While the Slender Man is pretty far and away the king of creepypasta mountain, there are a number of pretenders to the scary internet man throne, some of which have crossed over into Slendy’s world thanks to some enterprising content creators.

One such claimant is the Rake, apparently so called because of his long, scrapy claw hands and not because he is an untrustworthy but boyishly charming cad who wears his hat at a jaunty angle. In the original story, the Rake is a frightening but vaguely humanoid figure, described as being “a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some kind” with a “disturbing and unnatural” body position, “as if it had been hit by a car or something.” He is generally encountered by people who wake up in the middle of the night and find him sitting on their beds. Sleep tight with that thought in your head.

The Rake — who, though the original source of the story is unknown, seems to predate the Slender Man — got dragged into the Slender Man mythos via EverymanHYBRID. There, it makes a number of appearances and the original creepypasta is heavily referenced using the names of several characters. However, despite its popularity among creepypasta fans and its prominent place in EMH, the Rake has a long, steep climb to claw its way up if it wants to topple the Slender Man from pride of place as king of the hill.

While Marble Hornets is pretty indisputably the most popular and influential YouTube-based series and ARG within the Slender Man mythos, an important fact to remember is that technically the Slender Man isn’t actually in it. Sure, yes, there is a terrifying long, tall, no-face monster in a business suit who pops up in the background and does all the terrifying things we’re talking about here. But that guy’s name is the Operator, not Slender Man.

Does this sound like splitting hairs? Sure, perhaps. But while the creators of Marble Hornets were directly inspired by the original Something Awful posts by Victor Surge to create their video series, they soon wanted to be clear that they were blazing their own trail, and one way of doing that was by renaming their signature monster. The differences between the Operator and the OG Slender Man are stark enough that there has arisen a schism dividing Slenderfans into three main camps: Surgists, who cleave to the earliest days of the mythos; Argists, who accept material from the ARG series but reject the video games; and Contemporaries, who just eat it all up like Hungry Hungry Hippos.

The Operator, for example, is never shown to have Slender Man’s trademark tentacles, and he seems to primarily draw his power from the mental influence he holds over his victims. In terms of MO, he has little in common with the child-mutilating killer of the original mythos.

One of the most pervasive elements of the contemporary Slender Man mythos is that of proxies, who are basically mentally controlled slaves of the Slender Man, who do his bidding such as manipulating victims, destroying evidence, and making videos to communicate on his behalf. Proxies are especially prominent in the series TribeTwelve, which features a sizeable group of proxies known as the Collective. Of these, the most notable is the Observer, who frequently communicates with the main character of that series, and who may or may not have the ability to manipulate time and space.

Across the wide expanse of Slender Man blogs, there was a period in which proxies were a very common trope, to such an extent that some stories featured entire hordes of mindless slaves chasing after an intended victim and suddenly a bald guy in a suit didn’t seem like the main threat any more. Helpfully, this blog conglomerate generated something of a hierarchy for proxies that range from the Hallowed (mindless puppets of the Slender Man) to Sleepers (people who still have their original personalities and don’t remember their activities under Slendy’s control) to Agents (basically cultists who worship the tall guy and may not be mind controlled at all).

The problem with the idea of proxies, of course, is that if you were a young, impressionable mind convinced that the Slender Man was real, you might want to become one, like the girls in Wisconsin who tried to sacrifice their friend to the Slender Man in 2014.

Anything sufficiently popular is going to end up the subject of pastiche, homage, and parody, and the Slender Man is no exception. A host of references exist throughout pop culture to attest to the popularity of Slendy among today’s youth.

A notable example is the Enderman, a dangerous creature in the world of Minecraft, perhaps the only thing more popular with weird kids than Slender Man himself. They are long and lanky and become dangerous when you look at them and then teleport around to attack when you turn your attention away from them.

A pony version of the Slender Man appeared in the background of the 2014 episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic called “Pinkie Apple Pie.” Which … okay.

Also in 2014, a take on Slendy called the Thinman appeared in an episode of Supernatural. It makes sense because once you’re on Season 674 of a monster-hunting show, it seems like you’d readily latch on to any new monster to hit the scene before you have to resort to the boys fighting a sentient stapler or something.

Finally in 2014, a very busy year for Slendy, an episode of Law and Order: SVU told the story, ripped from the headlines, of the “Glasgowman’s Wrath,” in which the Slender Man was transformed into the Glasgowman (?) for some reason. You’d think an appearance on Law and Order would be enough to kill a youth culture trend, but you can’t keep a Slender Man down.