[_audakel]

Wow..... Just went to the site he mentioned (rotten.com). I nearly threw up. I thought I had a decent stomach for stuff but that is fucked up. Sorry for the click bait sounding comment but I am disturbed after a few of the pics. I have no words.

[sersi]

I would say that I remember the medieval Internet as being much more shocking (or at least, much easier to stumble on shocking content). I remember when I first got internet at 12 years old in 1996, I saw an ad for a site called "Animal sex farm" and basically saw an image of a girl with a dog... That was my first exposure to porn (not ideal as a first thing to see as a kid)...

This kind of content is most likely still available today but I do think that it's deeper under a surface and that a kid or anyone is less likely to stumble on it while browsing.

That's not to say that there weren't good things about early Internet. I have good memories of irc, usenet and the decentralization that existed back then. In a way, it felt more magical than it is now but that's maybe the kid in me talking.

[M_Grey]

This kind of content is most likely still available today but I do think that it's deeper under a surface and that a kid or anyone is less likely to stumble on it while browsing.

Oh god yes. It's also not... new. Alost everyone has seen at least one unforgettably horrible thing, and we're not stronger or better for it... just a bit sadder. When almost everyone has that under their belt, it's not really a cool or new thing to look at someone rotting off a noose, it's just pathetic and childish.

I think that, as much as anything, has changed it.

That, and it's just... at the time you could watch Magical Trevor again, or go to the dark places. You could spend the rest of your life in 2017 just looking at a slideshow of kittens.

[dkersten]

Once upon a time, I frequented 4chan. I've lost count of all the stuff I can't unsee and in hindsight would have preferred not to see. There is a LOT of fucked up shit online.

[M_Grey]

A whole generation just winces and sighs at the phrase, "Can't Unsee" or "Need eyebleach". I wonder if this is going to be a permanent feature of youth, or if generations yet to come will just see us as odd?

[yiyus]

I agree with what you say, but I think there is also a bit of the opposite. We have become desensitised.

I remember waiting for minutes to download a picture (with all my family nervous because I was using the only phone line at home) and then being totally shocked by something I had never seen before. Images of this kind could not be found in books or magazines. Nowadays, kids see one of those images and either they just sweep left or write a 'not wtf' comment.

[btilly]

No, you just hang out in places full of mature people. Go to 4chan and pop your bubble, it is still out there.

That said you have just given me a flashback to https://xkcd.com/467/. I haven't forgiven Randall yet.

[throwanem]

4chan today is nothing like 4chan a decade or more ago, and overall I think that's a good thing. What you're talking about gets saged to death very quickly these days, if it's not removed by moderators. That's been true since well before moot sold the site to Hiroshima; the sort of thing you describe here, one no longer really finds unless one goes looking for it.

The Web isn't the Wild West any more. It hasn't been for a long time now. What we have today is more like the sort of well-aged cyberpunk shithole you find in films like Blade Runner, translated from the physical to the virtual. That's an interesting world of its own, and it has its own challenges. It also has gatekeepers - many of them - and they mostly bounce old-style shock site content pretty fast.

[sersi]

Yep, I was curious and visited 4chan about 6 years ago and I've just revisited it now, it's much more tame compared to what I remember. I mean it's still rather misogynistic and not a great place to be but it's definitely not as bad as it was...

[dragonwriter]

But GP acknowledged it was still out there, just harder to accidentally stumble upon for the average internet user. And I think it's right; even with safesearch off (because I don't want to lose anything I might want to false positives, and I trust Google's relvlecance algorithms more than their filtering ones) I stumble into orders of magnitude less extreme content today then I did around the turn of the millennium.

[fl0wenol]

I take it you weren't surfing a lot sites back around the turn of the century (Internet mideval times); that site was one of the more high profile and controversial destinations that started several offshoots and inspired others. It was started around the same time as The Smoking Gun and had a similar profile at the time.

[M_Grey]

I was a stupid young guy at the time, in high school. I realize that we were some of the first (among many others of course) to surf those sites, and realize, "You know... this isn't fun, this isn't great, this is just... miserable." I still remember some of those things however, and with the viewpoint that life is already full enough of horrors, I regret it.

[wavefunction]

I thought The Smoking Gun was more of a dox drop/gossip site, if I'm remembering correctly. I always thought Rotten like efukt and some of those other sites were more into gore and various paraphilias.

[nommm-nommm]

Wow, I'm surprised rotten.com is still up; it was the web's original shock site (that and goatse). I remember it being pretty viral around 1996. Well, as viral as a website could get in 1996.

I am going to go ahead and assume that there's much more terrible shit on the web nowadays. 1996's Rotten.com is probably pretty tame by today's standards.

Back on the original topic, I remember another early satire site that was taken seriously and created very real outrage, Bonsai Kitten.

[ddebernardy]

Bonsai Kitten was really good. I also remember the Stinky Meat project at around the same time. Fun times. :-)

[herbst]

Oh god yeah. We had a project in school about animal abuse and stuff and had several groups to cover individual projects (my group made a website about the other groups content) one group went with the bonsai kitten.

From todays perspective i can't even tell how we were not able to easily disprove this, and as far as i remember everyone, including all the parents who had to witness our presentation were shocked about the bonsai kittens.

There was no wikipedia or anything stating that it was wrong, and if there was a article somewhere that mentioned it, we either did not find or (also likely) it was written in english when our internet bubble was mostly german.

[aphextron]

>Wow, I'm surprised rotten.com is still up

Really? I'm sure the domain alone is a cash machine.

[nommm-nommm]

Yes, I am surprised; the majority of the early web outside of major companies has either link rotted or turned into major companies. Especially those for niche topics.

Look at the top websites from before the turn of the century:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/12...

I doubt CompuServe.com or geocities.com is a cash machine.

That being said, rotten.com might actually be owned by a bigger parent company for all I know.

[lolptdr]

you forgot stileproject.com haha

[dkersten]

Bonsai Kitten

Hah! That and manbeef

[tomcooks]

I assumed everyone knew about rotten, may I ask how old are you (honest curiosity)?

[subroutine]

31 y.o. here, just got my first taste of rotten.

List of emotions experienced: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_17760284.html

[herbst]

I see how this can happen y=ｰ( ﾟдﾟ)･∵. but which pictures made you go ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or (^▽^)?

[tsumnia]

I know this is a very Reddit-y comment, but it was at this moment, many HN visitors realized that they are... in fact... getting old.

Orgish.com forever baby

[technofiend]

alt.flame checking in. Still have the volcano cave new t-shirt.

[TurboHaskal]

The Ogrish forum had surprisingly good non-gore discussions.

[inostia]

I remember Ogrish.com... Also, Maddox...

[vocatus_gate]

Ahh Maddox. Always thought he was a fairly clever writer, though his content declined in quality over the years.

[mod]

His writing sort-of lives on at cracked.

I'm sure he largely set their style.

[kbart]

There are very dark corners on web one should actively avoid to maintain its sanity, rotten.com is just one of the early examples.

[pixl97]

Call of Cthulhu wasn't about demons of our elder past, it was about the demons of our internet future. Who would have known.

[pimlottc]

Stay away from the front page, but Rotten Library is a pretty good read (and mostly SFW). All sorts of weird topics and macabre historical facts.

http://www.rotten.com/library/

[pavel_lishin]

I'm very sad that they seem to have stopped updating it years ago.

[mirimir]

Yes, and so why is it still there?

Someone must be paying the bills and maintaining it. But it's the same folks behind ...

http://ratemykitten.com/

http://www.ratemypuppy.com/

http://www.ratemybunny.com/

http://www.pennypostcards.com/

http://www.nndb.com/

... so maybe it's just for nostalgia.

[pavel_lishin]

It's a static page; I imagine that the costs for it are pretty trivial. And maybe they've just forgotten about it - a few bucks a month from a hosting service that hosts a dozen other sites, where a credit card number gets updated every few years.

[mirimir]

I guess. As I recall, the theory was that the admin got locked out of the server. But after a few years, that seems unlikely.

[peterwwillis]

We used to use trojans or microsoft word viruses to set all the 8th grade school computers to this (or goatse) as the home page. Back when finding truly vile stuff on the internet was easy. The good 'ol days....

Does nobody remember consumption junction? My girlfriend introduced me to it, oddly enough

[Sunset]

Consumption junction was the bomb. Some one needs to resurrect it, or something very similiar to it.

[PaulMarcus]

I remember it well -- it was my website.

I truly loved doing it, but the problem (presumably one all the sites of that nature had) was it was incredibly difficult to monetize. Pretty much the only customers willing to advertise over a video of someone being pooped on were porn sites, so our choice was to go all-in on porn, or have a very, very expensive hobby (monthly bandwidth bill was in the $30k-40k range). We eventually sold it to one of said porn companies, and they "solved" the monetization problem by putting an age verification system (AVS in porn-speak) on the landing page, which was ultimately just a way to bang people's credit cards.

As for resurrection, my old partner recently spoke to the current owner of the domain about re-launching it, but he wasn't interested. I hear he's a big VC muckity-muck now though, so, "S", if you're reading this, let's do a deal. The people demand to be horrified.

[peterwwillis]

Couldn't you do a deal with LiveLeak to build them an ad-fueled trending dashboard? Regular ads for the liveleak videos that aren't featuring jihadi rockstars decapitating contractors, and porn ads for the videos featuring homemade gopro footage of horses boinking large women. You could pick your level of horror and get ads to match, and always have a fresh streaming pile (.....) of horrible videos you can't find on YouTube.

[Sunset]

Maybe some sort of p2p hosting decentralisation like ZeroNet? I guess people can personally fund the site directly. Maybe some sort of way for the users to "tip" the submitter and the site and the uploader split the "tip".

[pavel_lishin]

For what it's worth, The Rotten Library is actually a series of decently researched articles about interesting things.

If they were interested in marketing themselves and making some money, they could easily spin it into a fascinating YouTube channel.

[rootusrootus]

Ha! For your next homework assignment, google "tub girl". Not violent, but still one of those things that will imprint itself permanently in your memory.

[nommm-nommm]

http://www.bash.org/?434593

[fps]

http://www.bash.org/?top has been basically a static page (is it actually static?) for at least 13 years now. I keep hoping for some upstart quotes to make it in there, but there's been no change since sometime before 2004.

[Globz]

Church of Fudge, enough said. It isn't a website...but a video anyway haha, I remember "Tub girl" and lemonparty.org

Anyway I am past this "searching phase" for shocking material, I bet it is really creepy nowadays.

[mirimir]

orange juice ;)

[awjr]

There is an extremely dark underbelly of 'real life' violence porn out there sadly. CCTV and smart phones have enabled this to be recorded for all eternity on those types of sites.

In the same way that on youtube Russian Car Crash videos get huge viewings, those that show loss of life happening are usually hived off onto extreme websites where there is an audience for that type of material.

[gambiting]

One could ask why underage pornography is illegal while this isn't. In both cases someone suffers and the act being recorded is in itself illegal, plus the video is viewed for amusement/pleasure of the viewer most of the time.

[Bartweiss]

I suppose the obvious differentiator is whether content was performed to be recorded, or incidentally filmed. 'Snuff films' and other intentional-for-filming recordings are usually illegal (or at least investigated to find the producers), while recordings of general violence aren't.

It's a touchy distinction (as any intent charge is), but it makes a certain amount of sense - one major reason for criminalizing content is to reduce demand and thereby hopefully prevent further production. Recording an accident or unrelated act of violence presumably doesn't create any incentive for more violence.

[nommm-nommm]

I think the parent is asking more about possession and distribution of murder not being illegal (presumably, in some jurisdictions) whereas possession and distribution of child pornography is. Not all of the pictures/videos/etc hosted on those sites (rotten.com, bestgore.com, etc.) are accidental recordings.

>Recording an accident or unrelated act of violence presumably doesn't create any incentive for more violence.

Getting visitors for your gore site is pretty good incentive for more violence and more extreme content. Same with selling of early non-web based content like the Faces of Death series.

[gambiting]

Yes, that's what I meant. Merely possessing underage pornography is a crime that will land you in prison, even if you haven't participated in creating it in any way, but possessing a snuff film, or even a rape video where the person is not underage is not illegal. Rotten.com specifically is full of videos which are not in any way or form accidental.

[teddyh]

> possessing a snuff film […] is not illegal.

Please don’t be too concerned with people possessing things which do not exist. There are no snuff films.

[teddyh]

> Snuff films' and other intentional-for-filming recordings are usually illegal

Actually, there are no such films. I’m not saying someone could not, in theory, create one – I’m saying that, to my understanding, no such films have ever been shown to actually exist. Be careful with what you assume.

[jpatokal]

There are plenty of videos showing intentionally filmed murder: the Mexican drug cartels and various Middle Eastern terrorist/vigilante/death squad outfits are notorious for this kind of stuff. The "snuff film" hypothesis is just that it's possible to sell this kind of material for a direct profit and/or that they're "made to order" by buyers, which are highly unlikely.

[OxO4]

How about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

[lovelearning]

I watch russian (and other) car crash videos, not for the gory content, but because I find them very educational. I feel they help me become a better, more responsible driver.

[aerique]

I played Carmageddon for that. Well, that game actually made me a more cautious pedestrian.

[talklittle]

Interesting. I wonder how many self-driving car researchers incorporate car crash videos into their AI (anti-)learning datasets?

[lovelearning]

Couldn't find anything in the literature - they probably don't, or perhaps it's such an obvious requirement that it's not even mentioned. Given that driving culture and etiquette are very different in every country, I'd guess a system trained for US roads, traffic rules and social behaviors does not generalize as well for Russian or Chinese or any other country's roads.

[nommm-nommm]

What percentage of them are gory/shocking, in your opinion?

[lovelearning]

On Youtube, there are a few channels that kind of focus on the gory side, which is why they have a lot more static images taken from the outside after the mishap.

But the ones I watch are regular dashcam video footage where some kind of mishap is captured while it's happening - sometimes just a fender bender, sometimes road rage, sometimes serious accidents, sometimes a third vehicle which just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time . I'm of course biased towards such channels, but the number of such channels are far higher in my opinion, atleast on youtube (sites like vimeo or liveleak possibly have a different ratio).

It wasn't really gore that was most "shocking" to me. It was realizing just how easily and suddenly an accident could happen. In fact the most shocking one I remember was an in-car footage of a cab passenger thrown violently like a ragdoll when its rear was hit hard by another vehicle. It happened in the blink of an eye and it was severe. Now I insist all my backseat passengers wear their seat belts, despite a lot of eye-rolling and groaning :)

[kaybe]

Some of them also have amazing saves by the people involved. I'm not sure one can actually learn how to do that in an extreme situation from a video though.

[yread]

That's exactly what a troll would say!

[martin_a]

You´ve never been to rotten.com before? o_O" How old are you? How long do you use the internet?

[eric_the_read]

I've been online since '92, and never even heard of the site before.

[macintux]

I started shortly before that, and also have not been exposed. Judging by the reactions, I'll choose to remain blissfully ignorant.

[phil21]

Somewhat interesting. I bet you'll find most folks who started just a few years after you would find your lack of knowlege of rotten.com amazing. And conversely you likely represent the majority of your cohort as well.

I started in 1994, and I don't know how I could have avoided rotten.com a couple years later. It was just the social circle you "hung out with" online I'm guessing. It was almost a gross-out form of rick rolling, if nothing else.

We certainly share an Internet generation, but we likely are in fairly distinct cohorts simply due to a few years difference. You probably had a much different social network than I did, even if we were the same "irl" age.

I find this topic somewhat interesting, the vastly differing online experiences people had just within a 10 year timeframe is pretty amazing looking back at it.

[lordnacho]

Curiosity seared an indelible image into the kitten's eyes. It wished it had been killed.

[mturmon]

WWW user since NCSA Mosaic (1993?). Net user since 1984. Have successfully avoided rotten.com for all that time.

[shp0ngle]

It's funny to me that someone is still surprised by rotten, in 2017.

Do you know about goatse, by the way?

[lordnacho]

Aw man, that was so awful. I remember there was even a meta site of people showing goatse to other people and taking a picture of their faces.

It's so awful it's seared itself into my mind. I now think of OMG as "Oh My Goatse" and OMFG as "Oh My Farting Goatse".

Still it gets worse. There's 2 girls / 1 cup and 1 man / 1 jar. Awful, NSFW, don't go there for your own sanity.

I was forced there by my younger brother.

[deadbunny]

Just be thankful they didn't build a hotel near you[1] that may trigger certain image flashbacks.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+aviator+farnborough&tb...

[rpeden]

This mechanic's shop in Ottawa always made me a little uncomfortable for the same reason:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.3389992,-75.8980172,3a,17.7y,...

[ribasushi]

Could be this hotel instead: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hotel-casanus

[ribasushi]

FWIW 2 men 1 horse is a thing as well...

[NoGravitas]

"Kermit the Frog reacts to 2 Girls /1 Cup"

[toast0]

Last I heard, goatse was an email provider.

[mirimir]

It's goat.si which is available through https://cock.li/ which is an 8chan offshoot.

[subie]

Luckily the article isn't all about rotten.com. It just mentions it as a site that was around before social networks.

[jameskegel]

There are no offensive images on the root page and the links are fairly descriptive; if you viewed imagery that disturbed you, then take ownership of your own actions and don't click links that purport to be things that offend you.

[salvar]

I don't understand. How were they not taking responsibility for their own actions? Does that mean they should not talk about their actions, or anything related to them?

[fao_]

They must subscribe to the branch of logic (andor High Horse) that encourages the idea that nobody that isn't them cannot complain about something.

[jameskegel]

No I subscribe to a great sense of personal agency. I'm appalled at how someone isn't being held accountable for their own actions. If you stub your toe you don't get to sue the person who laid the concrete.