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Marble Hornets is an American found footage web series created by Troy Wagner, Joseph DeLage, and Tim Sutton.

The first video posted to YouTube was on June 20, 2009, 10 days after Eric Knudsen made the original images of Slender Man on the Something Awful forums. It follows film student Jay Merrick (Wagner) as he investigates what happened to the student film Marble Hornets, abandoned by its director Alex Kralie (DeLage) after encountering the Slender Man (called "the Operator"). There are 92 episodes on the Marble Hornets channel, with accompanying videos from a diegetic side-channel, totheark. It would go on to inspire multiple web series in the same style as Marble Hornets, including EverymanHYBRID and TribeTwelve, with these types of web series given the nickname "The Slenderverse". The reception for Marble Hornets has been mostly positive from critics, journalists, and fans. Marble Hornets's lead director, Troy Wagner, has been involved in several other horror series since Marble Hornets's ending, including Clear Lakes 44, ECKVA, and Marble Hornets: Rosswood, the latter of which is a spinoff hosted on the Marble Hornets channel. In 2012, Blue Isle Studios announced its partnership with the Marble Hornets team to help write the script for the video game Slender: The Arrival. In 2015, a film adaptation entitled Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story was released; unlike Marble Hornets, critical reception to the film was predominantly negative.

The Marble Hornets series is the uploaded logs of Jay Merrick, a film student who attempts to find out what happened during the filming of "Marble Hornets", an unfinished student film directed by his friend, Alex Kralie. Jay lies to Tim, telling him wants to work with him to finish Marble Hornets, to acquire behind the scenes footage.

Troy Wagner as Jay Merrick: The man behind the "Marble Hornets" channel and the primary protagonist. After rediscovering tapes given to him by former friend Alex Kralie, Jay begins uploading entries in an attempt to discover exactly what happened during the filming of Alex's student film Marble Hornets. Tim Sutton as Timothy Wright: A former actor from the Marble Hornets student film, he is the primary protagonist of the third season. Joseph DeLage as Alex Kralie: The director of the original Marble Hornets student film project, who abandoned his feature project in 2006 after encountering The Operator when shooting. The Operator: An entity of unknown origin who begins appearing to Alex during the shooting of Marble Hornets and the primary antagonist. It is later revealed that Tim was the first person associated with Marble Hornets to have come into contact with The Operator.

Wagner and DeLage began working on Marble Hornets after reading about the Slender Man mythos by Eric Knudsen (also known as "Victor Surge") and they both liked the ease of creating a YouTube series. The now-defunct THAC (Troy Has a Camera, the company who own Marble Hornets) has said that the effects for the Operator will not be disclosed to keep the "fear of the unknown" in the character.

As of 2013, Marble Hornets had over 250,000 subscribers and had received 55 million views, with the first video getting over 1 million views. In the years since, multiple web series inspired by Marble Hornets were created, including EverymanHYBRID and TribeTwelve.

A five part miniseries set in the Marble Hornets universe called Marble Hornets: Rosswood began on August 27th, 2025 and ended September 24th, 2025.

On December 2, 2012, Blue Isle Studios announced its partnership with the Marble Hornets team for the video game Slender: The Arrival and helped to shape the modern version of the character.

The film, titled Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story, was released on video on demand on April 7, 2015, starring Chris Marquette, Doug Jones, Alexandra Breckenridge, and Alexandra Holden.

Quick Facts

• Marble Hornets's lead director, Troy Wagner, has been involved in several other horror series since Marble Hornets's ending, including Clear Lakes 44, ECKVA, and Marble Hornets: Rosswood, the latter of which is a spinoff hosted on the Marble Hornets channel.
• In 2015, a film adaptation entitled Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story was released; unlike Marble Hornets, critical reception to the film was predominantly negative.
• It follows film student Jay Merrick (Wagner) as he investigates what happened to the student film Marble Hornets, abandoned by its director Alex Kralie (DeLage) after encountering the Slender Man (called "the Operator").
• The Marble Hornets series is the uploaded logs of Jay Merrick, a film student who attempts to find out what happened during the filming of "Marble Hornets", an unfinished student film directed by his friend, Alex Kralie.
• In 2012, Blue Isle Studios announced its partnership with the Marble Hornets team to help write the script for the video game Slender: The Arrival.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Marble Hornets". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.