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What's Wrong With This Picture?
- For other screamers, see What's Wrong With This Picture? (disambiguation).
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This page is about a screamer or shock site, whose original copy has been deleted. |
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What's Wrong With This Picture?, also called What's Wrong? or What's wrong with this image? is an infamous internet screamer created by Jaybill McCarthy, originally posted to his website "Jaybill" in February 2002.[1] Many copies have since appeared on the internet and is an example of an early e-mail chain-letter prank.
Content
The animation disguises itself as a normal stock photo of a dining room; depicting an open window, table, chairs, paintings, and flowers. The viewer is then asked to find something wrong with it, however, there are no actual errors in the picture itself. After about 30 seconds the screen cuts to a grainy black and white closeup of an eyeless woman with a wide mouth putting her hands around the sides of her face with her pinky fingers raised, accompanied by audio of Mrs. Mae Kilgore (from the 1957 film From Hell It Came, played by Linda Watkins) screaming, albeit muffled, distorted and echoing. The animation repeats afterward,
The screamer face itself originates from gettyimages,[2] and was created by photographer 'Gandee Vasan' in 1998 as a stock photo inspired by The Scream painting by Edvard Munch. This stock image was also used (albeit heavily edited) for the cover of the 2001 film Maniacts.
Jaybill himself is the one who doctored the stock photo into its now infamous form we know today, starting with this screamer and then the ones succeeding it.[3]
Impact
- See Also: Reaction videos
The animation has been reuploaded on multiple websites including YouTube, where it has gained many views. The screamer has also been featured on America's Funniest Home Videos (used there as a substitute screamer in place of Regan MacNeil in The Maze) numerous times. Screamers of this kind became popular as they began to circulate on the Internet. A few more examples of this are What's wrong with this picture?, Zoeken, Forest-wmv and Basement Ghost.
The screamer gained so much traction in its day, that it managed to land a spot in the New York Times on April 22, 2002. The article hosts a small interview with Jaybill, who describes both his website and the screamer which was made "exclusively for the purpose of scaring my girlfriend."[4]
Interestingly enough, the very *first* screamer reaction video on the internet may have originated alongside this screamer. In mid-2002, Jaybill posted an article on his website in regards to a video sent to him from a subject reacting to this screamer. The subject/victim of the video is named "Jose."[5]
Trivia
The screamer image made an appearance on a horror film titled Maniacts[6] (also referred to as Maniacs In Love in some territories), it was released in 2001. The plot of the movie revolves around two serial killers, Joe Spinelli (Jeff Fahey) and Beth Windsor (Kellie Waymire) who escape from an asylum and flee to the country in attempt to live a normal life. The film was released by Redrum Entertainment.
Although there are no screamers in the film itself, the cover of the movie features a heavily edited version of the infamous "What's Wrong" image. The woman has a crimson red tongue, metal prongs in her eyes, nose and mouth. The main characters, Joe and Beth, are also seen on her hands. The French release of the film shows a grainier image of the woman with no eyes, much like the infamous edit by JayBill McCarthy.
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20020815165932/http://www.jaybill.com/article.php?articleID=66
- ↑ https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-woman-screaming-close-up-royalty-free-image/BD4381-001
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20020716184225/http://www.jaybill.com/article.php?articleID=57
- ↑ "https://web.archive.org/web/20150527213218/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/22/business/compressed-data-why-is-this-room-so-popular-shh-you-re-about-to-find-out.html"
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20020609151218/http://jaybill.com/article.php?articleID=94
- ↑ rottentomatoes.com/m/maniacts_2001
Showcase video
NOTE: The following animation contains a screamer!
- tekzoned.com/whatswrong/
- Raw .swf:
winterrowd.com/whatswrong/whats-wrong.swf - Rum Design .swf Archive: web.archive.org/web/20050514064626/rumdesign.com/wrong/wrong.swf
winterrowd.com/whatswrong- Raw .swf from TekZoned: tekzoned.com/whatswrong/whatswrong.swf
- Showcase Video: youtube.com/watch?v=ULvSymFx94A
