unforum

[Acora]

So, quick question.

[MichaelDj54]

I don't really think you can give Slendy justice with a Symbol, I don't really think he would have one.

[Acora]

I know. What I meant was, is the operator symbol now the quintessential symbol that relates to/symbolises Slendy, in whatever canon we have?

[Mad Hatter]

[RatheadSyndicate]

It's tricky to answer any question posed toward the canonicality of Slenderman, since there really isn't one. The canon is built memetically, that is, whatever ideas that are introduced either work and are passed on to future stories, or don't and aren't. The Operator symbol showed up in Marble Hornets first, and since MH is kind of the codifier for all Slendermedia thereafter, it was later adopted by other Slenderstories. This, for me, is the continuing appeal of the Slenderman mythos. It's a perfect meme, in the psycho-evolutionary sense rather than the lolcats sense, in that there are no overarching authorities to decide whether something is canon or apocrypha. Each idea is given equal shrift and survives purely on whatever power it may have on our collective consciousness. Memes, like genes, are selfish and are passed down purely based upon whether or not they are good at being replicated. The Slenderman story is still evolving, its memes are still mutating without the aide of any authoritative board of deciders. One of those memes, the Operator symbol, has proven to replicate fairly well and has therefore been adopted.

In the case of Slenderman, it seems like the best attitude to take is that, if it appears to be canon, it probably is. If it doesn't appear to be canon, it still might be.

I wish I could teach a class on Slenderstudies.

[OmniMan]

Pretty much every single slendervlog I have seen has used the Operator Symbol at least once. :/

[SolDL]

There are blogs that change the symbol. There being a symbol that the Slender Man leaves seems silly, but a calling card for the Proxies seems like the most common use.

[awakeasaurusrex]

You don't really need to explain its presence at all if you don't want to - Marble Hornets still hasn't. I think it's mainly useful as a calling card for Slenderbloggers - slipping it into a blog entry or a video is a good way to give the heads-up that this is a slenderblog/vlog in a fairly subtle and undisruptive way.

[ZorakRamone]

Marble Cutboys has codified its canon in the Slenderverse.

It's pretty sketch.

[Gus23]

i feel like the way it is associated with him doesn't make it his. in MH, it's not like he's the one drawing them. (that's what i believe anyway)

it's appropriate in the MH universe, though we see it used in TT too. it could be just a tribute to MH. it could show us that MH exists as a slendyblog in the world of TT as it seems to in EMH (though they don't use the operator symbol.) or it could be that TT and MH exist in the same universe, where that symbol exists for the same reason in both.

[awakeasaurusrex]

I think it's more likely to be a tribute, unless Noah has actually acknowledged the existence of MH. The problem with the "TT and MH exist in the same universe, where that symbol exists for the same reason in both" possibility is that Noah doesn't actually know OOG the reasoning behind the symbol in MH - none of us do - so he couldn't be sure he'd be using the symbol for the same reasons as MH use it.

[JohnArgo]

I was wondering about this, too, sort of. I was thinking of the possibilities of making my own Slender series, and whether viewers - assuming there were viewers - would be annoyed if the operator symbol showed up.

To me, the symbol is sort of a chorus that links all Slendervlogs and blogs together, and I like that. It establishes a tiny bit of continuity with them. It also puts an end to all of the early 'I still can't tell if this is about Slendy' discussions.

[Benjamin Learner]

[Acora]

[ArkyMcArkArk]

Actually, I think the problem here is that you're asking the wrong questions. It isn't, as far as I can tell, that people think that the Operator symbol is a symbol For Slenderman, or in some way representing him necessarily, but it is Definitely a part of the Mythos now, there's no arguing that. But, like any part of the Mythos, different folks will have different interpretations for what it means, and what it does.

I hope that helped!