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'''Goatse.cx''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|oʊ|t|s|iː|_|d|ɒ|t|_|ˌ|s|iː|_|ˈ|ɛ|k|s}} or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|oʊ|t|.|s|ɛ|k|s}}; "goat sex" as the domain intends), often referred to simply as "Goatse", was originally an Internet [[shock site]]. Its front page featured a picture, entitled <tt>hello.jpg</tt>, showing a naked man stretching his [[human anus|anus]] with both hands, to approximately the width of his fist. The inside of his [[rectum]] is also clearly visible. Below his gaping anus, his dangling [[penis]] and [[scrotum]] are visible, as well as a [[gold]]en ring on the [[ring finger]] of his left hand. This site became a notorious surprise image and [[Internet meme]], and was—and, through external hosting, still is—used regularly for [[bait-and-switch]] pranks, preventing [[hot-linking]] in a hostile manner, and [[Website defacement|defacing websites]], in order to provoke extreme reactions. Even though the image from the site was taken down in 2004, its images are [[Mirror (computing)|mirrored]] throughout the Internet. The site has changed owners, and is currently being used to host email addresses.
'''Goatse.cx''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|oʊ|t|s|iː|_|d|ɒ|t|_|ˌ|s|iː|_|ˈ|ɛ|k|s}} or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|oʊ|t|.|s|ɛ|k|s}}; "goat sex" as the domain intends), often referred to simply as "Goatse", was originally an Internet [[shock site]]. Its front page featured a picture, entitled <tt>hello.jpg</tt>, showing a naked man stretching his [[human anus|anus]] with both hands, to approximately the width of his fist. The inside of his [[rectum]] is also clearly visible. Below his gaping anus, his dangling [[penis]] and [[scrotum]] are visible, as well as a [[gold]]en ring on the [[ring finger]] of his left hand. This site became a notorious surprise image and [[Internet meme]], and was—and, through external hosting, still is—used regularly for [[bait-and-switch]] pranks, preventing [[hot-linking]] in a hostile manner, and [[Website defacement|defacing websites]], in order to provoke extreme reactions. Even though the image from the site was taken down in 2004, its images are [[Mirror (computing)|mirrored]] throughout the Internet. The site has changed owners, and is currently being used to host email addresses.


Revision as of 16:56, 29 October 2013

This article is about the shock site. For the computer hacker group, see Goatse Security.
goatse.cx
Type of site
former shock site
Available inEnglish
URLgoatse.cx
CommercialNo

In January 2007, the Christmas Island Internet Administration put the domain Goatse.cx back into the available domain pool. The domain was subsequently registered on January 16 through domain registrar Variomedia,[1] and the current registrant tried to auction the right to use the domain.[2]

An early attempt to offer the domain for sale by SEOBidding placed the reserve at $120, which was not met.[3]

The Goatse.cx domain name was reportedly sold at an auction on April 30, 2007 to an unknown bidder. According to SEOBidding.com, the first auction ended with fake bids so the auction was reactivated.[4] This was again won by fake bidders, so in July SEOBidding.com announced that the website would be sold for $500,000 and that legal action would be pursued against the fake bidders.[5] On November 25, 2007, and continuing as of June 2010, the site was still for sale, listed as: "goatse.cx Asking: $50200 minimum".

The October 21, 2009 edition of the Rick Latona "Daily Domains" newsletter advertised the Goatse.cx domain for sale at an asking price of $15,000, noting it as being a "famous site, [with] tons of backlinks".[6][failed verification]

As of May 16, 2010, the site was once again active, containing an announcement stating:

"Goatse.cx 'Stinger' 2.0 Beta is coming
Only 24 days to go until Goatse Stinger 2.0 goes beta on May 9, 2010!"

The page showed a stylized representation of hello.jpg, which featured a pair of silver robotic hands 'stretching' a metallic, circular wall aperture in what appears to be a futuristic factory setting. Later in May, a new page was hosted at Goatse.cx, for the stated purpose of offering email service at the site, featuring a sketch with hands spreading wide a view onto a mailing envelope.[7]

In July 2011, goatse.cx remained unchanged while www.goatse.cx began redirecting to a Web Hosting company.[8]

Email provider

As of November 2012, it was announced that the goatse.cx domain had been acquired by a new owner, who was advertising a forthcoming webmail service that will give users access to goatse.cx email addresses.[9]

Reception and parodies

Because many Internet users have been tricked into viewing the site or a mirror of the site at one time or another,[10] it has become an Internet meme.[11] On November 24, 2000, the Goatse "giver" and "receiver" images were posted to the official online Oprah Winfrey Message Boards in the Soul Stories board. Trystan T. Cotten and Kimberly Springer, authors of Stories of Oprah: the Oprahfication of American culture, said that this "seemingly considerable male intrusion drove many of the women elsewhere, and the board was retired shortly afterwards".[12] Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software because "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]".[13] The Los Angeles Times Wikitorial was introduced on June 17, 2005, to be a publicly accessible method of directly responding to the paper's editorials; Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales had consulted on the project, and on its first day contributed a "forking" of the page to accommodate opposing opinions.[14] Prior to the feature's introduction, L.A. Times editorial and opinion editor Michael Kinsley stated that "Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It's the ultimate in reader participation".[15] The wiki was closed two days later on June 19, 2005, because, The Guardian reported, "explicit images known as Goatses appeared on [it]".[14]

The practice of using Goatse.cx as a "fake" link to shock friends became popular, according to ROFLcon organizer Tim Hwang in an interview on NPR, because

"it's ... the spectacle of the thing, right? You really want to be there when the person is seeing it. To the extent that there's all these sites online of sort of people taking pictures of their friends and showing them Goatse..." [In photos online,] "It's like thousands and thousands of people looking really shocked or disgusted. It's really great."[16]

The Goatse.cx image has been used by website authors to discourage other sites from hot-linking to them. By replacing the hot-linked image with an embarrassing image when hot-linking has been discovered, an unsubtle message is sent to the offending website's operators, visible to all who view the web page in question.[17] In 2007, Wired.com hot-linked to another site in an article about the "sexiest geeks of 2007"; the site subsequently swapped the hot-linked image with one from Goatse.cx.[18] This action is practiced by website owners either because bandwidth is an issue to them, or simply for the enjoyment of pranking.

Images on the site such as hello.jpg and others have become subjects of parodies, mirrors, and tributes.[19]

Following Hurricane Charley in August 2004, a photograph purporting to show "the hands of God" in the cloud formations in the aftermath of the disaster circulated via email. The image was eventually proven to be a parody, the clouds having been photo-manipulated to include hands, as in the hello.jpg image.[20]

Disc images supposedly containing a leaked Mac OS X build, OSx86, which could run on standard "x86 architecture" computers, were distributed during 2005 on BitTorrent filesharing networks. But rather than load the expected Mac OS, the discs reportedly displayed the Goatse image when booted.[21]

In The Long Tail (2008) Chris Anderson wrote that Goatse.cx is well-known only to a relatively small Internet-using "subcultural tribe" who reference it as a "shared context joke" or "secret membership code." Anderson cited a photo accompanying an "otherwise innocuous article" about Google in the June 2, 2005 The New York Times, in which Anil Dash wore a t-shirt emblazoned with stylized hands stretching out the word "Goatse".[22][23][24]

In June 2007, a proposed sketch of the 2012 Summer Olympics logo submitted by "Sean Stayte" appeared on the BBC News 24 broadcast and website[25][26][27] as one of the twelve best viewer-submitted alternatives to the official logo. In it, two hands stretched the "0" wide in "2012", as Sean wrote, "to reveal the Olympics".[25] The sketch was later shown as part of a gallery of viewers logos on BBC London News and BBC News 24, and was subsequently removed from the website. The editor of the BBC News website acknowledged the mistake in his blog, saying his team "simply didn’t spot it".[28]

In June 2010, a group of computer experts known as Goatse Security exposed a flaw in AT&T's security which allowed the e-mail addresses of iPad users to be revealed.[29][30] A member of the group was interviewed by the media and discussed the group's name, among other things.[31] The group uses a stylized cartoon of the cropped Goatse.cx image as their logo and has the motto "Gaping Holes Exposed".[32]

In April 2011 an Audi billboard campaign was multiply reported as showing an image similar to the Goatse image. One article author asks, "unintentionally hilarious or intentionally evil?"[33][34]

The Register reported that Scottish TV News, while reporting on a hacking incident, unintentionally broadcast a link to Goatse images while showing the LulzSec Twitter feed on the victim site, which read, "For anyone that doesn't know what goatse is, check it out here, it's really eye-opening: [link]".[35]

See also

References

  1. ^ Variomedia AG – Domain-Registrierung, Webhosting, Reseller Official website. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  2. ^ Portail d'informations Ce site est en vente! Template:Fr icon (Site content no longer present.)
  3. ^ "SEOBidding goatse.cx Auction Listing". SEOBidding.com. April 2007. Archived from the original on April 10, 2007. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  4. ^ Brownlee, John (April 24, 2007). "Goatse.cx Now For Sale!". blogs.wired.com. Condé Nast Digital. Retrieved May 8, 2007.
  5. ^ "SEOBidding goatse.cx Auction Listing". Archived from the original on July 13, 2007. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  6. ^ Rick Latona (October 21, 2009) Rick Latona website Daily Domains Newsletter; ricklatona.com. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  7. ^ "Goatse.cx Mail is coming. Get YourName(at)goatse.cx!". goatse.cx. Archived from the original on May 25, 2010. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
  8. ^ "Redirect". webfaction.com. Retrieved July 17, 2011. {{cite web}}: Check |archiveurl= value (help)
  9. ^ Lee Hutchinson (November 19, 2012). "How goatse.cx went from shock site to webmail service". Ars Technica. Retrieved November 19, 2012.
  10. ^ Johnson, Bob (December 2, 2004). "The Goatse Prank". zug.com. Media Shower Inc. Archived from the original on December 17, 2004. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  11. ^ Kirkpatrick, Stewart (June 9, 2004). "Lazy Guide to Net Culture: NSFW". The Scotsman. Retrieved June 15, 2010. Links to complaint.
  12. ^ Cotten, Trystan T.; Springer, Kimberly (2009). Stories of Oprah: the Oprahfication of American culture. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 59–60, 63. ISBN 978-1-60473-407-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Snyder, Chris; Southwell, Michael (2005). Pro PHP Security. Apress. p. 274. ISBN 978-1-59059-508-4. Retrieved July 14, 2010.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ a b Glaister, Dan (June 22, 2005). "LA Times 'wikitorial' gives editors red faces." The Guardian. Retrieved September 17, 2010.
  15. ^ Shepard, Alicia (June 13, 2005). "Upheaval on Los Angeles Times Editorial Pages". New York Times.
  16. ^ Hwang, Tim (April 1, 2008). "Rick-Rolling: An Action Primer for the Uninitiated" (Transcript) (Interview). Interviewed by Allison Stewart. Retrieved September 16, 2010. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)
  17. ^ Powers, Shelley (2008). Painting the Web. O'Reilly Media. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-596-51509-6. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
  18. ^ Arrington, Michael (July 9, 2008). "One Step Backward: Playboy Asks Which Female Blogger You'd Like To See Sans Clothing". TechCrunch.com. Washington Post. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
  19. ^ Hocevar, Sam (February 12, 2010). "Tribute to Goatse.cx ) personal webpage". zoy.org. Retrieved June 15, 2010..
  20. ^ Mikkelson, Barbara and David P. (June 15, 2007). "The Hands of God". snopes.com; Snopes. Retrieved November 14, 2011.
  21. ^ Sample, III, C.K. (August 12, 2005). "Jumping on the bandwagon: OS X on x86! OMG!". TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
  22. ^ Anderson, Chris (2008). The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. Hyperion. p. 182. ISBN 978-1-4013-0966-4. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
  23. ^ Rosenbloom, Stephanie (June 2, 2005). "Loosing Google's Lock on the Past". New York Times. Retrieved September 16, 2010.
  24. ^ As of 10 September 2010 the NYT archives index the article by keyword "goatse".
  25. ^ a b Orlowski, Andrew (June 4, 2007). "No goat sex at the Olympics, rules BBC". Bootnotes. The Register. Retrieved July 7, 2010.
  26. ^ "Goatse on BBC" (Video). CollegeHumor. June 6, 2007. Event occurs at 1:01. Retrieved October 3, 2009. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  27. ^ "2012 Olympics logo sketch by Sean Stayte" (image). BBC. June 6, 2007. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  28. ^ Herrmann, Steve (June 5, 2007). "Shock tactics". BBC blogs. BBC. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  29. ^ Tate, Ryan (June 9, 2010). "Apple's Worst Security Breach: 114,000 iPad Owners Exposed". Gawker.com. Gawker Media. Retrieved June 13, 2010.
  30. ^ Ante, Spencer and Worthen, Ben (June 11, 2010). "FBI Opens Probe of iPad Breach". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 15, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. ^ Mills, Elinor (June 10, 2010). "Hacker defends going public with AT&T's iPad data breach (Q&A)". CNET News. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  32. ^ Goatse Security website Home page logo. June 12, 2010. Retrieved June 15, 2010.
  33. ^ Hardigree, Matt (April 22, 2011). "Audi's hilarious unintentional Goatse billboard". Retrieved October 18, 2013.. Jalopnik.com.
  34. ^ McGinley, Tara (April 22, 2011). "Audi's unintentional Goatse". Dangerous Minds.
  35. ^ Oates, John (July 29, 2011). "Scottish telly news pumps goatse link – Och aye the NOOO". The Register.
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