Jeffrey Tolbert Discusses Slender Man and Belief in the Digital Age

Penn State News recently highlighted the research of folklorist and Penn State Harrisburg faculty member Jeffrey Tolbert. Tolbert studies vernacular belief as it intersects with digital media, concentrating on Slender Man as an especially apposite case. He notes, “Belief…[is] about how we take in information and stimuli, then form it into ideas we take to be true about the world and the universe. Examples like Slender Man might not resonate directly with everybody, but I think understanding belief more generally should matter to everyone: how we take communication from various sources and arrive at ideas that we think to be true about the world.”

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“Faculty explores Slender Man and supernatural belief in the digital age,” Penn State News (January 18, 2021): https://news.psu.edu/story/644413/2021/01/18/research/faculty-explores-slender-man-and-supernatural-belief-digital-age?fbclid=IwAR26NCTFkEOOVT0YNTUSklvtRGPwywtKLO42Q6V6XFTFKZ59rbWBkiNFPvE