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Goatse was a shock site registered in 1999. The website featured an image, as displayed in the center titled "Hello.jpg", showing a man stretching his anus with both hands. Because of its shock value, it's the first image to ever be used in bait-and-switch pranks, where the user "baits" another user into clicking the link. The site used the .cx domain because its pronunciation is similar to the word "sex", but it was filed by Christmas Island to shut down the website.

The image used on the site was originally named "gap3.jpg" from the Gap.zip file, a collection of shock images depicting the man, who was revealed to be gay porn-star Kirk Johnson, "using dildos and butt plugs to stretch his anus". Gap.zip might have been posted by Johnson himself, but it also may have been originated "in emails ftp servers, etc."