If you’re like me, the internet phenomenon the Slenderman was a meme that existed on the very edges of your regular online experience at best. However, it became startlingly real with headline grabbing attention when two young girls were accused of murdering another child all in order to prove that Slenderman was real. And that story is the focus of HBO‘s upcoming documentary “Beware The Slenderman.”
Directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, the film explores the consequences of what happens when young people can’t sort out the difference between reality and fantasy online, and where the responsibility lies for how kids process online media. Here’s the official synopsis:
BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN tells the story of the internet’s elusive Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their best friend into the woods, stabbed her 19 times, then set out on an odyssey to meet the tall and faceless man known online as Slenderman. Shot over 18 months with heartbreaking access to the families of the would-be murderers, the film plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their crime, a Boogeyman and our society’s most impressionable consumers of media. The entrance to the internet can quickly lead us to its dark basement, within just a matter of clicks. How much do we hold children responsible for what they find there?
“Beware The Slenderman” will screen next at DOC NYC, and hits HBO on January 23rd.