Shock site

A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive, disgusting or disturbing to its viewers, containing materials of high shock value which is also considered distasteful and crude, and is generally of a pornographic, scatological, extremely violent, extremely profane, or extremely provocative nature. Some shock sites display a single picture, animation, or video clip, or a small gallery, and are often passed around via email or disguised in posts to discussion sites as a hoax in an attempt to trick readers into following the link to the website. Other shock sites are merely websites that openly display shocking material.

Examples of shock sites

Goatse.cx

Goatse.cx [ [http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/godhands.asp "The Hands of God"] , snopes.com.] was one of the best-known shock sites that existed, featuring an image, hello.jpg, of a man stretching his anus with his hands.

The original domain "goatse.cx" was deactivated by the NIC .cx authority in January 2004, but several mirror sites are currently up and running hosting the original content [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040109213953/http://goatse.cx/ Archive.org's archived copy of the pages accessible through the domain goatse.cx before it was pointed to http://www.blackraven.cx/] ] (including "goatse.ch", "goatse.fr", "goatse.ca" as well as "goatse.cz" which also manages to preserve some of the original phonetic appeal).

2 Girls 1 Cup

2 Girls 1 Cup (or "Cupchicks") is a famous shock site/viral video. It starts off with a woman sucking on another woman's breast. It then immediately shows one of the women defecating into a clear glass ice-cream cup. The two women are then shown licking the contents together. It then cuts to one of them pushing some of the matter around with their tongue in and out of her mouth, eventually swallowing it. One of the women then gags herself, vomiting into the cup while the other one licks the contents. They then take turns vomiting into each other's mouths and the video finishes with them kissing with a lot of faecal matter between their faces. The site has garnered a great deal of attention on internet forums and video sites, spawning various reaction videos and parodies such as songs and animated versions. Among these is a video showing comedian Joe Rogan's reaction to the clip [ [http://www.break.com/index/joe-rogan-watches-2-girls-1-cup.html Joe Rogan Watches 2 Girls 1 Cup Video ] ] and a parody video featuring John Mayer [ [http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/26050ea6ee 2 Guys 1 Cup with John Mayer from john mayer ] ] . The video was also brought up in an episode of VH1's Best Week Ever [http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?id=1574705&vid=190222 The Best Week Ever] , VH1.] .

Tubgirl.com

Tubgirl.com is a redirect to a picture, tubgirl.jpg, containing a masked, naked woman lying in a bathtub, buttocks raised with her legs over her head, projecting a fountain of orange/yellow liquid from her anus onto her face. Before the launch of tubgirl.com, this image was featured in a rotten.com story "Fecal Japan"http://web.archive.org/web/20021004051657/vatican.rotten.com/fecaljapan/] claiming that the subject matter is popular in Japan.

Ogrish.com

Ogrish.com was a shock site that contained pictures of domestic incidents such as car crashes, murders, and various other accidents. It also hosted images from the ongoing Iraq War, other conflicts, and acts of terror. Due to the nature of the content of Ogrish.com, its domain registrar revoked the rights to use the domain. The German telecommunications company Computer Service Langenbach blocked the IP of the website from its server in Frankfurt, leading to many users across Germany and Central Europe being unable to view the content. cite web | last = McCullagh | first = Declan | date = February 3 2003 | url = http://news.com.com/German+registrar+bans+Web+site/2100-1023_3-984248.html | title = German registrar bans Web site | work = CNET News.com | accessdate = 2007-05-01 ]

The media hosted on Ogrish.com was, according to the manager of the site Dan Klinker, retrieved by the site's staff, or was submitted freelance by emergency workers and others who had access to such media. Ogrish.com used scripts that monitored jihadist websites for uploads of videos and images, and also crawled the internet for footage.cite web | last = Harkin | first = James | date = January 13 2006 | url = http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1373c930-8325-11da-ac1f-0000779e2340.html | title = Shock and gore | work = Financial Times | accessdate = 2007-05-01 ]

Examples of popular material on the site included the decapitation of American contractor Nick Berg, which had been downloaded fifteen million times, the execution of a Russian soldier in Chechnya, and the murder of "The Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl. According to the site, average daily hits ranged in the low hundred thousand, and sometimes rose to 750,000 on a "bad news" day.

Ogrish.com was incorporated into LiveLeak.com on October 31, 2006.

Rotten.com

Rotten.com is the flagship site of a network of sites containing shocking material [cite web|url=http://www.boingboing.net/2005/06/22/rottencom-our-gaping.html|title=Rotten.com: our gapingmaw.com and other sites shut in anticipation of 2257|publisher=BoingBoing|accessdate=2008-05-03] . A well known picture hosted on the site is the Penisbird, an image of a Scarlet Macaw parrot perched on a man's erect penis. The original image is hosted on the site, along with a note from a Slashdot reader asking that the image be relocated (if not removed) because Slashdot trolls were using hyperlinks to send unsuspecting users there, and/or making text based representations of the image and posting them as comments. [ [http://smoke.rotten.com/bird Letter from Slashdot.org] , (along with the picture)]

Lemonparty.org

Lemonparty.org contains an image, "lemonparty.jpg", of three elderly males in a bed kissing and having oral sex. The image has been referenced in obscure and sometimes literal contexts in the media, such as a sketch on "Talkshow with Spike Feresten". [" [http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/38560/ Lemon Party] ." "eBaum's World".] [" [http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=18561912 Lemon Party] ." "Talkshow with Spike Feresten" at "MySpace".] [ [http://www.bestweekever.tv/tag/Lemon+Party It’s Not An Old Man Orgy If It’s Not a Lemon Party!] Best Week Ever (VH1) official blog, September 2007.] [" [http://www.younghollywood.com/podcast.php?t=16 In the Dressing Room With Fall Out Boy] ." "Young Hollywood.com". Accessed October 5, 2008.]

ee also

*Computer prank
*Internet troll
*List of Internet phenomena
*NSFW
*Internet privacy

References