unforum

[PaperAlchemist]

Your Experience with MarbleHornets? - Research for ARG Paper

[Serum]

[Beidah]

Hate to break it to you, but Marble Hornets isn't really an ARG. You should try EverymanHYBRID instead.

[TheSupremeFace]

MarbleHornets is more of a live tv show. We're just an audience, and the characters in MarbleHornets are presenting their events to us live. I don't think any audience interactions actually affected marble hornets so it's not really an ARG

[Ztakk]

Marble Hornets isn't an arg. Go research the Within Hubris ARG (Haunted Majora's Mask cartridge)

[MDHDZN]

Marble Hornets isnt the best example of an ARG, but if you insist, I'll gladly give you a long summary of my experience. Perhaps a better idea would be to do it on the slenderman mythos, for while it isnt an ARG, it would be cool to reasearch how these series are inspiring amateur filmmakers, each with a different approach to the material. I'll give you a longer summary of my experience in that, if you want.

[PaperAlchemist]

[MDHDZN]

[DHawk314]

My sister showed me Marble Hornets and insisted it was real. I watched the whole first season straight through when Season 2 had barely started. It was terrifying.

Interestingly enough I took up my own research and began reading another Slender Man related blog, Just Another Fool. I read them simultaneously, which is to say I looked at the dates to see them "In order." Which is a bit weird since they're made by completely different people. P.S. JAFool kinda was more of a real ARG in some sense.

I can't remember if I read them simultaneously because I thought they were made by the same people, or because I thought they were real, but I think it was more like some combination of the two. It was less like these works made based on this one common meme origin and more like this phenomenon I'd just discovered. Both a phenomenon that there was suddenly this monster stalking everyone, and also that this thing was just happening on the internet.

I discovered it was fake, which I already suspected for obvious reasons, upon seeing the Marble Hornets Radio Interview shortly after watching what was all the entries at the time, 3 years ago. The interview happened to confirm that they did not make JAFool. I'd say my approach to it changed slightly afterwards. For instance, when I decided to investigate Everyman HYBRID I just went to the wiki to know all the Slender Man appearances in the videos so I could spot them the first time. Knowing it's fictional means there's a fanbase and such for those sorts of things. This spoiled somethings but helped me understand others too.

In addition, watching 27 entries in a row for the first time is vastly different than waiting for a new entry and getting one once in a while. Still, I don't share the sentiment some do that it isn't scary knowing it's fake. The horror is well done and I enjoy it. I think the biggest effect of calling Marble Hornets and ARG is that its fanbase formed on Unfiction and so fans complain a lot about not getting answers. Normal ARGs answer more questions than Marble Hornets does, faster. But I appreciate Marble Hornets more as a really well done horror series with pretty good acting and writing, and some mystery elements for that to surround. And the questions get answered eventually, I have faith.

Since my start I've learned quite a bit about Slender Man. I've watched tons of other video series and read countless other blogs. I was that into it long before the game came out, and have mixed feelings about that being how it entered mainstream culture, but overall even the game has passed back into obscurity itself, and I continue to enjoy Trosephim's work. The other Slender Man series have mostly either lost me or stopped updating (Dark Harvest is a good exception) but I enjoy Marble Hornets and I'm excited for both the ending and the movie.

[UnQuantifiable]

For me, a friend introduced me to Marble Hornets back when mid-season 1 was still being uploaded. A group of friends started watching it too, but they grew away from it. I decided to stick with the story since I found it interesting. I'm pretty sure they don't care about it at this point. I got into it around Entry 15 or so. Entry 19 caused me to be hooked on the series from then on.

Was a bad time for me to get into it, as season 1 was drawing to a close. The wait was almost agonizing. Kept checking the twitter every day to see if something new was happening. I was entertained by the fact that Jay was staking out Tim and posting about it on twitter. Wanting a new entry so bad.

I knew Marble Hornets wasn't real. But it gives off a sense of realism that it could just as well BE real, so I was treating it as such for awhile. I never really was afraid of the series, or had any general fear of The Operator or otherwise Masky. I had some dreams revolving around MH. Mostly about being behind the camera. Whenever I saw The Operator, I never ran away. I always wanted to get closer, and see what he was like up close.

That about sums up my experience with the series. I can't really elaborate much more than this. Good luck on your paper

[Craig Digsby]

I knew this guy called Alex Kralie, and he was making a film in 2006 with his friends. The set happened to be near where I was holidaying. One of the crew members, Jay, went to get some batteries as I found a camera in a trash can. There was a tape in it, which was empty. I decided to try it out by filming Jay when he was nearby.

After returning to my home in Rosswood Park, I used my new found camera to film small shorts, explaining the valuable facts of nature. I called them 'Nature Breaks.' My purpose is to share my important knowledge of nature to the world. Every time someone visits Rosswood, I would show people my teachings through the camera while wearing a brown hoodie and mask. Unfortunately, most people just got scared ran.

Failing in my efforts, I bought a library for Digsby Mansion. Installing a desk, and buying writing tools with dirt, I collected leaves and started
to write a book on everything I know about nature. After one year of writing non-stop, he ran out of leaves. I am currently creating a series that
explains everything.

That same year, a user called 'ce gars' posted to some contest on SomethingAwful. Intrigued, I decided to see where this was going. As it turned out, ce gars was really Jay, the man who I had filmed some years before. He created a channel called 'MarbleHornets' and started to upload strange paranormal videos. I followed the series, praising its amazingness. In an attempt to become part of the universe, I created a channel called "totheark" and uploaded video filled with codes and distortion. I've even made appearances in the entries, and nobody ever knew I was there...

I once had a friend named Bruce. He loved nature. He would often come into the woods and take long walks with me. He was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet. Unfortunately, he started to act strangely. He was jumpy, seemingly irritated. As time passed, his visits to the woods would grow less and less frequent. He told me something about 'a man in the woods', but didn't say more.

I was walking one morning in the woods when I found a camera on the ground. I picked it up, and filmed my walk through the woods. Eventually, I found myself walking out of the forest and into a parking lot. Not knowing what to do with this camera, I decided to just put it into some lucky guy's car.

One fateful day, we were walking past a tunnel. Bruce told me that he saw someone sitting in there. I wasn't listening much, as my attention was focused on some hornets crawling through the grass. He told me that he was going to go see if the man was alright and started to approach the tunnel. I eventually wandered off. That's the last I ever saw of him. I have a damn good idea of what happened in that tunnel.

Some days later, after explaining the growing habits of moss to my camera, I heard motion in the woods. Going into stealth-mode, I followed the noise and came upon none other than Jay himself. He was walking with Jessica. They were following Alex. Then they stopped. Jessica whispered something about hearing footsteps, and I cursed under my breath. She had heard me. After a few seconds, they started walking again. I followed, trying to be quieter. Alex led them into a wooden shed. I didn't dare go in there. I had a bad feeling that was soon confirmed as I heard a single gunshot from the second floor of the shed. Jay and Jessica flew down the stairs and ran out of the woods, me following. They led me to a hotel, where I hid in Jessica's room, to protect her in case Alex was pursuing them. I eventually showed myself and tried to get Jessica out of there, but she did nothing but scream. Suddenly, a tall, dark figure appeared out of the corner of my eye and I dropped to the floor in a coughing fit. Jay was pounding on the door in the other room. Then he stopped. When I got up, the figure was gone, and Jessica was lying unconscious on the bed. All was silent. I went into Jay's room and found him on the floor, also unconscious. I pulled him into bed and set up his camera on his tripod. I realized that I had to get them out of here.

I called up my buddy Masky and he helped me take them both out of the hotel some days later. Everything is vague from that point on.
_________________
^{A very tall man keeps following me. He must be here to enjoy nature.}

[ledzepfilm]

Professor, would that stuff be okay to use in your biography? I know I included some of it though.

[PaperAlchemist]