Rotten.com
CONTENT WARNING!
This article contains content that some may find shocking. |
| CLOSED WEBSITE This article is about a website that no longer exists. |
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Rotten.com  Snapshot of rotten.com, before closing down. | ||||||
About This Shock Site
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STILL HUNGRY FOR HORSE MUTTON |
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| One of the many quotes on Rotten.com. | ||
Rotten.com was an shock site that collected pictures of dead people, diseases, deformed bodies, violent acts, perverse sex acts, and other morbid curiosities. It stopped getting new articles in 2009 and was eventually closed in 2018, most likely permanently.[1] It was one of the first shock sites to be created on the Internet (which was previously preceded by Dan's Gallery of The Grotesque; 2 years before Rotten). Pictures were largely submitted by the user base, but staff would occasionally buy images or take images themselves.[2]
History[edit | edit source]
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. An 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 an image featuring the Pillsbury Doughboy in an 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. Tis he 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[edit | edit source]
PenisBird, also known as "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].
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 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
- ↑ Template:EDDo main
Videos[edit | edit source]
NOTE: The following videos contain potentially offensive/unsettling/NSFW content!
| Click Here to Show Spoilers |
Links[edit | edit source]
NOTE: The following shock site contains extremely graphic content!
- web.archive.org/web/20040113023130/rotten.com
- Source code: archive.org/details/rotten_com_master
PenisBird[edit | edit source]
- web.archive.org/web/20000815234302/smoke.rotten.com/bird/
- edramatica.com/File:Thatmusthavehurt.jpg
- ASCII Versions: edramatica.com/Penisbird/ASCIIs
- GIF version: edramatica.com/File:Jackoff110we.gif
Other sites[edit | edit source]
- Rotten Library: rottenlibrary.net
- The Gaping Maw: web.archive.org/web/20081205091013/gapingmaw.com
- Bonsai Kitten: web.archive.org/web/20050226084334/bonsaikitten.com
Further reading[edit | edit source]
- Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten.com (This article contains content derived from this page, which is licensed under CC-BY-SA.)
