It's the end of an era, people. The death of an icon. No more will we grimace with a scary mix of fear, reavulsion and amusement as we click on a link and a window opens to show the unexpected.
I'm speaking, of course, of Goatse.
To the Internet community, the Goatse Man was more than just a freakishly stretched anus. He was an institution. He was a place to send our less computer-literate friends, the desktop wallpaper we set on our school computers when nobody was looking.
I remember the first time I saw Goatse one long ago day back in tech. A friend posted me a link via MSN, saying I should check out his homepage, and like the hopeless "n00b" I was, I clicked upon it, not knowing what lay in store for me. My first sight of that gleaming-red orifice send shivers of revulsion down my spine... but also excitement. This was beyond gross, beyond sickening. The pure staggering potential for freaking out my friends presented itself in a 480 x 360 jpeg named "hello.jpg". I used it many times. I used it even on those who knew of the legend of the Goatse, telling them that it had been taken down, that they'd put a Santa's hat on it for Christmas, that they'd updated the photo... and even though they knew it would be the same gaping rectum, they looked just the same.
Then some stupid bitch had to go and whine about it. We all know the one. The woman in your office who gasps when you say "shit", and weeps when you dare to say the "f" word. The one who writes into the television station when she sees a bit of flesh in a commercial. The one who just has to go and spoil it for everyone.
Of course, we can't lay all the blame on the brainless, big-mouthed bint. A big portion of our wrath must be directed at the proprietors of the .cx domain. They knew it was there. They had a sneaky laugh about it, while pretending it didn't exist. Then they turned pussy, robbing Christmas Island Christmas Island of the only cool thing it ever had apart from the big statue head things. Oh, wait... that's Easter Island. The point is, they bent over and took the shaft deeper and harder than the Goatse Man ever did. For shame.
An internet institution is gone. This is my tribute.