"An urban legend requires an audience ignorant of the origin of the legend. It needs unverifiable third and forth [sic\ hand (or more) accounts to perpetuate the myth. On the Internet, anyone is privy to its origins as evidenced by the very public Somethingawful thread. But what is funny is that despite this, it still spread. Internet memes are finicky things and by making something at the right place and time it can swell into an ‘Internet Urban Legend’."
-Victor Surge on the "Slender Man" legend (52)
Intro:
Internet legends are the creepy stories you read about on the internet, that don't have origins in myths, fairy tales or literary works, but start somewhere amidst the other bits of informations swirling around on the world wide web. Whether they originate in online chatrooms and forums, or are found on websites like snopes.com or creepypasta.com, they all start on the internet. The purpose of these tales could be to frighten, to caution, or to make someone laugh, the only difference between them and cautionary or campfire tales being that they start online and aren't passed down orally generation after generation.
Slender Man:
"He lurks in the background of gritty black-and-white photos — a gaunt, too-tall figure with skeletal limbs. Some say he lives in the woods and eats children, a kind of demon descended from eastern European myth. Some say he stalks human prey indiscriminately, wherever he can find it: in basements, outside half-open windows, along lonely streets late at night when only occasional headlights cut across the road. Some say he has no face. Others, that his face looks different to everyone who sees it. But whatever they say, everyone generally agrees on one point: that Slender Man, perhaps the Internet’s best and scariest legend, is indeed a legend — an invented character who can be traced back, quite linearly, to an obscure forum where in 2009 users Photoshopped old pictures and improvised a back story for their creations." (52)
The Slender Man legend originated in an online forum when someone had the desire to photoshop the image of a shadowy figure into black-and-white photos in 2009 (52). The Slender Man myths claim the origins are in ancient Egypt, the Black Forests of Germany, and Brazilian cave paintings, even though they were the photoshopped creation of Victor Surge on the online forum Something Awful (52). Even though Slender Man is just a myth, it has brought about murders in the name of Slender Man in hopes of proving that he does in fact exist (52). There's the story of the two teen girls who sacrificed their friend by stabbing her 19 times, as well as the story of the farmer who shot his wife and never saw his daughter again, both believing they were committing the acts for Slender Man (52). This legend is "scaring today's teens silly," even though it is 100% fictitious (52). This story has become so embedded within the internet that after only two years, it was already challenging to pinpoint the origins of the legend (52).
The purpose behind the Slender Man legend, not the original Slender Man images, is to frighten and scare people. However, the reason it is so scary is because it touches on real elements within society that we are afraid of, like "helplessness, power differentials, and anonymous forces" (52). Slender Man is vague, fuzzy, and alterable, allowing it to fit into any time or situation and thus becoming a legend that seems as if it has always existed (52). It's obscurity in the specific details is what allows the story to adapt to each situation that demands it, morphing to fit the author's purpose. While the original purpose behind the photoshopped images was to create a sort of "modern ghost story," the purpose of the legend has evolved just as the legend itself has (53). Rhetorically speaking, the Slender Man legend is a symbol of human fear; fear of the unknown, fear of what we can't control, and fear of the creepy and terrifying. Since the Slender Man legend has been able to spread rapidly and thoroughly across the internet, almost everyone knows about the shadowy figure known as Slender Man (53). This helps continue the legend, and is why that chord of fear strikes our hearts when we think we've seen a shadowy figure over our shoulders, but when we turn there's no one there (53).
"Horror stories take on a specific significance and importance because they function metaphorically — the horror stories that are the best are often metaphors for other issues that affect our lives on both cultural and personal levels...[and\ Slender Man...is a metaphor for helplessness, power differentials, and anonymous forces."
-Shira Chess (52)
Jeff the Killer:
"Jeff the Killer" is an internet legend made popular by creepypasta.com, and has been the inspiration for a wide variety of "jump scare videos, memes, fan fiction, and a whole spin-off character in the form of Jane the Killer" (49). The story is based off a news report about a little boy named Jeff who claims that he saw "dark, ominous eyes" watching him from behind a curtain (50). The figure then stepped out from the curtain, and with a creepy grin on his face, said 'GO TO SLEEP' in a way only a mad man could (50). The next day, Jeff is at the bus stop when some neighborhood bullies take his brother's wallet, so Jeff attacks the three boys, breaking one's wrist, punching someone's nose, and knocking the other down with a punch to the gut (50). Jeff and his brother flee, causing the police to investigate what happened and ultimately resulting in his brother going to juvie even though Jeff attacked the boys (50). Jeff's parents make him attend a little boy's birthday party in the neighborhood despite what's just happened, and at the party Jeff encounters the the boys from the bus stop (50). The boy with the broken wrist, Randy, attacks Jeff, punching and kicking him until he coughs up blood, throwing him through a glass door and smashing a bottle of vodka on his head (50). The boys then chase Jeff around the house with a lighter, causing him to catch on fire due to the alcohol (50). When Jeff wakes up in the hospital, he starts acting crazy and his face has been altered due to the fact that there was bleach as well as alcohol on him when he burned (50). When he got home, Jeff took "a knife and carved a smile into his cheeks" so that he could aways be smiling, and "burned out the eyelids so [he] could forever see [him]self" (50). The end result was a psychotic Jeff who plunged a knife right into his brother's heart, telling him to 'GO TO SLEEP,' just as the guy from his dream did at the beginning of the story (50).
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The internet legend of Jeff the Killer originated in a single image that was heavily edited and had the phrase "GO TO SLEEP" written in blood red letters (49). The image was sent out over multiple message boards with the intent to terrify people, which it clearly does (49). Some rhetorical aspects of the image are it's purpose, as well as the irony behind the purpose. This legend is possibly "the most famous internet urban legend based on just a single image," and there is a reason for that (49). Since the obvious purpose of the photo is to frighten those who unsuspectingly open the webpage, it achieves that purpose through the inhuman aspects such as the drawn-out smile, the ghost white face, and the black-ringed eyes. The image literally cannot be looked at for extended periods of time without making the viewer cringe and scroll down, and that is due to the rhetoric of the image. For example, the arrangement of the photo has a significant impact on its ability to achieve its purpose (51). The scale and location of the image are two key parts of arrangement (51). The scale of the image has the face taking up the majority of the space, with enlarged eyes and mouth to draw the audience to those two points of the face. The location of the eyes are important because they are right in the middle of the photo, directly in the audience's line of sight, and as our eyes travel down the page we reach the overbearing grin plastered on Jeff's face. The tone of the image is also very creepy and potentially nightmare-inducing, which is ironic considering Jeff's catchphrase is "GO TO SLEEP" (49).
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Conclusion:
Internet legends only differ from other types of legends in the respect that they originated online; the overall purpose of the legend still has the intent to scare or warn its audience just as a cautionary tale or campfire legend would. There are so many legends out there that originated on the internet, but the two examples above were chosen because they are still prevalent years after they originated. This is due to the rhetoric behind their stories. Rhetoric plays a purpose in the telling and retelling of both legends, whether it's the arrangement of the "Jeff the Killer" images or the omnipresent and eerie tone of the Slender Man legend (51).
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