Rotten.com
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Rotten.com was a shock site that collected pictures of dead people, diseases, deformed bodies, violent acts, perverse sex acts, and other morbid curiosities. It stopped updating in 2012, and was eventually closed in 2018.[1] It was one of the first shock sites to be created on the Internet. Pictures were largely submitted by the site's userbase, but staff would occasionally buy images or take images themselves.[2]
History
The website was first registered in 1996 by a developer named "Soylent".[3][4] He wrote a program that could easily identify unregistered internet domain names consisting of a single dictionary word. After some searching, he found that the word "rotten" was one of these unclaimed names, and later went on to register Rotten.com.[2] Rotten.com postured itself as an online free speech platform, in a time where internet censorship laws and regulations had begun to restrict access to material online.[1]
The site received a lot of attention and coverage following an incident in which the site posted alleged images of medical personnel recovering Princess Diana's body from her fatal car accident. This picture was eventually revealed to be fake.[5] The website was also one of the first websites to publish images of jumpers from the September 11 terrorist attacks, under the title "Swan Dive".[6] The site hosted a picture, named "Motorcycle" because it arrived as "motorcycle.jpg". The picture featured a man with his face blown off because of an attempted shotgun suicide. A attorney wrote to the site to take down the picture, however the attorney did not provide enough details for the request[2].
The website has also had multiple legal threats. In March 2000, the website received a legal threat from The Coca-Cola Company because of an image on the site featuring a Coca-Cola bottle up a woman's anus[7]. On May 17th, 2000 the Pillsbury Company sent a legal threat to Soylent Communications because of a image, featuring the Pillsbury Doughboy in a oven looking at a woman cooking their species[8].
Soylent Communications also registered a site, named trenchcoat.org[9] because of the Columbine High School massacre. The site depicted as the official site for the Trenchcoat Mafia. At the bottom of the page, there was a link titled "who to sue" which linked to the website of the Burlington Coat Factory. This would result in a legal threat from Burlington[10].
PenisBird
PenisBird, also known as the "The Incident With The Bird" is a shock image hosted on Rotten.com and Encyclopedia Dramatica. The image displays a close-up picture of a naked man standing in the middle of a concrete parking lot with a scarlet macaw perched on the man's erect penis. Links to the image and ASCII versions were spammed on the Slashdot messageboards[11]. There is an edited GIF version of PenisBird which shows the macaw masturbating the man's penis with semen discharging from it[12].
Rotten Library
The Rotten Library was created in 2003 as an encyclopedia to supplement the website. The Library contained hundreds of articles written in a humorous fashion under 17 different headings, including culture, art, medicine, crime, travel, and the occult.
Celebrity Morgue
The Celebrity Morgue was created on March 6th, 1999 dedicated to dead celebrities with pictures of them dead or dying with information about their death. The site stayed up until 2018.
Sports Dignity
The Sports Dignity was another site hosted by Soylent hosting shocking or offensive photos related to sports, such as athletes flipping off the camera or exposing their genitalia.
Rotten Dead Pool
The Rotten Dead Pool was a game released in November 2003, where players would pick around ten people who would die in the next 12 months. If a player was correct with celebrity dead, a point would be given. However, a player would not be given a point if it was incorrect. The Number 1 player before the site shutdown is named MitchellStirling, who had a total score of 7[13].
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 web.archive.org/web/20191005094145/https://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/10700/rotten-history-shock-site/
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 web.archive.org/web/20050516235424/http://www.rotten.com/FAQ/ (NOTE: This link contains graphic images!)
- ↑ https://www.salon.com/2001/03/05/rotten_2/
- ↑ knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/rottencom
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20050516235424/rotten.com/about/press.html
- ↑ esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/ (NOTE: This article contains graphic images!)
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20080219061733/rotten.com/legal/desist-coke.html
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20080215160253/rotten.com/legal/desist-pillsbury.html
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20000901050221/trenchcoat.org
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20080219054935/rotten.com/legal/desist-trench.html
- ↑ hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=6240&cid=977380
- ↑ encyclopediadramatica.online/File:Jackoff110we.gif
- ↑ web.archive.org/web/20180104140228/deadpool.rotten.com/winners/
Videos
Links
NOTE: The following shock site contains extremely graphic content!
- web.archive.org/web/20040113023130/rotten.com
- PenisBird: web.archive.org/web/20000815234302/smoke.rotten.com/bird/
- Rotten Library: web.archive.org/web/20170824154553/rotten.com/library/
Further reading
- Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten.com (This article contains content derived from this page, which is licensed under CC-BY-SA.)
