[A] The Slenderblog

THE SLENDERBLOG


No, the name is not the most creative part of this series. Today, I'm going to look at The Slenderblog, which is one of those blogs which I've seen around the place, but never actually read. The reason I'm checking this one out is because our latest guest reviewer has been...well, having a little bit of trouble on his own personal blog, and I've been fairly intrigued.

This blog starts off with a similar purpose to my own; informative. Andy, our scholar, goes through the genre in a rounded look at where Slender Man has come from, and where it's going. If you're confused as to any part of the community, then...well, this is pretty much a one-stop shop. This blog informed me about Core Theory, which is an entire subsection of the Slenderblogs which I haven't gone into yet. (I will proceed to do so eventually, to review them, though. For Science!) It's a very self-aware, and quite well written look at the genre from an informative point of view.

Then, come December, things appear to be...going south for our good scholar.

I've got to say, I was all but prepared to post my first [C] today, but reading this blog, I reckon it's very cleverly done. Andy has blurred the line between a scholarly account of the urban legend's process, and becoming part of the urban legend himself. I find it very cool that a blog that's, well, kind of like my own, has made the translation from informative to...story driven quite this easily. The Tulpa Effect can account for so much these days. And, it doesn't even look like he made the decision to change styles on the spur of the moment; it appears to have been planned a couple of months in advance. I believe he foreshadowed it when he mentioned...Was it Lack of Lexicon?

(I probably won't be making that transition myself. Just an FYI.)

On the downside, a lot of his vlogging could use some work. This isn't a problem restricted to this blog, either; a lot of the vlogs seem to fall into the trap of just being talking heads, and just delivering a whole load of exposition for five minutes. Vlogging should utilize the medium, I feel, and not just be a spoken blog. Even a lot of the Youtube channels which ARE just a dude talking at a camera for 5 minutes, use jumpcut editing to keep the audience involved. And they generally involve far more expressive, over the top and comedic actions than a horror theme would allow for. Once more, this blog has fallen into the trap of allowing the character to be defined by what happens to him. Which was perfectly fine when this was just an informative blog, but now he's gone down this route, it would be nice to be able to empathize a little more.

That said? It's a very creative blog/vlog. I suggest you follow it for its story, and keep referring back to it if you don't understand a concept that's being thrown around a lot in these stories.

http://slenderbloggins.wordpress.com/

~Sol