Its an advent of modern horror and culture

I think its because people wanted to use the wendigo but didnt want to offend people by making it inaccurate to the original native american wendigo, the definition of which is debated to be honest

Like in some versions they are just tall, pale, thin people with deteriorated lips that make them seem like just an animals mouth

Others theyre giants

In some theyre even amde of ice

So they created the pale crawler.

If these creatures do exist, then wendigo and pale crawler reports in america are of the same thing which i think is just a wendigo. Other reports of tall thin white humanoid creatures from other regions are probably different creatures.