CherryCake.org
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Content Warning! |
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Closed Website |
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Cherrycake.org was a shock site created by Tejika.com in early 2005.
Content
The webpage featured a graphic image showing the aftermath of a man who was widely claimed to have detonated a firecracker in his mouth. The individual's face is split open and seemingly appears to be missing his nose, teeth, and several other facial features, revealing a cavity of blood. Its misleading title was likely intended to lure unsuspecting viewers, as the severe facial trauma was described as resembling an "oozing cherry cake."
On February 16, 2006, the site’s landing page was updated to display a photo of an infant with Harlequin Ichthyosis, which would then cut to the original gruesome image after a few seconds.
YTMND version
The YTMND mirror was created by a user named Mukkan on August 8th, 2005, which plays a looping audio clip of someone saying "I like cherry cake" alongside some text which reads the same thing.[1]
Further investigation into this user's history revealed no evidence whether he made the original website for it. Mukkan did nothing but spent most of his precious time on YTMND spamming links on everyone's pages; for example:
"LOLOL GO TO WWW.CHERRYCAKE.ORG AND cherrycake.ytmnd.com LOLOLOLOL."
There is, however, at least one reply that might reveal crucial information:
"LOLOL STFU fg0T JUST CUZ UR MOMMY WONT BY U A DOMAIN fg."
The comment above exposes well enough he was indeed the owner of Cherrycake.org at that time.[2]
tejika.com
In November 2005, the original version of Cherrycake.org initially pointed to tejika.com/cherrycake. However, after Tejika unexpectedly went offline, the site updated its redirect to valvessoftware.co.uk/cherrycake instead.[3]
Tejika.net will be important on this story of Cherrycake.org later on.
valvessoftware.co.uk
valvessoftware.co.uk was an unofficial site masquerading as the official Valve homepage. While it functions as a front end to the legitimate Valve site, its primary intent appears to be redirecting users to Cherrycake.org, despite there being no explicit mentions of "cherry cake" on the page.
valvesoftware.co.uk/cherrycake also redirects to a Steam group titled "Cherrycake" which currently has over forty members. While the group photo originally featured "the cake" it was later removed and replaced with the following notice:
"Look's like Valve ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the group profile and locked users from inviting others into the group. Well, i'm not going to bother fixing up this profile just now..."[4][5]
The page contains several links: The Legend of Cami, Bash Source, cami_win32.zip, and cami_bash.zip. Currently, visiting the first link or any page hosted on valvesoftware.co.uk redirects to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up."
Turns out, Cami was a Bishōjo video game character created by Tejika.com, a British indie video game developer team. Despite valvesoftware.co.uk having links to various games featuring the character, these pages were never archived and the titles remain lost. Among these was The Legend of Cami, which was intended to be a visual novel.
There was another shock site related not featured from valvesoftware.co.uk but from Tejika.com. The game was titled Bonsai Kitten Tamagotchi, which contains a plot point where Cami is gifted a "bonsai kitten" tamagotchi by her uncle as a joke.[6]
Current version
Around early 2009, Cherrycake.org changed its redirect to ethocybin.dreamhosters.com/cherrycake. This remained active until the domain was parked and purchased in 2011,[7] at which point it was repurposed for a Japanese blog about CO2 reduction.[8] The website has since been permanently shut down, occurring sometime between 2012 and 2013.
Speculation
It is clear that one of original developers from tejika.com created Cherrycake.org as a joke, and they likely continue to redirect the various mirrors (like valvesoftware.co.uk) established by the owner.[6] The Steam group and the developers behind tejika.net both originated in the United Kingdom and that's already a dead giveaway enough.
Cherrypie.tk
According to BluWiki, Cherrypie.tk was a series of graphic images depicting a man attempting suicide by detonating a firecracker in his mouth, a description that closely matches the content seen on Cherrycake.org. Despite these claims, no archives of the site exist in this state; the only surviving record is a GeoCities page from when the domain was first created.
References
- ↑ ytmnd.com/sites/115350/profile
- ↑ ytmnd.com/users/Mukkan/comments
- ↑ view-source:web.archive.org/web/20051106025059if_/cherrycake.org:80/
- ↑ https://steamcommunity.com/groups/cherrycake
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070826053246if_/http://steamcommunity.com/groups/cherrycake?action=join
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://web.archive.org/web/20050211182907/http://www.tejika.com/cami
- ↑ CherryCake Games: web.archive.org/web/20091212184532/cherrycake.org
- ↑ The Japanese blog from 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110626205129if_/http://www.cherrycake.org/
Links
NOTE: The following shock site contains extremely graphic content!
- web.archive.org/web/20060901083927/cherrycake.org
- web.archive.org/web/20070823200048/valvesoftware.co.uk/cherrycake
- YTMND mirror: cherrycake.ytmnd.com