The Pure Simulation of Farthington

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to the group on 19 May 2015.

Jean Baudrillard lecturing at European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Is it at all plausible that this is the kind of existence Carlton Farthington has? I mean, surely someone would have to have met him face to face right? Someone would have verified at least the slightest shred of his existence? Or is this what Steffi discovers?

Now, that doesn't mean that Farthington wouldn't have an effect on his environment, just as Slender Man supposedly led two teen girls to stab their classmate 19 times. This is very Baudrillard, in which simulcra now precedes the reality. So, it's not that Farthington doesn't exist, it's just that he has come to exist through this postmodern mechanism. Perhaps there was the slightest of originals on which Farthington was based. Perhaps this was some actual person who someone met at some point. That person could have died or just disappeared into a normal life somewhere in the world. Or never existed. Or was cobbled together from multiple people. It really doesn't matter.

Regardless, it is the pure simulation of Farthington that now predominates, that grows ever stronger, and that impacts the lives of his followers. Maybe one or more people actually occupy this meme for a time. Maybe an actual demon is summoned by the clearing that is created. It's not implausible that this is what happened in the Slender Man case.

I have been thinking about how much fodder for creepypasta we have!

Doesn't it strike you as the slightest bit strange that on November 1, 2014, I began communicating solely from my carltonfarthington account? And that our first show since then was at All Saints Church?

Don't want to scare anyone, but with 4 people, we do technically have enough for a horror story.

What would be terrifying, Liza, is if you actually went all the way through with creating the Farthington outfit. At that point, someone or something could occupy that space.

That is why The Benefactor is so nefarious. Yes, we'd love to have things funded to the maximum, but what happens when an idea like this starts to exist in space and time? Seems like #1 on a created thing's list is to seek out its creator. To what extent is creating a costume an act of invocation? Do we create that being or just give it a place to manifest? Alternatively, is that being planting this idea in our heads, trying to get us to give it a place to manifest itself? At that point, we will have served our purpose and will likely be summarily dispatched. Or possessed. Or who knows, maybe it will just leave us alone. Or nothing will happen at all.

Another similar move would be to find out where the nearest buried stream is. Is there one that flows through your neighborhood, under your school, under your house? What's the nearest one? Is there a point of access to that underground network somewhere in your basement?

Whatever the case may be don't give out any addresses, don't ever give out your address over email!