# Goatse Goatse was one of the internet's earliest and most infamous shock sites, hosted at goatse.cx from 1999 until its domain was suspended in 2004. Built around a single explicit photograph of a man stretching his anus, the site became the default weapon for bait-and-switch pranks across early web forums and chatrooms, turning "goatse" into a widely recognized verb for tricking someone into viewing something they can never unsee. ## Origin The photograph depicted Kirk Johnson, a pornographic model[1]. The image first circulated through pornographic Usenet groups around 1997 as "gap3.jpg," one file in a 40-image zip archive called "Gap.zip"[3]. A hacker group called the Hick Crew found it and started spamming the image into Christian chatrooms for laughs. In 1999, a Hick Crew member going by "Merl1n" created the goatse.cx website to host the image and make it easier to spread[2]. The ".cx" top-level domain belonged to Christmas Island, a small Australian territory whose registry had loose content policies at the time. The domain name was a deliberate play on words. Read phonetically, "goatse.cx" sounds like "goat sex." - **Platform:** Usenet (source photo, ~1997), goatse.cx (website, 1999) - **Creator:** "Merl1n" / Hick Crew (website creator), Kirk Johnson (subject) - **Date:** 1999 ## Overview Goatse was a shock website hosting one graphic photograph of a man stretching his anus open with both hands[1]. Launched at the domain goatse.cx, the site had a single purpose: shock anyone who landed on it. The real meme was never the image itself. It was the act of making someone see it. "Goatse" became a verb for disguising a link to the image and tricking an unsuspecting person into clicking it[4]. The victim's look of horror was the entire payoff. ## How It Spread Goatse ripped through early 2000s internet culture. On November 24, 2000, someone posted the images to the official Oprah Winfrey Message Boards, driving regular users away and leading to the board's retirement[3]. Slashdot, the popular tech news forum, was forced to redesign its threaded comment display because users had turned tricking readers into clicking Goatse links into a competitive game[3]. On January 14, 2004, Christmas Island Internet Administration suspended the goatse.cx domain after a local resident filed a complaint, and the original site owner shut it down around the same time[1]. None of this mattered. Dozens of mirror sites kept the image alive under various aliases, and the Goatse prank carried on without the original URL. The domain went through several strange reinventions. An anonymous entrepreneur purchased it for more than $10,000, asked the Something Awful forums for suggestions, and backed an Indiegogo campaign in late 2012 that raised $20,000 for a Goatse-branded email service that never launched[1]. In February 2014, the site pivoted to endorsing Dogecoin, featuring a man in a suit who falsely introduced himself as Kirk Johnson's attorney and pitched the cryptocurrency as "the most powerful financial force on the internet"[1]. ## How to Use Goatse isn't a meme template in the traditional sense. There's no blank image format to customize. The meme typically works in a few specific ways: - **Bait-and-switch link:** Disguise a link to a Goatse mirror as something innocent and send it to an unsuspecting target. This was the original use case throughout the early 2000s. - **Visual reference:** The two-handed stretching pose became a recognizable shape. People reference it through hand gestures, stylized logos, or objects that accidentally resemble the silhouette. - **Hot-link trap:** Website administrators sometimes replace stolen images with the Goatse photograph when they catch other sites leeching their bandwidth. The meme is widely understood as shorthand for early internet shock culture, even among people who never actually saw the original image. ## Cultural Impact If you spent enough time online in the early 2000s, encountering a Goatse link was practically a rite of passage. The prank was so widespread that it forced major platforms to change how they operated, and the image's cultural footprint grew far beyond forums. In June 2010, a group of computer security researchers calling themselves "Goatse Security" exposed a major flaw in AT&T's systems that leaked the email addresses of iPad users. The group name generated significant media attention on its own. When the case reached the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice had to explain in its brief that the group's name referenced "a notoriously obscene internet shock image"[2]. The goatse.cx domain became something of an internet artifact after its 2004 suspension. It passed through multiple owners who each tried to attach a new purpose to the name, from email hosting to cryptocurrency promotion[1]. None stuck. The domain's notoriety was its only lasting asset. ## Fun Facts - Someone paid over $10,000 for the goatse.cx domain and then asked the Something Awful forums what to do with it[1]. - The Indiegogo campaign for a Goatse email service hit its $20,000 funding goal, but the service was never built[1]. - The man in the 2014 Dogecoin endorsement video mispronounced "shibe," the Dogecoin community's term for its members[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Goatse? Goatse was a shock website at goatse.cx that hosted an explicit photograph of a man stretching his anus. It was primarily used for bait-and-switch pranks across internet forums[1]. ### Where did Goatse come from? The image circulated online from the late 1990s. The goatse.cx website was created in 1999 to host it, and the original domain was eventually suspended in 2004[1]. ### What does Goatse mean? "Goatse" became a verb meaning to trick someone into viewing the shock image by disguising a link to it[4]. ### How do you use Goatse? The meme was traditionally used as a bait-and-switch prank: disguise a link to the image as something harmless and send it to an unsuspecting person[4]. ### Is Goatse still popular? Goatse is no longer actively used as a prank, but it is widely recognized as a foundational piece of early internet shock culture[1]. ### Who is Kirk Johnson? Kirk Johnson was the pornographic model depicted in the original Goatse photograph[1]. ### What happened to the goatse.cx domain? It was suspended by Christmas Island Internet Administration in January 2004. The domain was later purchased by an anonymous buyer who attempted several reinventions, including an email service and a Dogecoin endorsement[1]. ### Why was goatse.cx shut down? A resident of Christmas Island filed a complaint about the site's content, leading to the domain's suspension on January 14, 2004[1]. ### What was the Dogecoin connection to Goatse? In February 2014, the goatse.cx domain was updated with a video endorsing Dogecoin, featuring a man falsely claiming to be Kirk Johnson's attorney[1]. ### Did the Goatse image survive after the domain was taken down? Yes. The 2004 domain suspension had virtually no effect because dozens of mirror websites kept the image available under various aliases[1]. ## References 1. [Goatse.cx pivots again to become a Dogecoin supporter | The Verge]() 2. [Goatse - Know Your Meme]() 3. [Goatse.cx]() 4. [Goatse - Urban Dictionary]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/goatse Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library