I don't care. Make it
South Africans fine, by the way, if anyone cares. South African is
the hardest because it sounds like every accent it sounds like a bad English accent.
Yeah, and that's hard to do. Actually, for us, it's
very easy to do a bad English accent. I think you're but to deliberate.
It's like it's like deliberately singing off key. It actually requires more focus
than you'd think. Except for us, we just do it. And now
reading from the Book of Welsh Folklore with your host David Florida. This is
TJ. This, Oh TJ. All right, I'll just throw a bunch
together. Yeah, go for it. Hush, thy child, do not
stray far from the path. The Faceless One shall steal you away to fairyland.
He prays on sinful and defiant souls and looks within the woods. He
has hands of ebony branches, and it touches soft to sink. Fear the
Faceless One, thy child, for he shall take you to a dark place.
And what shall I become of thou? No? No, so be
good, thy little one. Alas he's here to take thou away. Not
in those shoes, sister, Just kidding, tender man. If we're gonna
go out, you're gonna need a better frock than that. Oh my god,
is that a petticount me? Yow? Yeah, Trenderman's here to stay.
Yeah, well, welcome uboard trender Man. So anyways, that's good.
I like that. That's they make They mix up there, these and
nows. Well, it's right. Is this is this a fake poem?
Is it real? I don't even know. Well, whatever it was,
the faceless One. He sounds like a real bag of dicks, real bag
of dicks. And then then the old classic one. We've mentioned this before,
the nopara bo Yeah from Japan. Yeah that sounds familiar, right,
Yeah, it's it's just a faceless yoki that just delights and terrorizing victims.
Now that one doesn't spirit you away to to who knows where? To me
is Zaki Town to Slundermanville, Slendimonville, give it up Sandvale. But but
yeah, the faceless thing is a common trait in in things. If if
you want to make somebody shit a brick, then tell him that this thing
has no face. It's a spooky thing, just like uh, I think
it's the denial of information. But we we we get so much from someone's
face. I mean like first of all, hot or not natch question one?
Then moving on from their emotional information like when when the when the face
is blank, you don't you you you you can't. The way we're yeah,
we're The way we're programmed to get nonverbal information from something is through the
face and when you have you know, and through body language. When you
don't have that information, you don't have any of that. It's it is,
it's unnerving. It instantly puts you off balance and that's that's the slender
Man to a t. It's he's clearly coming for you. You have no
idea why he's not expressing anything, there's no you don't you don't see those
even there's there's no one information. You don't see the movements from which you
can determine, um anger or is he passive as he cared? Is he
not? He's just this interactibly closing in on you. Um. And I
think that's that's a very very unnerving. Yeah. And that's another thing about
him too, like if you see him, you're gonna get got Yep,
he gonna get you. He's gonna get you, come hell or high water.
There's no way to get away from him. And uh, that's that's
another thing that that makes him so you know, creepy as a as a
figure, I mean mostly in these in these myths throughout cultures in history.
He's very much a boogeyman for kids. Yeah, like don't don't screw up
or or this slenderman like thing is going to come get you. And that's
that's again going back to now, I believe that this dude who posted who
created this guy back in oh nine, I believe that he probably created him,
you know, from his own SubCom or whatever. But did he do
so with these things in the back of his head? Is it an archetype
like you were saying earlier. Is it some conglomeration of of you know,
just scary things that he didn't he had encountered, or was there an actual
like oh you know this, this German tale really sings to me. Yeah,
let me kind of embellish it a little bit and make it more modern.
I think that it's I mean when he when you look at those those
original photos, I think he plays with some really and that's how that's how
you know, it's that's why it survived. That's why we're talking about it.
Like there's that very perfectly normal photograph and then it's not as it's not
as alarming to a person if it was an alligator in the middle of the
photograph, like, oh crap, there's no you know, something very obvious.
It's that thing that your eye passes over and then when you look back
at it, you're shocked again because you missed it. Yeah, you missed
it. And then when you when you really look, you're like, oh
my god, oh my god. Yeah, and you' and that allows you
to empathize with the um this fictionalized person taking the photo, who just took
the photo and they missed it, and they didn't see it till later.
There was a thing on the news today about a um this woman who had
taken her family to the beach on vacation, and when she was looking back
through her photos, it's a picture of her kids playing in the ocean and
there's a big wave swelling up and you can clearly see that there's a shark
in the water. It's because the wave elevated it, so the sun shining
through the water, and she didn't see it at the time, you know,
but it's that kind of like yeah, like you, oh, I
missed it, and then and and so it's it's it's a well done photograph.
Let that he that he photoshopped because it has that it's not so outlandish
that you consider it ridiculous, but it's it's it's not normal enough to dismiss
it's right in that that perfect goldilocks psychological exactly right. And so you're like,
and that makes it super creepy. Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of
hard to go through and say, you know, well, what what could
this thing be since it was made up? Right? If you though,
go go along the path of this is an archetype, this thing, this
type of thing has been around cultures throughout the ages, then you could explain
it as demonic or even I mean, if you wanted to go around along
the Gin path. They the good thing about Gin is that they fit in
everything. It's the chicken of the paranormal. Everything tastes like Gin. It's
true. You could, I mean you could if you were so inclined to
say that the slender Man is the basis for the Grim Reaper. Mm.
I mean, I don't know, Like, whenever you're afraid and you imagine,
like there's always this thing about, like a big, tall, unknown
stranger. You know, even even in fiction, you know, there's there's
a hundred different versions of this, this sort of thing. Um. The
only reason I particularly mention the Doctor Who because I think that I think that
those are directly derivative of Sure, this this urban piece of folklore that's cropped
up, which is cool. It's cool to see folklore crop up. Yeah.
Yeah, Also with the Grim Reaper in mind, another thing you can't
escape from. You know, you can run and run all you want from
it, but you're it'll eventually catch up with Yeah, there's no antidote section
to this podcast, which I'm so sorry, mister Flora. I know how
much that it means to you. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't found anything
another explanation. It's a transdimensional being. You don't see him walking because he's
not moving through three dimensional space. Yeah, and he phases in and out
of dimensions. Now doesn't necessarily have to be a higher dimension, because who's
to judge what dimensions are in a hierarchy for It's a nice little way for
us, who have no control over it, to try and put it in
a box. But no, Nerp, I think I think he's just a
good cultural boogeyman. I think that he just he just scratches that itch in
the back of your heads, right in the old young hole. There's they've
also thrown out the theory of that he's a quantum wave form. This one,
this one you'll like. Um, I'd like to put forth a theory
using words that you are very disinclined to follow up on or read about,
or have any basic knowledge right now, therefore making myself down extremely intelligent.
I'm gonna go with quantum wave form alex. This is going along the old
Schrodinger's cat idea where he doesn't exist until he's observed. It's hard to boil
down and explain or easily right, well, which is again the strength of
that argument. But let me let me fix that for you, okay,
Um, and I realize I realized that the cat was dead in my scenario.
I guess I realized this is like I'm about to actually try to apply
some genuine science to a bullsh question. So God help us all. May
God have mercy we're having shut up. The difference being that it's twenty fourteen.
Y'all, ain't no law left. Do your toots. No. The
thing with Schrodinger's cat is about um that you that a particle. He used
it as an example. It's not. It's not a large organism. It's
a They've done actual experiments with electrons. It does not choose a position until
it is observed, and um, which is a hell of a creepy thing.
It's it's a cool piece of science. It does not apply to entire
organisms or an entire entire entity. And also, once observed, it is
locked into that state. It does not go back into uh in visit town
um. And and also the phrase quantum wave form cannot possibly be applied unless
you have no idea what the phrase quantum wave form means, like it doesn't
that just the other good thing with that argument that they it's a cellular membrane
is the head. That's a dick phrase that dicks use to sound like they're
not dicks. But guess what it backfires You sound like a double dick.
Well, they they use the the excuse, how do we know what what
a waveform would look like? Or could or or or might? I mean,
because it's it's it's well I could, I can make the satical physics.
I can make the same article for a flippity jibsets. Yeah, it's
a flippity jibsets. Yeah, that's and when you three two d's and a
z when you observe it, it has technicals and it's back right, those
are the jibsts and that that's that is particularly irritating to me, just on
the basis of this. I want to sound like I have a definitive explanation
and I'm very smart, but then when you pin me in the corner,
I'll say, no, I'm these are Who's to say what that is?
That's that's just a horseship. Anyone who said that I will stay ab with
a pencil okay, not not not lethally, just like clean through and through
maybe in the leg, the forearm or something like that, threats of physical
violence. In twenty fourteen, I'm making an enemy's list. The last one
I have here, This this one is a fun one. A tulpa.
Oh man, We've we've had that come up before as an explanation. That's
once again the belief that a person can physicalize through intense focus and concentration,
they can actually materialize a being may of their own thoughts, yes, and
that being can then run a muck if they are not strong enough to continually
maintain control over that beam. Right, and with this thing going viral as
it did, and all these minds thinking of the same entity that could could
could feed until the old tulpa pot until you've got a nice crispy all right,
let me let me boast it. Let me propose this counter argument.
How many people on the planet do you think are aware of the Slenderman?
Out of the seven billion, are we up to seven billion? Yes?
How many people do you think are aware of the Slenderman? Twenty nine million?
No, twenty people, I know it. Not enough. Not not
enough, because we don't have Jesus walking on the street. Yeah, exactly,
that's my point. We would um And actually I was gonna a sadly
more pragmatic approach to this is that we would have Jesus's walking everywhere, not
without Kanye West help dragons. Jesus walks. Uh, we would have dragons.
But right now we would be neck deep in iron Men. It is
like the most popular thing on the planet. Everyone loves iron Man. There
would be iron Man everywhere. Yeah, good morning with Ironman. Helm.
So I am I don't. I don't see the little tool for working out.
Not not in that sense. Yeah, unless unless we're taking a page
at his easy Toss book and it turns out that every girl is in fact
crazy about a sharp dress man. Oh nice, right, I like it.
And since not all women can agree on who's hot and who's not,
it's right. Just keep the suit, leave the rest real lucy face blank.
That's right. You can draw your own on by o by of that's
right, so to choose your vowne adventure. But for a gentleman caller.
Oh okay, well that's here. Here's something note that we haven't mentioned.
There's a YouTube channel that that helped to spike this thing into viral heaven oh
man called Marble Hornets. Yeah, and this is a this is a film
student's YouTube channel created as a found footage type story. It's sort of a
sort of a blair which yeah, that's what I was asking. It's a
play which esque u type thing. And they release videos on this channel that
have this whole story of this this filmmaker student that was was filming this movie
and and then it got too much for it slenderized and and and you see
this this figure of Slenderman in there here and there but a ring slender as
slenderment. Uh. I can't stop. I love it. If you went
through and watched all the videos, the videos range in length from a minute
to you know, six minutes or more or less. Uh, Marble Hornets,
that's you. You can go and check it out. It's if you've
got a lot of time to kill, then then didn't look at some of
them, but and I do. If you don't, then don't worry about
it. Apparently popular enough that they they are making a movie with these guys
about it now. So yeah, so you don't good on him. He
did a thing and it it worked. Sure, but you know they're I
mean, of the panoply of slender Man videos out there, these are some
of the better ones. Oh yeah, uh, this one's actually got the
whole story. Now there's this thing called an alternate reality game or an a
arg Yeah, is that like that? What was there? Wasn't there one
about like vampires and werewolves, Like when I was in high school, there's
a bunch of goths running a muck. Are you talking about Masquerade? Yeah?
No, that was actually that. That one's a pin and paper game.
There's one where like people had to like run a muck, like they
couldn't do it in a basement. I don't know, I like LARPing,
sort it was like it was a gray area between role playing and LARPing.
But I think maybe it was. I think I thought it was that Masquade
one. But remember like, oh maybe they did the role I remember goths
like in high school and college, they had like pins that would like designate
their their coven or their their wolf pack, whether they were Edward or Jacob.
This is this predates that this is? Or does that predate this?
Oh? To go forward, you must go back? Oh god, alright,
so augmented reality is this? You gotta have Google glass for this.
Oh god, I don't know anything about it. Actually, I tried to
learn here, we became old manus. True, it is so true.
I don't understand this gay across the mercader. There's something about this, this
slenderman reality that people are living in. I guess that that slenderman lives in
it with him. Jesus, you drove the truck to an empty parking lot.
You have nothing. You're like, there's a thing, my phone's dead,
couldn't recall for help. I don't know. Look, if you're interested
in it, look it up. That's a real big time waster. And
we mentioned uh, we mentioned trenderman who who is now a friend of ours.
That's right, So that for you is uh is the slender man in
a very thin, tentacled now it's not here nutshell quantum wave form one nutshell?
Yeah, yeah, it's Oh well, I mean the only thing that
that lurks better than a slender man is boons. Oh I just looked away
in there there here Yeah, that's right. I thought about drawing that out
further and I don't don't want to smart. Just get to it. Yeah,
let's see whose turn is it? Um? Wrong, it's mine.
Oh, we got a we got a new sponsor here for the podcast.
Who is it? It's a Celtic company for a gentleman whose hair is prematurely
graying. And it's just something that I have an issue with. I could
use this product. I'm glad that they're working with this. It's it promises
to uh to just dark in your hair and so you could you can finally
be that that dark, that tall, dark and handsome man. It's called
hair Doube hair Dope for men. It's right, hair dope for men.
The fair Dove for men. Hair fair fair fair hair. Nice. Yeah,
I like it. I've got a store. Actually, that's uh.
It's all about keeping your black suit pants up. Uh huh. When you're
wearing your black suit, you need to you don't want to sagg in.
No, you can't look like a like a thug. Yeah, you you
gotta go to suspender Man. Oh yeah, he'll do it. He'll take
care of it. He'll take care of you know. Um, one of
the worst things that can happen is, uh, you come back to your
car, especially after this busy holiday shopping season, and people treat parking lots
like bumper cars. Now yeah, and uh and if you know, if
you if you have damage to your car, maybe you should go visit my
friend Fenderman. He'll take care of it for you. He's uh, you
know what. And all of his mechanics, they're well dressed. They don't
talk much, they just get to it. That's that's really nice. It's
a good place. I hear he has a lot of good guitars too.
Oh nice. I like that because um, because um um. There's a
company that they guitar um. It's called Fender. If you haven't heard of
it, take us home, Florida. I've got I've got a website where
you can go on there and read about hilarious court cases called something lawful.
Oh that was something lawful? What you just did? I don't know.
In baseball, if like like if the next batter can be so bad that
they take the previous batters like off base for it. But that's what you
just did. Double play? I guess, I guess, yeah, you
just got double played. Oh, man grounded six three. All the good
news is this is that that you don't have to listen to our crazy horse
shit anymore. Now it's time to listen to your crazy horse shit. Oh
how about that? Well, Hey, Flora is a giant red button that
says listener mail sound. Yeah, I do push it, okay right now?
Yeah, okay, dude, push it this one. Come on.
Oh okay, don't tease me. Push it. I keep missing it.
Here it is. You know, we got a lot of kids in that
sound. I don't want it to attract a slenderman. Oh gosh, how
do we know we're not acoustically chumming for a quantum wave form, which,
by the way, is the subtitle of this episode, acoustically chumming. Yeah,
but the quantum wave form. I'll kick this off. We got a
we got a nice letter from from a listener after listening to our our our
two part extravaganza flood myth Um noticed that we were we had to kind of
tap dance back and forth on the our particular religious views versus other people,
you know, like it's a it's a it becomes a religious debate. And
he is a math and science teacher and uh, and he pointed out that
it is, Uh, it is it's a difficult thing, that it becomes
overly politicized, that it's it's not necessary for science and religion to fight,
and it's it's a fairly localized issue, and that for for math and science
teachers, he described it as being a very um let me read this here.
Math and science teachers do not see themselves as carrying banners for one particular
viewpoint. Their job is to relay information. Okay, the information that they
have in the system that we have is that's just what they have. It's
not that they're trying to subvert a child's religious beliefs or anything. You know.
It and it becomes the way he described it, just it gets not
not blown out of proportion, but it becomes so much more divisive than it
needs to be. And so thank you very much for sending that answer.
That's our buddy, Eric and uh and you know, and devetailing off what
he said, I feel like and I even even during my my super churchy
days, I have this feeling that it's so much easier to be Christian when
you're persecuted, that it's it's easier when people are saying, oh, you're
wrong, and then you can say no, I'm not because this is what
I believe, and you can you can make strong stands and positions, And
it's it's easier to feel secure in your faith when you are when you are
under attacks. Yeah, um, it's very hard when everyone around you agrees
with you. Then you just have to settle into a day to day I
have to you know, I'm doing good things. I you know, it's
that's the hard work of being a person of faith. It's it's the day
to day things. It's it's the making sure that you're living up to that
standard when there's when there's no one watching, when there's no one And I
would think about that a lot that it would be you know that you you
wish that someone would walk up to you in the halls at high school and
say you're stupid for being a Christian, you know, because then you can
be like, no, I'm going to now exhibit my faith by by by
not being um combative about you know, like you can. It gives you
a platform, yeah, of sorts. And and I'm talking I mean not
about like true persecution. I'm not talking about people being rounded up and tortured
or anything like that, which has happened historically and happens today in parts of
the world. But you know, it's it's the same thing with that that
that war on Christmas that people mentioned. There's no fucking war on Christmas.
And if there was Christmas fucking one, yeah, it won. Everybody.
Everybody loves Christmas. There's no like hidden cabal whose job it is to de
Christianize Christmas. We get it. Even the people who don't, who don't
describe ascribe to Christian beliefs, still have Christmas and they still understand what it
is. Yeah, but there's this this kind of attempt to gin up a
backlash against yourself so that it makes you stronger, It makes you, gives
you that that ability to say, no, I'm persecuted, but I'm standing
strong for my faith. It's it's easier sometimes to throw a punch than it
is to stand still. Yeah, And I think that that's what a lot
of this um evolution versus creationism. I think some of that is just ginned
up so that people feel persecuted, so they feel like they're under attack,
you know, and there are and as we said in the previous podcast,
that there are those people who are just militant evolutionists and atheists who are just
dicks, dicks about it, just can't wait to run into the playground and
kick over all the sandcastles like and those people are no better. Um and
they and they too feel persecuted. They feel like like their rights are being
sublimated by you know, and it's it's it's largely false to give both people
a reason to be up in arms, a reason to demonstrate their faith,
whether that be in God or in a textbook. Right, well, that
leads us to this An email from Taper actually nice, hey Tabor, h
Tabor, and Taper says, going to push back on the creationist scientist smug
off. My experience is that atheist slash scientist attacks in quotes on creationism do
not, for the most part, target the well, that's just what I
believe people. This only became an issue starting in the seventies, he says,
with fundamentalist Christian political crusades to have creationism taught in public schools. This
creation science push, later morphing into intelligent design theory, was the whole impetus
for the modern science religion fight. Interesting insight on that, and it is
frustrating and weird how a lot of that impetus has come from the political world,
where it's in the constitution. It shouldn't even be a part of it.
Right, And here's the thing is that it's it is the same tactic
that is used by both sides. Right when you say we are under attack,
When Alex Jones says we are under attack, were consistently under attack by
the New World Order, you galvanize your group. Yeah, we are attack.
We have to hang together. I need to say everything that you say.
We need to be of one mind and one purpose, or otherwise all
is lost. You create this dramatic falseness that when you're trying to rally people,
it's the same exact thing that Hitler did. We are being attacked by
these mud races, by the Jews, by the Gypsies, by gay people,
like we are being attacked, and if we don't strike out now,
everything will be lost. And it is a tactic. It is a tactic
that has been used time and time again. Yeah, uh so cool,
thanks for writing in tape. Interesting uh and uh and we've got we've got
a few puns. Another another historical tactic used to subjugate the pun. Yeah,
oh man, we'll kicking this off. We got a great pun from
Josie. And my favorite part of this is the PostScript. Josie's pun ish
Alistair Boneley because he had sex with everything. I love this. This is
like, this is like a pun high coup because it because he had sex
with everything. Do you get it? And my favorite part is the the
brief PostScript that is possibly the only pun to leave my mind, as they
were all terrible, including that I'm so sorry. See it's so unnecessary to
apologize for a pun, but I since I always want to. I I
respect it. It is a genuine you have to. There's a part of
you that has to say I'm sorry, but that won't stop you from doing
it, and I respect you. Well played, Josie. Yeah, thanks
thanks for sending us that. Josie also writes in in the episode on the
Illuminati, Stecco refers to a large wrestling company as WWF Wrestling and says,
isn't it redundant to say the wrestling after the WWF as WWF as an acronym
for World Wrestling Federation. Therefore it's already it already has wrestling in its name.
I guess it's like saying ATM machine or pin number, but people do
it. Also, WWF had to change their name in two thousand and two
to WWE, which is World Wrestling Entertainment. Diamond Dallas Page, although he
was in the company when it was still called WWF, has since been in
the company after the name change, apparently super into wrestling. Oh well,
then you love us because we love wrestling too. We know, we know
that it's it's WWE. Trust us, we we weird, We definitely know
that. But to us, it's always w W. Yeah, I go
back to the old school. Yeah, I can say that because I don't
know that I've paid any attention since since the change over. I I'm a
Randy the macho man, savage guy living in the stone cold Steve Austin world.
Actually even he's probably long since done right, Yeah, yeah, I
double dated world. There we go, all right? Yeah, say they?
Yeah? And I'm an Undertaker fan. Oh nice, But I like
old classic Undertaker with Paul Bear and Paul Bear that's one of our heroes we
lost this year. But but doesn't the Undertaker still wrestle? I think frequently.
I mean he's getting old, dude, He's not getting old, He's
gotten old. He's old old, not chasing him old, tackled him and
pit him to the ground. Is going, why do you keep hitting yourself?
When do you keep hitting yourself? Old? Is slender Man? Well
yeah, so, well thanks for writing in. We we know. Don't
don't be too upset with us. We're just trying to keep the nostalgia alive.
Oh my god. And also puns and she likes wrestling. Gentlemen,
start your engines. Got a got a couple from Peyton. Bob, Oh
hi, Bob. I was supposed to write you an email, but then
I went to Colorado. Whoops a daisy on me. But you're gonna.
I'm gonna. I'm gonna write you because we're pen pals. So I haven't
forgotten, nor have I ignored. I am just poorly organized. Jesus can
I there's just just gonna be a part of every podcast where I make apologies
for all the ship I didn't do. Yeah wait, instead, just to
save time, can there just be a tone? We'll now be playing the
Dave Stecco apology tone boop rather head of your apology. Oh man, bring
it, Bob, Bob says, Iggorzill, truly a great tree, but
always talked about itself, never had anything nice to say about anybody else.
Whenever someone was talking, IgG Gerzill would interrupt. That's right. It was
a real pain in the ash. Oh, because it is the Nash tree.
Nice all right, Bob's gonna follow with this haymaker nice. Okay,
here we go. Uh So, the Bohemian Club started a basketball team that
would go around the country, playing second rate in local teams for charity's sake
and pompous bragging rights. They were the Bohemian Grove Trotters. It's getting great,
oh man, thanks Bob, Bob Dave, even though you've been lax
on your duty on of MS paint certificate. Man, we have set a
place at this table, this fancy fancy table. Well, I mean,
if we have a fancy table and the fancy gett I mean, I suppose
that makes this fancy feast of sorts. Got a pun from Gray Cat,
hag, Gray Cat, Hey, great cat like that that is not gonna
catch on, like trender man the apology tone. Great Cat says, are
you an out of control drunk who's tired of the social stigma that comes with
constantly wetting your pants in public. Yes, then get oops. I pitched
him brand adult diapers and we'll make that deluge a myth. That's fucking brilliant.
Holy crap, you know what. I quit? And now now it's
David Flora and Gray Cats podcast and that should catch us up from the old
break. Yeah. I hope you guys had magnificent crisp mosses. I hope
that they were. I hope that you focus on the birth of the Lord,
our God. I hope that you took every opportunity to praise him in
the highest and good on earth, goodwill towards men. Wow. I hope
you got and I hope you got drunk. It didn't fight with your family.
Uh. Welcome to twenty fourteen Yeah Glory photos dot Org. Go to
contact page, Write us, pun, write us a story, right,
a suggestion, whatever you want. Oh, if you don't get an inside
joke, right in and ask us, we'll tell you what it is.
Yeah, we get pretty inside sometimes because we're just so in love with ourselves.
And I apologize. We've got We've got sixty some odd episodes that we've
built on and it's all just like beginning to end. Yeah, you know
that we'll happily explain it and that we when we will not have like some
smug ass No, oh, you should have listened to episode twenty two.
We'll tell you what episode to listen to for it. But we're not gonna
be like, um, we're not gonna make it. Really you don't know,
shar Is. I will say this sort of a caveat to that.
It's not like our explaining it is going to make you suddenly laugh out loud.
We will probably at the end of it go uh, but you're used
to that because you've been listening. Go to iTunes, give us five stars,
give us a rating on there. Go to Facebook. You can like
us on their Blowy Photos podcast. There in YouTube, also Twitter, Twitter,
Blurry Underscore Photos, all this stuff. One important thing, one big
change for twenty fourteen. We're done. We'll stumble upon. We're done with
it. No thanks, we'll just pass. We'll leave the We'll leave that
chick lit up there, just for for the sake of of all the times
we've mentioned it. Some people will understand what that inside jokes about. Yeah,
but no thanks. Yeah, moving on, we don't want your we
don't. We don't want your up up digits, right do you? So?
So do you know why we ask you to do this stuff? Well,
I mean, not only does it make us look awesome and legit,
but helps me get dates. It actually bumps us up to the forefront of
stuff that that we appear on. So yeah, we have searches and and
iTunes searches and things like that. The more you rate us and make us
look legitimate than the more we get out there and can get this crap to
to people. Who gets right, there's more people that need to know this.
Yeah, there are more people that need to hear us sing oh man
and that get that's not done. We were not finished with that whatsoever.
Uh. For this episode of Blurry Photos, I have been fair Dave Flora,
Oh nice. I like that. I am Dave, not at all
slender Man Stecco probably in the podcast now, Hey, I'm sort of you
have and something yeah, don't eat by. Our final letter tonight comes from
a longtime listener also in upstate New York. I do hope that my advice
is of service to you. Hey, dare play blurry Forum. We've got
a question for you. See, I've been having this trouble here lately.
I can't help going out tonight when it's real dark. My people are still
miling about. I donned my cape, my fancy shoes, my skin tight
outfit, and me mental clawed gauntlets, and I just see a pretty girl.
No, I go up to her. I didn't say anything at all.
I just spit flames in her face and grabbing boobies and then I just
run. I just run away. Is there something wrong with me? Or
is this normal behavior for a noise gentleman of the night like myself. None
of these girls, they don't seem to want anything to do with me.
What am I doing wrong? Is it the flames in their faces? Or
is it the grabbing? If they're sweet, sweet dat tell them out what
I'm doing wrong? Sincerely, Squeezing and Schenectady. Okay, let's try to
tackle this one. To begin, it sounds like what you're describing is a
salt, which is illegal, and I know that that can't be helping neither
you nor the girls. And what I'm hearing is a vulnerable man. I'm
hearing a man who wants to reach out in your case, and unfortunately literally
but you flee before any connection can be made emotionally or legally. So what
I would ask you to do is to slowly strip away these behaviors and strip
away these barriers you've put up between you and emotional honesty, until finally you're
left with just a skin tight suit of your skin. Doesn't that feel better?
Then, instead of reaching out and assaulting a woman, maybe you reach
out verbally with a hello, how do you do? And instead of fire,
breathe kindness in their face. And the best news of all is it's
completely legal to touch anyone emotionally. So next time, say hello, and
don't run away before someone can say hello back. And above all us,
please stop assaulting people in the night. Supert