Slenderman, Creepypasta, and Our Stories of Horror

When I was a boy, I loved horror stories.  They were fascinating and terrifying, and I'd lose myself in the reading of them.  Stories of primal ooze and ancient evil, of death and terror in the darkness, of blood and fang and strangled cries?

Oh yeah.  Those books came home by the dozen from my local library, and cost me countless hours of sleep.

There were the hours spent reading furtively at the foot of my bed, as my eyes picked out the tales of terror from the darkness.  Then there were the hours trying to go to sleep, as every creak and susurration of the world around me was interpreted as imminent doom.

Was it the slime that rose from the deep that gurgled under the floorboards?  Was it the horror of something that should have long ago been claimed by death that creaked beneath my bed?  Whichever way, I'd lie there, very awake, very aware of my eight-year-old mortal frailty.

My sons take after their dad, and so they'd read scary stories.  In this new era of instant media, they'd increasingly watch them and read them online.  Which is why the ghost-tales of horror from the site Creepypasta were well known to me, and why the character of Slenderman--a terrible figure who stalks and kills in the woods--was familiar.

These stories were little more than the same tales I'd hear as a boy, ones that took the form of quasi-reality.  "It's been said that..."  "Rumors have it that this might have happened..."  "...And there, stuck in the door of the car, was the hook."

It was nothing more than ghost stories, mixed in with the classical framework for the telling of such tales.  People play along, pretending it's more and more real.  As the story gets passed along, it gets embellished with more personal flourishes, until the boundaries between the real and the story are blurry.  That's the way of good storytelling--around a fire, as the listeners stare wide-eyed into the darkness--has always worked.

Which made this last week's peculiar story from Wisconsin so hard.  Two girls, obsessed with the ghost stories on Creepypasta and Slenderman, stabbing another girl 19 times in the woods.  It was brutal, savage, heartlessly monstrous.  And yet seeing the pictures of the arrest, it's clear: these are girls, not women, not even close.

Here are kids, at that peculiar, awkward, difficult transition between childhood and adulthood.  They've lost themselves in a dark story, abandoning credulity in a strange fever-dream of early adolescence.

Somewhere, something broke in one or both of those girls, and they lost themselves in a story of horror.  It became something they believed they inhabited.

As creatures of narrative, who spin our lives out as a story, that's something that impacts us all.  There are stories we tell so that we can laugh, and so that we can pretend.  Stories help us more deeply understand truth, forcing us beyond a mechanical literalism, demanding that we think, imagine, and grow.   That was my Teacher's method, after all.

But there are also other stories that become so woven into us, repeated over and over again, that we become them.

Our narratives of anger, of hatred, of bitterness and resentment?  Those shape and form us.  Our endless commercialized tales of empty sex and retributive violence?  Those become us.  The stories that rise from our faith that do not build us up in grace, but turn our eyes away from the reality we are helping to shape?  They are equally dangerous.

Stories are not product.  They have power.

It's a difficult truth, and one our culture struggles to grasp.

Dear Atheist Mom

The picture of your child stuck out at me, most likely because it was supposed to.  After a recent and somewhat painful debate between a popular elocutor for science and a Young Earth Creationist, some of the Creationists put up images of their unanswered questions, written with markers on pieces of paper.

One might think people for whom the written word is a fundamental absolute would get the difference between "your" and "you're," but maybe they're too focused on translating from the original Greek.  Sigh.

But snark I must not, because Lord knows I still regularly mangle "its" and "it's."

So, of course, it could not end there.  There was a 'net sign exchange, in which atheists pitched up their rebuttals and challenges, with counterquestions written in Sharpie on pieces of paper.

Of the atheistic responses, yours was the one that leapt out.  There was your daughter, smiling and bright eyed.  These were not her assertions, of course, but likely assertions posed by you, her atheist parent.  There was some subsequent net-kerfuffle about the use of a child as a public prop, but the way I figure it, you view religion as a fundamental threat to her integrity.  I'm guessing you're the mom, too, given the handwriting.  From your fierce mom-love and your anger at what you perceive as a threat to her, you want your beautiful kid out there, as the face of the debate.  I'll admit to having struggled with that, myself, especially when it came to including her image in this post.  I prefer to keep my children's faces off the net, particularly around contentious issues where net-trolls can and do say terrible things from the safety of their basement lairs.  But I will follow your choice, and respect her integrity as a person in this post.

She's great, of course, and looks like a charmer.  I will take your black-marker list as a very legitimate descriptor of your hopes for your great little kid.  Just looking at her, one can see that she is full of wonder, and smart, and full of potential, and beautiful, as all creation is.

What such a delightful little sentient creature deserves, though, is our best swing at an accurate representation of things...and I'm not quite sure atheism is serving her well on that front, because atheism as a movement is not interested in truth so much as it is in refuting faith in all of its forms.  It exists solely as a negation, after all, which means it has a problem with non-binary thinking.

That can be observed in the statements in red-ink.  "According to Religion," it begins, as if that's a single and univocal category.  According to Buddhism, are the subsequent statements true?  How about Hinduism?  What about the Bahai?  Or Unitarians?  Or Wiccans?  Is it true for Native American religious expression?  Do Jews believe this?  What about Muslims?   Or Sikhs?

None of the above, I'm afraid, if you understand how the concept of Sin plays out across human religious expression.  It is an accurate statement for a painfully significant subset of global Christianity, most likely the subset that is the dominant culture in the area where you live.   But even there, is this what some corners of American evangelical conservatism teach children about themselves?  In some cases, yes, and that's a pity.  As a Presbyterian Teaching Elder, I can tell you that it is not even close to how the old-line denominations teach our kids, not by a long shot.

But I've reviewed conservative Christian curricula for children in my role as a pastor, and even the ones that are too literal for my tastes tend to go this way:

"Jesus loves you."  "God loves you."  "Here are some wild ancient stories with cool characters!"  "Did we tell you you are loved?  Well, you are."

So is the red-marker-list accurate?  No.  And we owe our children our best shot at accurately representing the world.

Then there's the list in black-ink.  "According to Science," it says.  But is the list that follows according to science?  It is not.  It is the romantic view of science held by most atheists, one that I can understand myself.  Science is awesome and cool, a vital and essential human endeavor that opens our eyes to the ever-unfolding, incredible creation we inhabit.

But "Wonder," "Beauty," and "Greatness?" These are not scientific terms.

"According to science," one could just as easily describe that bright little child as a delivery system for replicating genetic material.  Or as a complex organic machine, interacting with the world through a sequence of biologically and culturally mediated patterns, both learned and hard-wired.  Her smile?  The reflex of a social animal.  The "love" felt for her by her biological parents?  A neurochemical response to visual cues that identify her as a vulnerable near-infant, part of an evolutionary pattern that insures the aforementioned continuance of particular genetic traits.

Her beauty?  She is beautiful the way that everything is beautiful, meaning she is remarkably complex.  From a purely scientific standpoint, her self-awareness is no more and no less beautiful than the amazingly intricate processes of digestion and excretion, or the processes of the human body as it decays following the cessation of life.

You're not going to tell her that, presumably.  You just tell her she is loved, and teach her to appreciate and marvel at the astounding reality around her, and tell her that she is great.  But in that, I would ask you to consider allowing her to engage with the real complexities that are part of faith and religious practice.  Where certain religious communities would bully and belittle and reduce her to nothing, don't allow them to do so.  It's a fight worth having, and I'm there with you.  But if you want her to grow up respecting your guidance, I'd encourage you to allow her to engage with the depth and subtlety of human existence.

Binary thinking does not do that.

Oh, and if you're actually Atheist Dad?  Oops.  Sorry for my assumption and generalization.  You have very neat, rounded, lovely handwriting!  Nothing to be ashamed of, and mea culpa.

Still and all, everything I said still applies.

The Rift Between Realities

It's been inevitable, as gaming has drifted further and further into realism, and our engagement with the 'net has grown more and more all-consuming.  At some point, the reality that exists beyond the edges of that screen might be utterly forgotten.

But now it's here, because the edges of the screen are disappearing.  That's happening courtesy of the Oculus Rift, a product that has many in the gaming world all a-flutter.  It's a headset, a pair of screens that you strap onto your noggin.  There are other products like this too, one from Sony, and another that ditches the whole screen thing entirely, and beams images directly onto your retinas.  Yes, it does.

But the Oculus is the most potent of them.  The unit allows you to not just see the gaming world you're inhabiting, but to look around as if you are immersed in it.  It renders the whole thing in 3D, and is sensitive to not just perspective...like a gimbaled camera on a fixed mount...but to slight shifts in attitude.   You can lean in closer to inspect something, or cock your head.

You are in that world, be that the open world of Skyrim, a map in Battlefield 4, or the cockpit of a starfighter in Eve:Valkyrie, the first game designed around the platform.

On the one hand, I want to experience this.  Like, dude.  Seriously.  Dude.

On the other, I'm a bit leery.  Leery because it already feels like the intrusion of virtual reality into our awareness is taking a toll on our capacity for meaningful relationship.  Leery because it feels like a wonderful way to keep us permanently distracted, lost forever in a world that is entirely our own fabrication.  Or, more significantly, the fabrication of others.

And yeah, sure, we did this plenty before.  That was the place of daydreams, and of good books.

But the idea that we can completely blot out everything around us?  That the world inhabited by our children, or our friends, the real place, should be so easily set aside?  Already, we wander around with  our screens, tuning out the world.

Taking it this step further seems more than a wee bit on the dangerous side.  And no, it's not because twenty years ago I wrote a kid's book in which an evil industrialist uses a functionally identical device to enslave others.  Although that doesn't help.

It's that when we allow our every perception to be fabricated, mediated and filtered, and we lose ourselves in the fantasies that are created for that purpose, it seems there's a real risk that we will wander off from creation entirely.

And those who want reality for themselves, who want us distracted and inattentive?  They'll happily oblige us.

As tech-friendly as I am, this seems worth watching with some caution.

Hawking: Reality is Dead

As I've continued to dig my way through The Grand Design, I'm finding it quite readable.  It's thoughtful, witty, and written in a breezy style.  Heck, they even have pictures.  And we love the pretty pictures.  Much of the science presented is familiar territory, as Hawking/Mlodinow talk about the history of scientific thought and cosmology.  It's good meaty stuff, laying out the evolution of physics from Aristotelian to Newtonian to Relativistic to...well...whatever M-Theory is about.

When the book gets to quantum physics, though, it surfaces several interestingly...cough...postmodern reality of the nature of the universe.  Pity that philosophy is dead, though.  Bummer about that.

One interesting observation of quantum physics is that there is no objectively observable reality to the foundational building blocks of the universe.  It's not that quarks and Z particles and the strange schtuff that forms our atoms aren't somehow there.  They simply can't be observed, not in the same way that we observe the larger structures of the universe.  Making a meaningful statement about the position and energy of a subatomic particle is impossible.  This has nothing to do with subjectivism or observer bias.  It's woven into the nature of existence.  To observe something requires that we interact with it, and if we interact with it, then we change it.   Our relationship with the universe by necessity changes the universe.

Where Hawking and Mlodinow take this is interesting.  The Grand Design explicitly rejects both the objectivism and realism of classical science as the most effective ways to describe the nature of our universe.   Yeah, you can make some predictions about the actions of the larger structures through simple observation.  But when push comes to shove, existence is considerably more intricate and complex than can be accounted for by observational or experimental science.  More arcane and esoteric arts are required to understand its true nature.

The faithful, who've know this for pretty much ever, might at this point raise our hands and say, well, yeah.  Welcome to the party.  What kept you?

On Demand

Last night, after the big guy got picked up for a sleepover at the home of an old friend, the remaining family settled in for a nice shabbas evening huddled around the soft glow of our 56" Samsung. On tap for the evening? Well, we didn't know. Something. Whatever we felt like. The PS3 was fired up, and we perused our way through the Netflix menu looking for something that would be just right for the night. After some back and forth, I proposed re-watching something I hadn't seen since I saw it at the old Ionic Cinema from the London of my youth. It was Dragonslayer, a surprisingly smart, hard-edged, and decently acted Disney flick from the early 1980s. Not for little kids, that one. Meaning, my ferocious barbarian of a 9 year old ate it up with a spoon.

From streaming HD from the PS3, my wife clicked over to our DVR, which is set to record...errr...America's Top Model. My mother-in-law arrived to watch the show, and I promptly recused myself to the study. I have tolerance for many things, but that particular show makes my brain bleed. I also worry that that level of media estrogen may result in significant and irreversible...well...what George on Seinfeld once called "shrinkage."

What struck me about last night was how utterly In Control we were. Our every need, desire, and whim for entertainment was met by the magic boxes in our home. Obscure 30 year old fantasy movie? Here it is, sir. The show you are usually too tired or busy to see? Recorded, and presented for your delectation at your leisure, Ma'am.

It's not what I experienced as a kid, but it forms the identity of this generation. They know no other way of being. Whatever you want, whenever you want it. Everything is on demand. Which is fun, particularly for control freaks like myself.

Unfortunately, it's not the way the universe works. Spring still comes when it wills. The tides still shift according to the pull of the moon, not our desires. Volcanoes still erupt under glaciers, and don't give a hoot about your travel plans.

Relationships are the same way. You cannot just serve up love on demand. Yeah, I know, you can buy it by the hour in Nevada, but honey, that ain't the same thing. You can't simply command another being to desire your presence, or even to agree with you. You can't make a community cohere, or stir the hearts of others simply because you want it. Though our media experience tells us otherwise, reality remains what it has always been.

If we've been trained to believe that we can have whatever we want, whenever we want it, we're just not ready to face it.

Ronald Reagan Was My Favorite Founding Father

The news out of the great state of Texas lately has been all about history. Or, rather, the version of history that the conservative Texas school board wants to present. After deep concern was raised with some of the perceived liberal spin on the curriculum, politicians in the Lone Star State have decided to mandate the teaching of certain elements of history in their textbooks.

Now, I'm not opposed to absolutely everything they're doing. I think rejecting a proposal to teach the importance of hip hop in the early 21st century was probably for the best. Yeah, I know, progressives are supposed to get all melty at the profound cultural ramifications of Lil' Wayne. Lord knows there are plenty of dissertations out there about the Sociopolitical Subtexts of "She's a Ryder." But ultimately, it seems as historically significant as the Lindy. Meaning, it's a footnote, or a little pull-out box.

But much of the rest of their proposals are just a Lil Crazy. There is, of course, the requisite Reagan hagiography, as American conservatism continues to celebrate the 20th centuries' least sentient president. There is also a new mandated defense of McCarthyism, coupled with a requirement to present the inaugural address of Jefferson Davis alongside that of Lincoln's. Thomas Jefferson has been deemed inadequately Christian, so out he goes. Similarly, there's to be a de-emphasis on the Enlightenment's role in American revolutionary thought. The word "democracy" has also been booted, in favor of "republic." I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the board is Republican.

This is deeply annoying, sure. But it's a profoundly human habit. It is, in fact, quite Biblical. Take, for instance, the significant thematic differences between the Deuteronomic books of Samuel/Kings and the Chronicles. In 1 and 2 Samuel, which is an older record, King David is presented as gifted, passionate, musical, and charismatic. He is also presented as being deeply complex, filled with Clintonian desires of the flesh, tormented by loss and betrayal, and strongarmed by his Machiavellian majordomo Joab. At the end of his life, the Deuteronomist's historical account shows him as feeble and helpless, an impotent shell of himself, manipulated by Bathesheba and Nathan into giving power to Solomon.

But the Chronicler, who was writing at the time of the building of the Second Temple, well, they've got a totally different picture of David. As the archetypal King over Israel in a time when Israel was looking for heroes, David needed to be perfect. So all of the imperfections kinda sorta got edited away. David became the King of Kings, the noblest and wisest and most perfect King that ever has been. Those awkward stories about sex and betrayal and loss? Never heard 'em. David was for the Chronicler what Reagan is for today's conservatives: A Perfect Head of Hair On The Dear Leader of the Shining City on a Hill.

Problem is, when we wander away from the real, and start turning the complexities of the human story into perfect airbrushed fantasy...well...it's not a good thing. In the absence of the real, and in the absence of at least striving for objectivity, societies have a tendency to fail to self-correct. And folks who uncritically consume their own propaganda invariably end up in Very Bad Places.