Goatse: Difference between revisions

Jump to: navigation, search

Goatse (view source)

Revision as of 06:42, 26 January 2024

320 bytes added ,  26 January
no edit summary
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
No edit summary
Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit
(13 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown)
Line 15: Line 15:
'''Goatse.cx''' (also known as Goatse) was a [[shock site]] that prominently featured an image titled "Hello.jpg" depicting a man stretching his anus using both hands, revealing his anal cavity. This image became the first to be used in bait-and-switch pranks due to its shock value, where a user would bait another user into clicking a link. The website used the .cx domain because of its phonetic similarity to the word "sex", but the Christmas Island authorities eventually shut down the website. The image used on the site, originally named "gap3.jpg", was sourced from the Gap.zip file, which contained several shock images of a man named Kirk Johnson "using dildos and butt plugs to stretch his anus". It is unclear whether Johnson posted Gap.zip himself, or if it originated from emails, FTP servers, or other sources.  
'''Goatse.cx''' (also known as Goatse) was a [[shock site]] that prominently featured an image titled "Hello.jpg" depicting a man stretching his anus using both hands, revealing his anal cavity. This image became the first to be used in bait-and-switch pranks due to its shock value, where a user would bait another user into clicking a link. The website used the .cx domain because of its phonetic similarity to the word "sex", but the Christmas Island authorities eventually shut down the website. The image used on the site, originally named "gap3.jpg", was sourced from the Gap.zip file, which contained several shock images of a man named Kirk Johnson "using dildos and butt plugs to stretch his anus". It is unclear whether Johnson posted Gap.zip himself, or if it originated from emails, FTP servers, or other sources.  


In addition to "Hello.jpg" under the "The Receiver" section, the full website also featured "The Giver" section, which showed a man with a large penis reaching up to his chest, suggesting the "giver" was about to insert it into another man's anus. The website contained dead links to sites like urinalpoop.org and dolphinsex.org, and older links led to biganal.com. Kirk Johnson was also featured on other shock sites, including [[Detroithardcore]], [[Bottle Guy]], and [[Goatsee.com]].
In addition to "Hello.jpg" under the "The Receiver" section, the full website also featured "The Giver" section, which showed a man with a large penis reaching up to his chest, suggesting the "giver" was about to insert it into another man's anus. The website contained dead links to sites like urinalpoop.org and dolphinsex.org, and older links led to biganal.com. Kirk Johnson was also featured on other shock sites, including Detroithardcore.com, Bottle Guy, and Goatsee.com.
==History and background==
==History and background==
The ''Goatse'' image first emerged in 1997 as a part of a collection of 40 images of a man named Kirk Johnson, which were shared among the internet's gay porn community through email, FTP, and message boards like Usenet. However, when a hacker group called the "Hick crew" consisting mainly of teenage hackers and internet trolls, acquired the collection, they used one of the images, Johnson's stretched anus, to prank each other and their "enemies", including Christian chat forums, spamming the image until all other users left the chatroom. The image was stored in an unlabeled directory owned by one of the Hick crew members, but a hacker and Hick associate named Merl1n saw a better way to distribute it and registered the domain ''Goatse.cx'' in 1999. The website became incredibly popular as a prank, with users sending unsuspecting individuals an apparently innocent link, only to shock them with the image.<ref name="vice">Hernandez, Patricia. "Shit, Death, and Gore: How Shock Sites Shaped the Internet." Vice, 5 Aug. 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxnw7b/shit-death-and-gore-how-shock-sites-shaped-the-internet.</ref>
The ''Goatse'' image first emerged in 1997 as a part of a collection of 40 images of a man named Kirk Johnson, which were shared among the internet's gay porn community through email, FTP, and message boards like Usenet. However, when a hacker group called the "Hick crew" consisting mainly of teenage hackers and internet trolls, acquired the collection, they used one of the images, Johnson's stretched anus, to prank each other and their "enemies", including Christian chat forums, spamming the image until all other users left the chatroom. The image was stored in an unlabeled directory owned by one of the Hick crew members, but a hacker and Hick associate named Merl1n saw a better way to distribute it and registered the domain ''Goatse.cx'' in 1999. The website became incredibly popular as a prank, with users sending unsuspecting individuals an apparently innocent link, only to shock them with the image.<ref name="vice">Hernandez, Patricia. "Shit, Death, and Gore: How Shock Sites Shaped the Internet." Vice, 5 Aug. 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxnw7b/shit-death-and-gore-how-shock-sites-shaped-the-internet.</ref>
Line 24: Line 24:
On April 30, 2007, the ''goatse.cx'' domain name was sold at an auction to an unknown bidder. However, the first auction was plagued by fake bids, prompting a reactivation of the auction.<ref>Grossman, Lev. "Goatse.cx Now For Sale (Seriously)." Wired, 9 Apr. 2007, http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/04/goatsecx_now_fo.html.</ref> The second auction was similarly affected, leading to Seobidding.com's announcement that the website would be sold for $500,000 and that legal action would be taken against the fake bidders.<ref>"Goatse.cx." SEO Bidding, archived from the original on 13 Jul. 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20070713140015/http://www.seobidding.com/buy/auction/goatse.cx.</ref> As of November 25, 2007, the website was still for sale, with a minimum asking price of $50,200. In 2008, a new owner purchased the website for 8,000 euros, and it is now being developed as a subdomain service for hosting websites. While plans for a cryptocurrency called Goatse Coin were previously announced, no progress has been made.<ref>Caraan, Sophie. "Goatse Keeps Trying to Make Money with Cryptocurrency." Vice, 21 Feb. 2018, https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwbwa7/goatse-keeps-trying-to-make-money-with-cryptocurrency.</ref>
On April 30, 2007, the ''goatse.cx'' domain name was sold at an auction to an unknown bidder. However, the first auction was plagued by fake bids, prompting a reactivation of the auction.<ref>Grossman, Lev. "Goatse.cx Now For Sale (Seriously)." Wired, 9 Apr. 2007, http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/04/goatsecx_now_fo.html.</ref> The second auction was similarly affected, leading to Seobidding.com's announcement that the website would be sold for $500,000 and that legal action would be taken against the fake bidders.<ref>"Goatse.cx." SEO Bidding, archived from the original on 13 Jul. 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20070713140015/http://www.seobidding.com/buy/auction/goatse.cx.</ref> As of November 25, 2007, the website was still for sale, with a minimum asking price of $50,200. In 2008, a new owner purchased the website for 8,000 euros, and it is now being developed as a subdomain service for hosting websites. While plans for a cryptocurrency called Goatse Coin were previously announced, no progress has been made.<ref>Caraan, Sophie. "Goatse Keeps Trying to Make Money with Cryptocurrency." Vice, 21 Feb. 2018, https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwbwa7/goatse-keeps-trying-to-make-money-with-cryptocurrency.</ref>


After the Christmas Island Internet Administration put the domain ''goatse.cx'' back into the available domain pool in January 2007, a typosquatting-like website about financing was found on the domain.<ref>''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070324073130/http://goatse.cx/ Goatse.cx]''. Archived from [http://goatse.cx/ the original] on 24 March 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref> On January 16, the domain was registered through domain registrar Variomedia, and the registrant attempted to auction the right to use the domain. The first attempt to sell the domain by SEOBidding had a reserve of $120 which was not met. On July 4, 2008, the website was relaunched with a parody of the original site, replacing the "Hello.jpg" image with an image of ''[[wikipedia:Bill O'Reilly|Bill O'Reilly]]'', while the file name and alt text remained the same as before. In December, the image was changed again to showcase a stylized representation of hello.jpg, featuring a pair of silver robotic hands 'stretching' a metallic, circular wall aperture in what appears to be a futuristic factory setting, with a photoshopped image of the character Gumby next to it. The image had a link to a site called imagechan.com. The website still contained text above the image mentioning that it was still for sale.<ref>"Goatse.cx." Internet Archive, archived from the original on 18 Dec. 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20081218034824/http://goatse.cx/.</ref>
After the Christmas Island Internet Administration put the domain ''goatse.cx'' back into the available domain pool in January 2007, a typosquatting-like website about financing was found on the domain.<ref>''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070324073130/http://goatse.cx/ Goatse.cx]''. Archived from [http://goatse.cx/ the original] on 24 March 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref> On January 16, the domain was registered through domain registrar Variomedia, and the registrant attempted to auction the right to use the domain. The first attempt to sell the domain by SEOBidding had a reserve of $120 which was not met. On July 4, 2008, the website was relaunched with a parody of the original site, replacing the "Hello.jpg" image with an image of ''[[wikipedia:Bill O'Reilly|Bill O'Reilly]]'', while the file name and alt text remained the same as before. In December, the image was changed again to showcase a stylized representation of hello.jpg, featuring a pair of silver robotic hands <nowiki>'stretching' a metallic, circular wall aperture in what appears to be a futuristic factory setting, with a photoshopped image of the character Gumby next to it</nowiki> (that is actually taken from a trailer for the Game Boy Advance video game ''Gumby VS the Astrobots''). The image had a link to a site called imagechan.com. The website still contained text above the image mentioning that it was still for sale.<ref>"Goatse.cx." Internet Archive, archived from the original on 18 Dec. 2008, https://web.archive.org/web/20081218034824/http://goatse.cx/.</ref>


On October 21, 2009, the Rick Latona "Daily Domains" newsletter advertised the goatse.cx domain for sale at $15,000, highlighting it as a "famous site" with numerous backlinks. The site was updated in April 2010 to announce the upcoming beta release of an emailing service called "Goatse Stinger 2.0" and included a Yahoo! mailing list and a parody sketch of the infamous "Hello.jpg" image. However, the email service was never launched beyond this point, and by June 2011, the "www." version of the website redirected to a web-hosting company's site. In October 2012, the goatse.cx domain was acquired by a new owner who planned to offer a webmail service with ''goatse.cx'' email addresses. The domain redirected to ''signup.goatse.cx'', with a launch planned for early December 2012. The website launched an [[wikipedia:Indiegogo, Inc.|''Indiegogo'']] campaign in 2013 to fund the email service.<ref>"Goatse.cx." Internet Archive, archived from the original on 21 Oct. 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20121021141400/http://signup.goatse.cx/.</ref> In January 2014, the site announced the development of its own cryptocurrency, "Goatse Coin". In December of that year, the website began offering subdomains. The latest version of the site offers users the opportunity to purchase pixels for advertising purposes using the Ethereum blockchain. As of 2018, the owner has sold 6,000 pixels, earning $624 at .001 ETH (worth $104) per pixel, according to Vice. Although plans for the site's email system, Goatse Mail, were previously announced, it has yet to be launched.
On October 21, 2009, the Rick Latona "Daily Domains" newsletter advertised the goatse.cx domain for sale at $15,000, highlighting it as a "famous site" with numerous backlinks. The site was updated in April 2010 to announce the upcoming beta release of an emailing service called "Goatse Stinger 2.0" and included a Yahoo! mailing list and a parody sketch of the infamous "Hello.jpg" image. However, the email service was never launched beyond this point, and by June 2011, the "www." version of the website redirected to a web-hosting company's site. In October 2012, the goatse.cx domain was acquired by a new owner who planned to offer a webmail service with ''goatse.cx'' email addresses. The domain redirected to ''signup.goatse.cx'', with a launch planned for early December 2012. The website launched an [[wikipedia:Indiegogo, Inc.|''Indiegogo'']] campaign in 2013 to fund the email service.<ref>"Goatse.cx." Internet Archive, archived from the original on 21 Oct. 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20121021141400/http://signup.goatse.cx/.</ref> In January 2014, the site announced the development of its own cryptocurrency, "Goatse Coin". In December of that year, the website began offering subdomains. The latest version of the site offers users the opportunity to purchase pixels for advertising purposes using the Ethereum blockchain. As of 2018, the owner has sold 6,000 pixels, earning $624 at .001 ETH (worth $104) per pixel, according to Vice. Although plans for the site's email system, Goatse Mail, were previously announced, it has yet to be launched.
==In popular culture==
==In popular culture==
[[File:Goatse.jpg|thumb|293x293px|Hackers successfully hijack an electronic billboard to display the dreaded image.]]
[[File:Goatse.jpg|thumb|293x293px|Hackers successfully hijack an electronic billboard to display the dreaded image.]]
Goatse has become an Internet meme due to many users being tricked into viewing the site or a mirror of it. The infamous images were posted on the official [[wikipedia:Oprah Winfrey|''Oprah Winfrey'']] Message Boards in 2000, causing the board to be retired shortly afterwards. [[wikipedia:Slashdot|''Slashdot'']] also altered its threaded discussion forum display software to prevent users from tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting the site.<ref>Levy, Steven. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Penguin Books, 2001. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=lVXnmsCCd3wC&q=goatse&pg=PA274.</ref> The use of ''goatse.cx'' as a "fake" link to shock friends became popular and was later adapted as a technique for common shock sites such as [[Tubgirl]].<ref name="vice" /> Website authors have used the goatse.cx image to deter hot-linking to their site by replacing the hot-linked image with an embarrassing one. This sends a clear message to the offending website's operators visible to anyone who views the web page in question. For instance, in 2007, ''[[wikipedia:Wired (magazine)|WIRED]]'' hot-linked to another site in an article about the "sexiest geeks of 2007" and the site replaced the hot-linked image with one from goatse.cx.<ref>Waters, Richard. "What's the Story Behind the Bill O'Reilly Goatse Image?" The Washington Post, 9 Jul. 2008, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/09/AR2008070901983.html.</ref> The site's images, including hello.jpg and others, have also become subjects of parodies, mirrors, and tributes.<ref>"Goatse." Sam Hocevar, archived from the original on 18 Jul. 2016, http://sam.zoy.org/goatse/.</ref> Additionally, the Goatse image has been used for various parodies, such as in the aftermath of [[wikipedia:Hurricane Charley|''Hurricane Charley'']] in August 2004 when a photograph purporting to show "the hands of God" in the cloud formations circulated via email.<ref>Mikkelson, David. "God Hands." Snopes.com, 26 Aug. 2015, http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/godhands.asp.</ref> Similarly, discs containing a leaked Mac OS X build, OSx86, were distributed in 2005 on [[wikipedia:BitTorrent|''BitTorrent'']] filesharing networks, but instead of the expected Mac OS, the discs reportedly displayed the Goatse image when booted.<ref>[http://www.tuaw.com/2005/08/12/jumping-on-the-bandwagon-os-x-on-x86-omg/ Jumping on the bandwagon: OS X on x86 OMG] by Scott McNulty, published on TUAW.com on August 12, 2005.</ref> [[GNAA]] also did the same thing for the supposedly leaked [[wikipedia:Mac OS X Tiger|''Mac OS X Tiger'']] release for Intel x86 processors.<ref>Farivar, Cyrus. "The Greatest Internet Moments of All Time." Gizmodo, 23 Jan. 2006, https://gizmodo.com/107940/macindell-part-quatre-the-ruby-goldmine.</ref>
Goatse has become an Internet meme due to many users being tricked into viewing the site or a mirror of it. The infamous images were posted on the official [[wikipedia:Oprah Winfrey|''Oprah Winfrey'']] Message Boards in 2000, causing the board to be retired shortly afterwards. [[wikipedia:Slashdot|''Slashdot'']] also altered its threaded discussion forum display software to prevent users from tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting the site.<ref>Levy, Steven. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Penguin Books, 2001. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=lVXnmsCCd3wC&q=goatse&pg=PA274.</ref> The use of ''goatse.cx'' as a "fake" link to shock friends became popular and was later adapted as a technique for common shock sites such as [[Tubgirl]].<ref name="vice" /> Website authors have used the goatse.cx image to deter hot-linking to their site by replacing the hot-linked image with an embarrassing one. This sends a clear message to the offending website's operators visible to anyone who views the web page in question. For instance, in 2007, ''[[wikipedia:Wired (magazine)|WIRED]]'' hot-linked to another site in an article about the "sexiest geeks of 2007" and the site replaced the hot-linked image with one from goatse.cx.<ref>Waters, Richard. "What's the Story Behind the Bill O'Reilly Goatse Image?" The Washington Post, 9 Jul. 2008, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/09/AR2008070901983.html.</ref> The site's images, including hello.jpg and others, have also become subjects of parodies, mirrors, and tributes.<ref>"Goatse." Sam Hocevar, archived from the original on 18 Jul. 2016, http://sam.zoy.org/goatse/.</ref> Additionally, the Goatse image has been used for various parodies, such as in the aftermath of [[wikipedia:Hurricane Charley|''Hurricane Charley'']] in August 2004 when a photograph purporting to show "the hands of God" in the cloud formations circulated via email.<ref>Mikkelson, David. "God Hands." Snopes.com, 26 Aug. 2015, http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/godhands.asp.</ref> Similarly, discs containing a leaked Mac OS X build, OSx86, were distributed in 2005 on [[wikipedia:BitTorrent|''BitTorrent'']] filesharing networks, but instead of the expected Mac OS, the discs reportedly displayed the Goatse image when booted.<ref>[http://www.tuaw.com/2005/08/12/jumping-on-the-bandwagon-os-x-on-x86-omg/ Jumping on the bandwagon: OS X on x86 OMG] by Scott McNulty, published on TUAW.com on August 12, 2005.</ref> [[wikipedia:Gay Nigger Association of America|GNAA]] also did the same thing for the supposedly leaked [[wikipedia:Mac OS X Tiger|''Mac OS X Tiger'']] release for Intel x86 processors.<ref>Farivar, Cyrus. "The Greatest Internet Moments of All Time." Gizmodo, 23 Jan. 2006, https://gizmodo.com/107940/macindell-part-quatre-the-ruby-goldmine.</ref>


[[File:Olympics Goatse.png|thumb|left|200px|The alternative of the 2012 Summer Olympics's logo before it was later removed.<ref name="Wired">''[https://www.wired.com/2007/06/goatsecx-and-th/ Goatse.cx and the Birth of the Internet Meme]''. Wired. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref>]]
[[File:Olympics Goatse.png|thumb|left|200px|The alternative of the 2012 Summer Olympics's logo before it was later removed.<ref name="Wired">''[https://www.wired.com/2007/06/goatsecx-and-th/ Goatse.cx and the Birth of the Internet Meme]''. Wired. 4 June 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref>]]
Line 45: Line 46:
*'''The entire image collection''': web.archive.org/web/20010531175234/goatse.cx/contrib/gap.zip
*'''The entire image collection''': web.archive.org/web/20010531175234/goatse.cx/contrib/gap.zip
**'''Mirror''': goatse.info/contrib/gap.zip
**'''Mirror''': goatse.info/contrib/gap.zip
*goatse.me
*<s>goatse.me</s>  (domain suspended)
*goatse.ru
*goatse.ru
*goatse.fr
*goatse.fr
*goatse.info
*goatse.info
*rdk.deadbsd.org/www.goatse.cx
*rdk.deadbsd.org/electricretard
*web.archive.org/web/20040925091800/goatse.ca
*'''[[LOLShock]] mirror''': web.archive.org/web/20120113141646/<nowiki>http://www.goatse.bz/</nowiki>
*'''[[LOLShock]] mirror''': web.archive.org/web/20120113141646/<nowiki>http://www.goatse.bz/</nowiki>
*'''[[Shockchan]] mirror''': web.archive.org/web/20180309165631/shockchan.com/goatse
*'''[[Shockchan]] mirror''': web.archive.org/web/20180309165631/shockchan.com/goatse
Line 57: Line 61:
==See also==
==See also==
*[[Bigfootproof.com]]
*[[Bigfootproof.com]]
{{LOLShock}}
{{Shockchan}}
{{Comments}}
{{Comments}}
[[Category:Shock sites]]
[[Category:Shock sites]]
Retrieved from "https://screamer.wiki/Special:MobileDiff/128147...145310"

Navigation menu