Goatse: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox Shock Site

|title = Goatse

|imagecaption = Kirk Johnson, the man behind Goatse.

|maker = Kirk Johnson

|date = 1999 (screenshotted in 1997)

}}

'''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 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>[https://web.archive.org/web/20051109102655/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. Internet Archive, archived from [http://www.tuaw.com/2005/08/12/jumping-on-the-bandwagon-os-x-on-x86-omg/ the original] on 9 Nov. 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>

Chris Anderson, in his book ''The Long Tail'' (2008), noted that goatse.cx is a well-known reference only among a small subculture of Internet users who use it as a shared context joke or secret membership code. Anderson cited an example of a photo of Anil Dash wearing a T-shirt with the word "Goatse" and stylized hands accompanying an article about Google in ''[[wikipedia:The New York Times|The New York Times]]''.<ref>Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. Hyperion, 2006. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=ElswmhzTc8cC&pg=PA59.</ref> In 2007, a sketch featuring two hands stretching the "0" wide in "2012" appeared on the BBC News 24 broadcast and website as an alternative to the official logo for the [[wikipedia:2012 Summer Olympics|''2012 Summer Olympics'']], leading to its subsequent removal from the website.<ref name="Wired" /><ref>Leyden, John (4 June 2007). ''[https://www.theregister.com/2007/06/04/bbc_olympics_cx/ BBC hit by mass website attack]''. The Register. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref> In June 2010, computer experts known as Goatse Security exposed a security flaw in AT&T's system that revealed the email addresses of iPad users. The group uses a stylized cartoon of the cropped goatse.cx image as its logo with the motto "Gaping Holes Exposed."<ref>''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100615230959/http://security.goatse.fr/ Goatse Security]''. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2023.</ref> Pranksters also displayed the image on a digital billboard in Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia, in May 2015.<ref>Haddon, Heather. "Atlanta Drivers Stunned by Lewd Image on Digital Billboard." USA Today, 12 May 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/12/lewd-image-digital-billboard-atlanta/27163101/.</ref>

[[File:Notsurprising.png|thumb|right|200px|The image being reverted back and forth to show the image.]]

==References==

*web.archive.org/web/20230523090121/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChesterBrownThePlayboyCover.jpg

*'''A site with a similar image of Kirk Johnson stretching out his anus''': web.archive.org/web/20110719010616/stretch.ragingfist.net

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