unforum

[megaswfan]

Of Blogs And Men

[maychorian]

[SolDL]

I agree with you on one point in particular: The best blogs ARE stand-alone, or make relevant crossovers. And sure, they are more about humanity and characters; but I think the original market for these stories also needs to be appreciated. Most people came along due to Marble Hornets, let's be honest. Thus, the pre-made audience for the series' that we have here has its roots in the creeping horror. While it certainly isn't beyond us to step outside our comfort zone, the fact of the matter is, if there's a demand for one sort of story, and a supply of something completely different, not everyone will remain interested.

Not all blogs are bad, in fact, some are very good, even if they can't pull off the horror which most likely generated their interest in the Mythos themselves. But on the other hand, some are particularly obnoxious, and it has become quite a trial to separate the grains from the chafe.

[qaqa]

There are some blogs that I like a lot. I respect any piece of work which doesn't lost sight of the genre it's working in - for my money, Slender Man is supposed to be about creeping psychological horror, dread and paranoia, building up to unbearable levels of terror. As long as a story can properly balance character or other new elements with the same stripped-down, gut-level horror and dread SM began with, I can give it a chance. When people start pulling out magic powers, military-grade weaponry, and pretentious names ("call me...StalkingHorse"*) and then begin blogging back and forth at each other about how "the fight goes on," however, it takes a lot of the horror out of it for me. When that sort of stuff happens I lose interest; it may be a cool shared universe thing for the writers, but when you add the vaguely superhero-esque trappings it ceases to be SM to me, in my subjective POV. We all love to personally interact with the text or story, that's the nature of an ARG. But would I want to become some gun-toting or spellcasting prodigy within the MH, EMH or TT universe? No, never; it wouldn't fit. So there are some blogs I enjoy, and some I don't.

* - "StalkingHorse" is not, at last check, an actual blogger name

[Das Omega]

[qaqa]

[shoeler]

holy wall of text, batman!

but yeah. definitely a good post. what i most like about blogs is that they can do things that would be practically and financially impractical for a vlog. people complain about vlogs only being college-aged guys, but they can't really be much of anything else. it's a lot easier to write about being a cop and interrogating a crazy dude in an interrogation room than it would be to acquire an interrogation room and film. blogs offer a viewpoint not able to be portrayed by amateur slendervlogs.

_{ionlyreadonewhyamipostingaboutthis}

[Lewa]

I like blogs and I endorse this topic. I'm also not really a fan of horror as a genre, so that might be why I like the blogs that are, as you said, about characters and concepts.

[SolDL]

[Das Omega]

[megaswfan]

Well, there's a couple more things I'd like to point out here. First, I personally find that the potential audience for Slenderblogs has shrunk. There's a lot of solid, stand-alone, horror-based blogs that simply do not have the same audience that they used to.

Not only that, but much of the audience that has stuck around has turned into authors. Much of the Slenderblogverse, even the stand-alone blogs, are written for other writers, simply because that IS the audience now. The days of blogs like Just Another Fool and Seeking Truth are over. This is why the authors now tend to write towards their fellow authors IMO. (Also, the question of why this shrinking/joining of the audience happened can be attributed to numerous factors, so I do not wish to start on that.)

Some of the interconnectedness of the blogs can be attributed to this audience shift. The fact that blog characters comment back and forth is definitely a part of this. Also, this is another thing I'd like to point out. Much of the great CROSSOVERS AMUCK issue has gone away. Yes, blog characters speak to each other. It's simply become part of the -Verse. With well-ran blogs, you don't even have to touch the comments of (or they have a work around like putting important ones in the next post, or linking) and, therefore, can avoid this illusion of INTERCONNECTION EVERYWHERE. Much of the interconnection is less crossover and more just characters making typical ARG-style comments but as characters.

To go back to the "fight the good fight" aspect, this simply comes as part of the expansion of the blogs. There was a lot of isolation and terror in the early blogs. Why? Because there wasn't a population of blogs. The character were literally isolated on the Internet. There was no one else to turn to Now, there are 500 vlogs and blogs. No character is isolated anymore. This, more than anything else, is what detracts from the horror. If a blog enters the shared universe, it will instantly lose this aspect of Slender Terror.

Smart blogs know how to get around this. The easiest way to spot a blog intended to be isolated? Check if it's on Blogger. Blogger has the biggest community. Other sites, not-so-much. If the URL doesn't contain "blogspot", it's likely to be a return to isolationist horror.

And... there's another wall of text. Sorry about that... Brevity is a cross-class skill for me, and I put too many points into Highly Specialized Hobbies to afford putting points into something that useful.

I'm gonna drop off again and let this thread keep going...

[qaqa]

[SublimeInsomnia]

[Guestguy2187]

[NoMoreGaems]

I think Qaqa is a huge Breaker supporter, like myself.

Anyways, I just wanted to add that isolationist horror stories really build the best base for a Slenderman story, I find. But that's me. My other point to make is I find Slenderman to be a primarily visual phenomenon, so purely text blogs always seemed... well, just a little misaimed, but they're clearly popular and some I've read have had good, scary parts. It's just that, to me, Slenderman is primarily a horror version of Where's Waldo, and there's a reason those books tend not to be novellas.