Web Video / David Near

David Near is a metal vocalist, musician, artist and voice actor from Michigan. Since 2013, he's made several voice impressions of characters from comic books, movies and horror media such as creepypasta, urban legends and horror video games. He's also posted art, music and dramatic readings of horror stories and his own poetry.

He is a co-creator of the audio horror series The Morgue Files, alongside his sister, Bridgette Near.

His YouTube channel can be found here.

David Near's videos contain examples of:

• Ambiguous Situation: In "Jason the Toymaker (Original Voice)", it's intentionally left "open to interpretation what he's doing to the kid." Besides Jason complaining about his captive wanting to leave, mimicking their crying, and describing how he'll turn the child into a toy, what he's doing to his prisoner during the conversation is unclear.
  Jason: I'll give you something you can really be afraid of (chuckles)... hold still... Ngh! I didn't want to do this, but you leave me with no choice.
• …And That Little Girl Was Me: Laughing Jack's first Story Time video has him tell a little girl the story of a demon clown who brutally butchered children visiting an old amusement park. Jack can't seem to recall his name, but he knows that he absolutely hates children. Jack is disgusted to learn the girl he's talking to is only 11, then he says he does remember that clown's name, which is his own.
  Laughing Jack: Oh that's right, I remember his name now. How forgetful of me. (snickers) His name... was Jack. No no no, not like me. It was me.
• Attack on the Heart: In "Valentine Surprise", although Laughing Jack removes the children's hearts after killing them and places them on the windowsill, he also leaves a light on to lure their father to the backyard before he rips his heart out with his bare fist.
• Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: Laughing Jack notes violent ends as "happy endings" and is disgusted by what's genuinely sound. He doesn't see any point in watching a toy train if it isn't exploding or running anyone over, he thinks love is "nothing but a sick, twisted game of manipulation," and considers a Happily Married couple celebrating their relationship as "some such nauseating filth".
  Laughing Jack: They walked in the door, happy as a couple of... things that are happy I don't fucking know!
• Bait-and-Switch: In "Valentine Surprise", Laughing Jack says he threw a life-saver to the kids drowning in a pool, but instead of a float, it's actually a piece of "Life Savers".
  Laughing Jack: They were crying and struggling, so I threw them a Life Saver. [Beat] Kids like candy, right? (laughs)
• Being Watched: In "SLENDER MAN HALLOWEEN!", Slender Man assures that every time someone has felt that they were being watched, he was there.
  Slender Man: Just remember, that every single time you've been alone and you've known with absolute conviction someone was watching you, I was. Every time you thought you saw a ghost, you did. And every time you felt fear, I planted the seed.
• Book Ends: Laughing Jack's "Easter Story Time" starts with Carl's mother dying on Easter, and ends with Laughing Jack successfully tricking Carl into killing his own father, who was dressed as the Easter Bunny.
• Bowdlerise: What appears to be the original cut of "Laughing Jack (Story Time)" has Jack greet a girl with "Well hey there, sexy..." before he learns said girl is only 11 years old (which repulses him). The official upload cuts out the word "sexy" for understandable reasons.
• Censorship by Spelling: Laughing Jack starts his "Easter Story Time" by explaining that his videos were delayed because "YouTube can be a C-U-N-T for people like us."
• Child Hater: Laughing Jack makes no secret of his animosity towards "little, snot-nosed, ignorant, bratty, annoying PILES OF EXCREMENT- known as children," and takes great delight in describing how he horrifically butchers them alive. After he talks about his first kill, it seems that he has a different reason for killing kids... only to say "either that or I just hate the little annoying pricks."
• Cliffhanger: At the end of the Sally Williams video, after Sally kills her uncle, she hears a loud thud and says "Wh-What was that?" Then "Pop Goes The Weasel" starts to play and a familiar cackle can be heard...
• Copycat Mockery: Jason the Toymaker mimics his victim's crying to mock them. He repeats their (supposed) former sentiments in a childlike tone only to yell "LIAR!" Later, he suddenly breaks into a bawl that's louder than that of the child's sobbing to shut them up.
  Jason: "Oh Daddy, I want a toy, I want a little teddy bear!" (fake crying) LIAR!!!
• Cry Laughing: Jason the Toymaker doesn't appear to enjoy his monstrous ways very much, but he thinks violence is the means to stop people from leaving him. His last words to his next victim is "You will be my friend, forever!" before he ends off the video with a wicked yet sorrowful laugh.
• Deadly Euphemism: Implied. In his "Halloween Story Time", after he appears in Mary's room and threatens to kill her, Laughing Jack says they "played" together for a while, before her father runs in with a knife to kill the attacker but accidentally ends her daughter's suffering instead. After the story's end, Jack threatens his audience to leave before he has similar fun with them too.
  Laughing Jack: Now get the fuck out of my sight and have a happy Halloween! Or else - I'll show up in your room and heaven knows we'll have plenty of fun then! (cackles)
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Masky is a double-offender of unwanted names to his fellow proxies. He calls Hoodie "Brian" even though he told him not to use his real name. Toby dislikes being addressed by his surname, "Rogers", but Masky deliberately hurts his feelings by calling him that.
  Masky: Well if it isn't Mr. Rogers.
  Toby: Shut up! Y-you know I hate it when you call me that!
  Masky: Yeah, I do! That's what makes it funny.
• Driven to Madness: Candle Jack will take away anyone who says his name, and trap them before driving his captive insane, up to the extent that they'll gouge their own eyes out once they break completely.
  Candle Jack: I will tie you up and rapture you away to a final resting place. There you will be driven mad with constant mental simulation! And once I break you and your mind snaps completely, you will gouge your own eyes out of the sockets!
• Driven to Suicide: In "Suicide Mouse Voice", Mickey Mouse speaks of how and why he killed himself. After an implied tragedy in Disneyland, he's concluded that all happiness is a facade, and he "had to commit suicide [...] to become something more."
  Suicide Mouse: Disneyland. A magical place of adventure for children and their parents alike. But that was then. And this is now. I tore my own face off! I plunged a serrated knife into my own stomach! And I used my own guts as a noose!
• Easter Bunny: The illustration of Laughing Jack's "Easter Story Time" features the titular clown holding a large bunny head with its brains exposed. In the story itself, Laughing Jack and Carl await the Easter Bunny's arrival to kill him, then they use his entrails as decorations and his blood as paint for the eggs. Subverted when the clown reveals the "Bunny" to have been Carl's father all along, much to his dismay.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: Digital distortion is ever-apparent in Ben Drowned's speech, and some of his words are repeated in voices at different pitches and speeds.
• Evil Laugh: Befitting the Monster Clown's name, Laughing Jack always has a laugh for all that is violent. He may even huskily cackle his throat out until he coughs and curse over it.
• Evil Puppeteer: The Puppeteer turns his victims into puppets for his collection, and he describes his latest addition being a woman who delved heavily into drugs, alcohol and big parties. To his reasoning, "if her life meant so little to her, then she wouldn't mind someone else taking possession of it."
• False Friend: After Carl's mother passes away while he was only 10, Laughing Jack befriends the boy. Despite his disdain towards human beings of the child variety, they got along very well, so much so that Carl obeyed each of Jack's violent demands. Lastly, the clown tricks Carl into murdering his own father on Easter.
• Fan Community Nickname: In-universe, Slender Man calls Jeff's fans (or at least, those who dubbed him as "Jeff the Killer") as "his little smiles."
• Feel No Pain: Ticci Toby, just as in his original story, is incapable of feeling physical pain. He claims to like that part of himself, but it doesn't help with the heartache over his dead sister. The video "Memories" tells that Toby let a lot of physical bullying slide because he couldn't feel the hits, but he could feel shame and see the blood.
  Toby: I had Tourette's and a whole slur of disorders but, my favourite was the one that made me completely numb to any pain. Heh... Too bad it didn't work for a broken heart.
• Freudian Trio: This video depicts Masky, Hoodie and Toby as co-workers working under Slender Man. Masky is cocky, rebellious and toys with his victims, while Hoodie's ruthlessness is more focused. As Hoodie also points out, Masky's unprofessional behaviour is what got him replaced by Toby as Slender Man's Number Two, meaning they both answer to him, which Masky doesn't take too kindly. Toby does try to break up their debate (but it's Slender Man stepping in that finally gets Masky back in line).
• Hearing Voices: The Ticci Toby video that's aptly named "Kill Them All!" features Toby describing how Slender Man's Voice of the Legion penetrates his mind and repeatedly tells him to kill everyone.
  Toby: "Kill them all." That's what I hear... Every. Single. Day!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Carl attempts to attack Laughing Jack with his scissors as retribution for tricking him into killing his own father, but the boy trips on some guts and impales himself with his own scissors.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Some of Laughing Jack's "Story Time" videos have him tell of when he committed murder on a holiday. He's done so for Christmas, Halloween, Easter and Valentine's Day.
• I Love the Dead: A not-so-romantic example. In Laughing Jack's "Halloween Story Time", Laughing Jack passive-aggressively threatens to kill a child's parents and fuck their corpses in front of the crying young one just to spite them.
• Ignored Epiphany: Downplayed in "Ticci Toby - Memories", where he briefly pauses attacking a woman who begged to not be killed, and contemplates if he could let her live- scratch that, if she deserved to live. Toby allows her time to crawl away, until he remembers her being among his past bullies, and quickly forgets about sparing her.
• Insane Troll Logic: Suicide Mouse's twisted reasoning for wanting to kill everyone is to make them miserable, as eliminating the mask of happiness is more preferable, or so he thinks.
  Suicide Mouse: Now in death, I can kill all the false happiness. I can make you all as miserable as you were meant to be, ho-ho-ho-ho! Have you considered that without happiness, you will know peace? When you're no longer trying to put on a facade, you can be yourself! Don't worry, I'll kill you, your children, your neighbours- (chuckles) I'll kill everyone! But I had to be the first, the inaugural sacrifice.
• Interrupted Suicide: After he snaps and kills his abusive stepfather, Toby flees and intends on "escaping this meaningless world". He blacks out after his suicide attempt, and the next thing he sees is Slender Man, who tells him that his time to die has not come yet. Toby then becomes his subordinate.
  Slender Man: "Toby... open your eyes, child. It is not time for your end."
  Toby: And he was right. That... was just the beginning of my journey.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: In line with the story he comes from, Laughing Jack's videos often have a haunting tune of "Pop Goes The Weasel" in the background while the Monster Clown gleefully talks about something horrifying.
• It's Personal: At first, Toby forgets the reason why he's targeting this one girl, but then he recognises her boyfriend and brother in a photograph of herself, and remembers them being some of many people who bullied him earlier in his life, mocking and beating him badly. He then stops restraining himself and exacts his revenge.
  Toby: I did however feel the shame, and I knew I was being hurt because there was so much blood everywhere. At the time I let it slide because I couldn't feel the hits anyways. B-Bullshit like that, cannot be allowed to go unpunished.
• Last-Second Word Swap: When Carl laments that he wishes his father could've been here to celebrate Easter with him, a disinterested Laughing Jack comes close to insulting Carl until he swaps it for a pleasant word instead. This is before he reveals that the Easter Bunny they killed was Carl's father in a costume.
  Laughing Jack: Carl, you silly little son of a- freaking wonderful person.
• Microwave the Dog: In "Easter Story Time", Carl obeys Laughing Jack's order to put his puppy in the microwave.
• Mind Rape: Slender Man often wrecks Toby's already unstable mind to keep him obedient. In "Kill Them All!", Toby goes into detail of how he's haunted by Slender Man even when he's not there, and can feel himself being restrained and having thoughts injected into his mind. When Toby speaks of how he reaches inside his brain, a squelching sound can be heard. In "Time", Toby describes how the visions Slender Man has granted him shows him all the ways people can be killed, and the thoughts can only be momentarily silenced by taking a life.
  Toby: I feel him, reaching... inside my brain, making me think things that aren't my... thoughts. Making me do things... that I... don't want to do.
• Moral Myopia: Toby wants to know who his latest to-be murder victim is, so he asks for her name while she strugglingly crawls to the backdoor to escape. Her lack of an answer angers Toby, who figures that he asked a simple question.
• Mouth Stitched Shut:
  • In The Puppeteer's video, he takes a young lady who was drinking her life away as his next victim. She awakes with a splitting headache from the hangover, as well as the horrifying revelation that her lips were sealed shut from her Puppet Permutation.
    The Puppeteer: She screamed so loudly that she ripped the stitching out of her mouth. Tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk. What a naughty girl. I had to... correct her. I don't think she'll be screaming ever again.
  • In "SLENDER MAN SAW JEFF THE KILLER!!!", Jeff's second encounter with Slender Man results in the latter getting a smile of red thread sewn into his face. This makes the first time that Slender Man has ever smiled, but he swears that Jeff will die the next time they meet.
• Murder by Mistake:
  • In Laughing Jack's "Easter Story Time", after having coaxed the young Carl into violence, Jack tricks him into killing his own father, who was dressed as the Easter Bunny.
  • Similarly to his original story, in Laughing Jack's "Halloween Story Time", the Monster Clown brutalises a child before the parent runs to the rescue with a weapon and ends up killing the child instead. In this case, the butcher knife that Mary's father wields lands violently into her daughter's forehead as Jack vanishes out of the way.
• Not Me This Time: Laughing Jack is a murderous clown, but he says that he had nothing to do with the death of Carl's mother in his "Easter Story Time", as he only appears in the story a while later.
  Laughing Jack: I forget how she died. I certainly had nothing to do with it, you judgemental pricks! As far as anyone knows... but, the bitch was deader than a goddamn door nail! (laughs)
• Number of the Beast: In the Sonic.EXE video, Sonic counts to 10 for a game of Hide-and-seek. His voice becomes distorted and deeper, and when he gets to the number 6, he says it thrice.
• Number Two: Toby is Slender Man's second in command. Masky originally had that position, but was replaced for being unprofessional. Masky isn't very keen on having to listen to Toby, often being abrasive to him until Slender Man steps in.
• Organ Theft: Eyeless Jack steals organs from the unconscious to sustain himself. In his first video, he takes a kidney and keeps his victim alive, but he relishes in the horror that they shall come to upon waking up to find the scars of his actions. In "Decay", he feeds on more than just one organ, preying on his victims until their bodies eventually succumb.
  Eyeless Jack: The hunger does not wait, and this shell is decaying. Eating organs brings me strength, but the husk withers.
• Patricide:
  • In his "Easter Story Time", Laughing Jack tricks Carl into killing his own father. Carl thought that he and Jack were targeting the Easter Bunny, but when Carl wishes that his father could've seen how they used the Bunny's body for the Easter festivities, Jack takes off the rabbit head to reveal Carl's dead father, much to the boy's dismay.
  • Ticci Toby mentions that he butchered his abusive step-dad, and he doesn't miss him at all. Soon after the deed, he fled and considered suicide after all that's happened, but Slender Man has other ideas for him.
    Toby: Dad... was just, an "amazing" father, always getting drunk and beating us... He's dead now. (laughs)
• Parody Sue: The child victim of Laughing Jack's "Halloween Story Time" is a girl named Mary Sue, who is described with some perfectly positive traits that aren't touched upon again, and they do nothing to save her from the clown's wrath.
  Laughing Jack: Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mary Sue. And Mary Sue was about the happiest girl in the world. She had loving parents, an adorable little sister, and she was one of the brightest kids in her class. Do you know why I'm telling you about such a normal little girl?
• Pay Evil unto Evil: In "Memories", Ticci Toby initially doesn't realise that his next victim was one of his bullies, but once he does from a photograph atop her fireplace, he doesn't hold back anymore and kills her.
  Toby: Bullshit like that, cannot be allowed to go unpunished. These cruel, wicked people need to learn that they are not immune- to suffering. They will be the ones who suffer the most.
• Puppet Permutation: The Puppeteer keeps a collection of people-turned-puppets, and those he has his sights on adding to said collection are transformed when they're unconscious. The details are kept ambiguous, besides giving them a Mouth Stitched Shut, for his latest victim at least.
• Reincarnation: Although he says himself to be "in death," Mickey/Suicide Mouse kills himself to give up his life for a rebirth, and becomes a more deadly creature.
  Suicide Mouse: I had to commit... suicide. Because that allowed me to become something more. A death, in exchange for a rebirth.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: In Laughing Jack's "Halloween Story Time", he yells at a (supposed) child to shut up for answering his rhetorical question as if his audience was trying to teach him what he already knew. He similarly insults the viewers in "Easter Story Time", where he calls them "rambling raucus ridiculous repribates" after asking them if they know what his devious plan was, because he hadn't told them yet.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Sometimes people run from poor old Jack..." in this Laughing Jack voice impression is a reference to another Jack, Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
  • Laughing Jack's Story Time videos have a Running Gag of Jack confusing his lines with ones from a different work.
    • He starts his "Christmas Tale" with "A long time ago in a galaxy far far away- no wait, that doesn't sound right. Once Upon a Time in Mexico- no that's not it. FUCK!"
    • In his "Halloween Story Time", he says "Shazam!!" and "In brightest day, in blackest night-" as he tries to recall his catchphrase.
    • "Easter Story Time": "Once upon a midnight dreary- uh erm FUCK! Not long ago in the Hundred Acre Wood (chuckles) ooh yes."
  • In Laughing Jack's "Easter Story Time", he compares Carl attempting to get back at him for tricking the former into killing his father to a certain celebrity on drugs.
    Laughing Jack: He grabbed the scissors that he used to murder his father (chuckles) and came charging at me like a Kardashian on crack!
• Signing-Off Catchphrase: Slender Man has a habit of ending his videos with "you most certainly will die."
• Sound-Only Death: Since several videos are simply voice impressions with sound effects, if someone gets killed, only audio is heard. In Sally Williams' video, she kills her murderer, her uncle Johnny, and Sally's lines before the sounds of violence and the uncle's screams leave just enough room to imagine how grisly the scene is. Johnny is last heard slowly croaking after being stabbed.
• Space Whale Aesop: Besides saying that the lesson to be learned from his "Easter Story Time" is that "life is random, stupid and pointless," he adds on with the unlikely outcome that "you could be going through life just fine and one day a handsome clown can ruin it all."
• Speak of the Devil: Candle Jack dares the audience to speak his name, after describing how he'll kidnap them and drive them insane once they do.
  Candle Jack: Once you say my name out loud, I will come and whisk you away, you will never be heard from again!
• Stepford Smiler: Discussed (although to an exaggerated extent) in Suicide Mouse's point of view, he believes that true happiness doesn't exist, it's only a mask.
  Suicide Mouse: I discovered that happiness is a mask, worn by those who dwell in misery. There is no such thing as true happiness.
• Straw Nihilist: Laughing Jack concludes the moral of his "Easter Story Time" to be that "life is random, stupid and pointless," despite him being the instigator of doom in his own story.
• Suddenly Shouting:
  • In "Laughing Jack (Story Time)", Laughing Jack interrupts his own story by yelling.
    Laughing Jack: Once upon a time- OH THAT'S PRETTY EXCITING, HUH? (laughs)
  • In "Jeff (Original Voice)", Jeff's volume increases dramatically when he says "not".
    Jeff: "You're a monster." That's what they say. But I am NOT- a monster. My name is Jeff. And I... love... blood... and you are filled with it. But NOT- for long.
  • Jason the Toymaker mimics his victim's whining and fakes tears before returning to his regular voice to yell "LIAR!"
• Take That, Audience!: Played with. There are several apparent jabs towards creepypasta fans, particularly the ones who downplay the horror of the characters and/or attempt to be like them.
  • Hoodie tells off the viewers that they can't be proxies like him, as it's a heartless job of murder and submission to Slender Man, and they don't have what it takes.
    Hoodie: And no, you pathetic fucking wretch. You can't be a proxy. You can't be one of us. We are not your friends. We are the monsters you should fear. You have no place in the new world.
  • In "Pathetic Humans", the "Slender Man stabbing" event is referenced as Slender Man scoffs at those who attempt to appease him.
    Slender Man: I have witnessed the youth of this world trying to murder their friends, in hopes that it will allow them to look upon me and join me at the "mansion." (chuckles) There is no mansion, you foolish mortals. We are not your friends. [...] Not every emotional child with daddy issues deserves a place in our new world.
• To the Pain: In "Eyeless Jack (Hold Still)", Eyeless Jack describes how he will take his time with the Organ Theft from his next victim and make it very painful.
  Eyeless Jack: I can take my time and plot out exactly how I'm going to take what I need, and how I'm going to slice you open. It could be quick and painless, or slow and torturous. I have a difficult time deciding sometimes. I think for you, I shall make it slow and painful. You will feel this, but you will be unable to react. Hold still...
• Tragic Villain: Toby may be one of Slender Man's top henchmen, but he suffers a lot for a boy who feels no physical pain. He's content with being a proxy to release all his pent-up anger after years of bullying and heartache, but Slender Man constantly wrecks his mental state further to maintain obedience. Toby has trouble discerning what's real and what isn't, all he can recall is that his family is dead, and murder is what briefly gives him peace from the voices injected in his mind.
• Trapped in Villainy: It's uncertain how well-to-do Toby would've been without the Slender Man's interference, but he's definitely trapped as his proxy. Even when his master isn't present, Toby is haunted by him as if he is, sensing his reach and restraining over him so that he can't escape.
  Toby: The trees, all turn into him, his reach extending over me, restraining my hands and my feet, so I can't run. I-I can't m-move.
• Twisted Christmas:
  • In "Laughing Jack's Story Time (A Christmas Tale)", two kids find Laughing Jack eating their candy canes and arranging their Christmas tree ornaments. Their very presence, as well as asking whether he was the real Santa, annoys him so much that he rips off their faces and pulls out their intestines.
  • "Ticci Toby - Merry X-Mas" has Toby telling his own way of celebrating the holidays, decorating a tree with human organs as ornaments and instestines as garland. He ends off the video by saying one may find him instead when they come downstairs to look for Santa.
    Toby: It's like I'm Santa, and my hatchets are my little helpers. So just keep the thought, in the back of your mind, that as you investigate that strange noise in your living room, you might not see a jolly old fat man devouring the milk and cookies, but me - standing over your butchered parents, covered in their blood... heh. Merry fucking Christmas.
• Vader Breath: Interestingly for a digital entity, Ben makes labored breathing sounds. His inhales and exhales occur at different pitches of distorted voice, befitting for the spirit of a boy who drowned and possessed a game cartridge.
• Valentine's Day Violence: "Laughing Jack's Story Time (Valentine Surprise)" has Laughing Jack narrate the time he killed an entire family on Valentine's Day. When the parents go out for a romantic dinner, Jack murders the children by drowning some of them in their own pool and cutting out their hearts to leave at the windowsill. When the parents return, they too suffer similarly grisly fates.
• Valentine's Day Vitriol: In "Valentine Surprise", before Laughing Jack tells of how he killed a family on the evening of Valentine's Day, he calls the very holiday revolting and useless. He also appears to be disgusted by affection and goodness in general.
  Laughing Jack: Our story begins in a picturesque Midwestern town in America, on Valentine's Day. The most useless, insignificant, putrid holiday known to man or clown!
• Voice of the Legion: When Slender Man "speaks", many layers of other voices and whispers can be heard accompanying his clearer intimidating voice, even from all around one's hearing. Toby notes that hearing Slender Man talk is to hear several voices at once before his true commanding voice makes itself clear.
  Toby: I can hear him speaking. But it's not just one voice, i-it's a choir of voices- all speaking at the same time. And not one of them sounds human.
• Wicked Toymaker: Just like in his original story, Jason the Toymaker has terrific skill in making toys... and severe abandonment issues which he deals with through violent means. When his captive is still reluctant to befriend him after he's shown all the kinds of toys he can make, he gets very angry, and figures resorting to force his captive into loyalty by turning them into a toy.
  Jason: You didn't really want a toy, did you? I'm offering all the toys in the world and you... you're afraid of me. Why? I'll give you something you can really be afraid of (chuckles).

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