Knowledge

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Slender Man is that it seems it only appears after knowledge of it is obtained, at least with cases where those who were not stalked as children are involved. Modern incidents have apparently skyrocketed with the recording, in video or writing, of interactions and subsequent posting on the internet. One would be hard pressed to find much mention prior to the information age. Otherwise, it was simply relegated to tall tales or stories to scare children, nothing anyone ever believed in.

However, the pattern is undeniable. A person finds out about it from someone else, or on the internet. Then they are stalked. This has happened as described in the logs Just Another Fool, Everyman HYBRID, Marble Hornets, Tribe Twelve, and countless others. One rarely sees the creature without having heard of it first.

This is something I cannot properly quantify, except as coincidence or that a Slender Man follows a target, finishes or abandons it, and then finds someone with connections to that person. Simple enough, one might think. Or it would have been some decades ago. The internet has complicated this. Some are stalked with no connection to other targets but photons from a computer screen.  This is most baffling. Again, simple coincidence could explain it neatly. Or even a larger-than-expected Slender Man population. But I simply do not think that is the most precise or reasonable explanation. I could joke that the species is tech savvy, but that is patently ludicrous.

I have to admit I am beginning to hit a road block. But I intend to overcome it.           

In fact, there is a very simple possible explanation (with more than enough precedent, I might add) that I will mention here as closing: sometimes people do not know they have had connections with a Slender Man.