Creepypasta in the context of "Horror fiction"

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

The first literary works for computers, created in the 1950s, were computer programs that generated poems or stories, now called generative literature. In the 1960s experimental poets began to explore the new digital medium, and the first early text-based games were created. Interactive fiction became a popular genre in the late 1970s and 1980s, with a thriving online community in the 2000s. In the 1980s and 1990s hypertext fiction begun to be published, first on floppy disks and later on the web. Hypertext fictions are stories where the reader moves from page to page by selecting links. In the 2000s digital poetry became popular, often including animated text, images and interactivity. In the 2010s and 2020s, electronic literature uses social media platforms, with new genres like Instapoetry or Twitterature as well as literary practices like netprov. Although web-based genres like creepypasta and fan fiction are not always thought of as electronic literature (because they usually manifest as linear texts that could be printed out and read on paper), other scholars argue that these are born digital genres that depend on online communities and thus should be included in the field.

The Slender Man (also called Slenderman, Slender, or Slendy) is a fictional supernatural character that originated as a creepypasta Internet meme created by Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen (also known as "Victor Surge") in 2009. He is depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless white head and face, wearing a black suit.

Stories of the Slender Man commonly feature his stalking, abducting, or traumatizing people, particularly children. The Slender Man has become a pop culture icon, although he is not confined to a single narrative but appears in many disparate works of fiction, typically composed online. Fiction relating to the Slender Man encompasses many media, including literature, art and video series such as Marble Hornets (2009–2014), wherein he is known as The Operator. The character has appeared in the video game Slender: The Eight Pages (2012) and its successor Slender: The Arrival (2013), as well as inspiring the Enderman in Minecraft. He has also appeared in a 2015 film adaptation of Marble Hornets, where he was portrayed by Doug Jones, and an eponymous 2018 film, where he was portrayed by Javier Botet.

On May 31, 2014, two twelve-year-olds lured their friend, who was also twelve, into a wooded area of Davids Park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where they attempted to kill and sacrifice her to the Slender Man, a fictional supernatural being originating in creepypasta. Their target, Payton Isabella Leutner, suffered 19 stab wounds, but survived after being rescued by a cyclist.

The perpetrators, Anissa E. Weier (born November 10, 2001) and Morgan E. Geyser (born May 16, 2002), were motivated by their belief in the Slender Man, and believed killing Leutner would appease him and prove his existence. Weier and Geyser were tried as adults in 2017. Both were found not guilty by reason of insanity, and committed indefinitely to mental institutions. Weier was sentenced to 25 years to life, and later released in 2021 to live with her father. Geyser was sentenced to 40 years to life and was later released in 2025 to live in a group home, to be kept under supervision until 2058.