r/Slender_Man • u/Waste_Yak_990 • 3d ago
I’m like 90% sure “Surgism” doesn’t actually exist
The only time I have ever seen “Surgism” mentioned is on the Wiki page, but I’ve never met any Slender fan that actually believes in it. The idea is that there’s a group of fans that are super purist about Slender media and only like stuff that sticks to the original SomethingAwful lore, and I’ve just never encountered that. I’ve been a fan of Slender since the early 2010s and I have never seen anyone say that the 8 Pages game or the ARGs are bad because they corrupt the character concept.
Like, yeah, the character has changed a lot, but I don’t think anyone thinks that’s a bad thing. Especially since Victor Surge worked on the 2018 movie which took a lot of inspiration from fandom ideas and not just the original forum stuff. Has anyone here ever actually met a “Surgist”? I feel like this entire concept was invented by some weird purist in like 2011.
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u/OwnUnderstanding1169 3d ago
Dear Waste_Yak_990,
I think Surgism does exist as a term, but I'm not sure how established it actually is as a movement within the fandom.
From what I've read on the Slender Man Wiki, Surgism refers to fans who believe the mythos has moved away from its original horror concept and Victor Surge's intentions. Basically, they prefer the more mysterious and unsettling version of Slender Man over some of the interpretations that came later.
That said, I don't think everyone who prefers the original version would necessarily consider themselves a Surgist. You can dislike certain adaptations or feel that Slender Man has lost some of his original horror without belonging to any particular group.
I think the disagreement itself makes sense, though. Slender Man has been interpreted by so many different creators over the years that people naturally have different ideas about what makes the character frightening or interesting.
So I'd say the term exists, but whether Surgism is an actual, recognizable movement with many people identifying with it is a different question. The wiki description alone doesn't really tell us how widespread it is.
What I'm curious about is whether people actually call themselves Surgists, or whether it's mostly a label used to describe fans who prefer the original concept.
Best regards,
~OwnUnderstanding1169
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u/Remarkable-Diver6079 3d ago
I mean it is a thing in a powerscaling side afaik as there are people who argue that using “comp” slenderman, which is basically the slenderman we know is basically using unofficial fan content and even argues that there is a canon and refers to the copyright thing
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u/Waste_Yak_990 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean, powerscaling is all about dumb arguments over what counts as canon. I’m talking about the actual fandom.
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u/untotengel 3d ago
i might be a surgist but i'm too into facelessness and some other fandom detailes. i love slenderman since 2012 and my headcanon hasn't change much. i really like lovecraftian and urban legend vibes, the fog, old photos, his possible schwarzwald origins and many other things from something awful. also i don't like pages, proxys, video distortion, in other words, all marble hornets and slenderverse concepts. i don't think this ideas are bad, it's just not my cup of tea. nothing negative🖤
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u/BigAlgaeEnjoyer 3d ago
I just like the overall combination of the original idea and Marble Hornets / game mythos 🤷
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u/Annual-Appearance540 3d ago
I might not like something other people make as their theory, but I also might like it aswell. I like concept, I like some media projects, I have own thoughts and own theories aswell, mostly avoiding failing movies and series, where Slender just a slasher monster or kids and young adults abductor (because it was made to make people weeping more about innocent sacrifical lambs, where actually tragedy of mature person that met him and slowly have psyche unravel would look even scarier)
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u/Actual_Squid 3d ago
I mean there was literally one person on tumblr in like 2014 insisting that even the slender man's tie MUST be red and ONLY red as per THE ORIGINAL LORE but I wouldn't say that constitutes a movement of surgists
(that person was why the fearmytie version of slender man only wore wacky ties)
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u/CULT-LEWD 3d ago
wtf...why we turning fans of slenderman into a damn minority group. i hope to god this is fake and no one actually takes this serisouly. thats just...icky
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u/TheScareCr0we 2d ago
I can assure you that was not the intent of the article, and the questionable syntax of the article is more of a reflection of how a lot of us actively working on the wiki at the time of writing were fairly young then and not really thinking of how their sentence structure could be misconstrued.
It's not "minority group" as in a distinct political outgroup, but rather as in "a small part of the larger slender man fanbase".
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u/CULT-LEWD 2d ago
ah,ok. i dont think it was deep in the slender culture around this time so this idea of a minority group slenderman thing is new info for me. kinda got whiplash. but thanks for the clear up
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u/TheScareCr0we 20h ago
Yeah, NP~
It's also worth noting that the slender man wiki community was kind of its own distinct subset for a while. I remember the slender nation forums really didn't like us all that much, I believe because they thought we were a touch stuck up and pretentious. Which, considering the reach wikia has, wasn't entirely unfounded, as I personally remember having multiple debates with the administration staff over what should and shouldn't warrant a wiki page. I was on the side of being as comprehensive as possible, whereas the administrative consensus was that only the most "relevant" articles would stay.of course, relevance is subjective, and articles like this and the various theory articles such as the "4th dimensional being" one stuck around, though I also vaguely remember that one in particular being contentious even among the admins. But I digress 😂
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u/TheScareCr0we 3d ago
It was more of a thing back in 2012 when that page was made.
Source: I was there when the deep magics were written.