A 14-year-old girl from Florida attempted to burn down her own house with her family still inside, but luckily her mother and 9-year-old sibling escaped unharmed. It wouldn’t be more than a family tragedy, if the young girl didn’t cite the popular manga Soul Eater, a comedic action story about witch and demon hunters, as a source for inspiration.
Detectives also found her diary, in which she expressed a fascination for Slender. One passage in the diary even read: “If this keeps up there will be no safety in this house.”
Now, I am usually against defending video games after a tragedy has occurred but nobody got hurt and after lighting the fire and running off, the girl in question had second thoughts and contact her mother to apologize and ask if everybody got out alive. It’s still a sad situation, but it could be worse, and I would like to take the opportunity to point out the hilarious reactions of the media.
It’s fair to say that sources like 10 News and ABC Action News probably don’t employ too many researchers, but 10 News in particular managed to misinform their audience immensely by claiming Soul Eater was the name of a website where stories about Slender can be read. “During the investigation, the girl admitted to using the websites Creepypasta.com and SoulEater.com,” 10news wrote on their website, “which are associated with Slenderman.” Not only would a single Google search clear up their confusion, but if they had clicked on the links in their own article, they would have found out that souleater.com doesn’t exist at the time of writing.
ABC was more inclined to attack Slender, presenting it as a national menace that encourages children to hurt others. Perhaps in light of a similar incident some weeks ago where Slender-obsessed girls nearly killed a classmate. What bothers me is that neither news outlet felt any need to inform people what these harmful works of fictions were about, going only so far as to say that they are stories that “talk about killing.” Nobody even took the time to publish an update or edit when commenters pointed out the many errors in the article and video.
Situations like this are always annoying, mostly because, as fans, people are inclined to defend their medium, but if the news sites would have cared at all, then they would have done the journalistic legwork beforehand. It’s also a shame fans will be eager to blame the mother for terrible parenting or the girl for having mental conditions without knowing their situation, making them little better than the uninformed outlet they are angry with.
How do you think we should react in moments like these?
