I wish I was kidding!

I recently read that two 12 year old girls in Wisconsin attempted to murder their 12 year old friend in order to gain favor of the "Creepypasta" monster Slender Man. While the media is pointing fingers at sites such as Creepypasta.com, the website the girls allegedly learned of the internet horror icon, and putting the blame firmly on those sites. While the internet does some have some blame for this (Mainly those who have attempted to romanticize the Slender Man, a creature designed for a Scary ghost story and picture contest a few years back) The true blame falls on the kids, and to some degree their parents. The two girls decided to act on a fantasy and commit a horrible act they knew was wrong and their parents didn't monitor their internet access.

"CreepyPastas" (Name coming from the internet term CopyPasta, meaning a block of text that is copy and pasted over and over as it is shared sometimes changing over time, CreepyPasta is just a different way of saying it since its a scary story) are the new Campfire tales of the newer generations, and just like the scary stories told at sleep overs and around the camp fire a few people will believe them then soon realize they were just stories. And similar to the case of the two girls in the past kids have done things to appease campfire ghosts, but not to the extent of what happened in Wisconsin since they were usually small little things meant to tease those who believed in them. These stories are meant for teenagers and adults not kids but with parents allowing their children unfettered internet access and they find things like the Slender Man, a creature made to terrify that in the stories kills those who he stalks or takes them away to a place beyond our understanding. He is the new boogeyman, I myself have added into the fandom for this creation with art and even a YouTube video with creepy song I altered to seem like the creature itself was singing it. I did it because it was fun to contribute to this creepy internet phenomenon and I knew it was fake and for fun but these two little girls entered into this world of scary stories. It may have started out as innocent as seeing a picture while searching for something they like (The art community enjoys putting the Slender Man into various TV show scenariod) or overheard someone at school talking about it and they took the steps to look into it. I do not know whether they did this as a misguided attempt to save themselves from the creature by appeasing it or to befriend it but they believed it, at 12 years old I can assume that many of those of you who read this believed in a small scary story you were told. With kids with Autism they are less likely to act violently as these two girls did but they can do something more dangerous to themselves, let the fear become an obsession and stunt their growth. Here is a statement on what happened made by the site being blamed for this atrocity http://www.creepypasta.com/statement-wisconsin-stabbing/

Parents need to be more proactive in what their kids do online at that age