[chrisjarvis]

To the people who didn't grow up with 4chan: do not search for this image, its pretty disgusting.

[pengaru]

4chan didn't even exist yet when goatse emerged

[deathlight]

It seems plausible to me that the, ahem, "spread" of the image was greatly increased through the efforts of 4chan.

[themaninthedark]

** Kadmium changes topic to 'Our hearts are extended to the 18 victims of the recent internet fraud'

http://bash.org/?434593

[nomat]

Hey I'm on that website! IRC used to be so fun and weird back in the day. hanging out on slashnet took up most of my free time in junior high.

[Semaphor]

Back in School, goatse was extremely well known. That was several years before 4chan. I hadn’t even heard of goatse in a 4chan relation until now.

[eyelidlessness]

Maybe widespread but it was already pretty wide open before there was a gap for 4chan to even exist.

[incompatible]

I think it was popularized back in the days of Slashdot.

[tingletech]

it does not date to alt.tasteless on usenet? (edit: w/r/t goatse)

[disillusioned]

I was going to suggest Something Awful but you might win, though Wiki pegs it (heh) at 1999...

[ArchOversight]

It's interesting that you equate goatse with 4chan! I'm old :-(

[eyelidlessness]

To the people who grew up before 4chan, pls don’t mention tubgirl

[eyelidlessness]

I missed the edit window and I’m disappointed in myself for mentioning it by name. Please just don’t Google this unless you’re prepared for an upsetting image, and even then maybe just skip it. You’re probably not as prepared as you think.

[Rompect]

I was born after 4chan was created and I found that image on reddit. It's pretty mild; one can tell quickly that it is a doll.

[BlueTemplar]

Not having eyelids would certainly make it worse!

[rootw0rm]

lmao

[isatty]

Fairly sure you’d get goatse’d more often on Efnet etc back in the day

[walrus01]

goatse signifiantly pre-dates 4chan

[askvictor]

s/4chan/slashdot/

[xwdv]

what is it?

[eyelidlessness]

Big stretched open butthole. Not sure if you need the warning but I’m commenting in case anyone would prefer not to see it despite their curiosity.

Sorry to ruin the fun y’all but there’s images I won’t even mention that I can’t unsee and make me feel seriously ill when I do see them. I don’t want anyone else to feel that way without warning.

[xwdv]

What are these images called so we know to avoid them?

[jml7c5]

Can't speak to the images themselves, but the sites are usually referred to as "shock sites":

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

[shagie]

They were known as a "shock site" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_site )

The Wikipedia page for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse.cx is text only and without any ascii art.

I'm amused that https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse.cx also exists.

[arp242]

Oh, Goatse is that site.

I remember when I was about 15, before pop-up blockers were really a thing, someone sent me a link to that and it would keep opening popups with that image and you couldn't close all of them :-/

Sometimes people look back to the internet of the 90s with too rose-coloured glasses IMO.

[shagie]

For some memories... http://www.bash.org/?search=goatse&sort=0&show=25

I am personally most amused by #38659

[eyelidlessness]

Hey at least if you were on a 90s Mac your computer was probably unresponsive and you could skip to the inevitable force reboot. And browsers didn’t save sessions so you were in the clear as soon as you got to tabula rasa.

[eyelidlessness]

I’m honestly not sure you’re asking in good faith so I’m not going to add more (and if you are asking in good faith you’ve got plenty in responses to go on). Also I never knew the name of the one that’s permanently burned into my brain and I’m so glad I don’t.

[drivebymy]

There were quite a few, lemonparty and meatspin spring to mind, and the various incarnations of "two x one y".