Rotten.com

Rotten.com is a United States-hosted web site with a slogan of "An archive of disturbing illustration" operated by Soylent Communications. It is devoted to morbid curiosities, primarily pictures of gruesome fatalities, deformities, autopsy or forensic photographs, depictions of perverse sex acts, and historical curios that are disturbing or misanthropic in nature. The site was founded in 1996, and its format has changed very little since that time.

Beginnings

Rotten.com was started by a California Bay Area BBS sysop in 1996. According to the rotten.com FAQ, it began as "a 'what should I do with this domain now that I blew a hundred bucks on it' exercise."

On an April 1997 morning, shock-jock Howard Stern surfed rotten.com live on national radio. Traffic jumped in one day from 4,500 people a day to 50,000. The site had to be closed down for a few days from the massive bandwidth increase.

During 2000 and 2001, Rotten.com was strongly associated with several of the Slashdot trolling phenomena, with Rotten exhibits such as "The Incident With The Bird" and "The Incident With The Fish" responsible for penis bird and penis fish, ASCII art messages posted to the Slashdot website. Mischievous users also put disguised links to images on the Rotten.com website in their messages in an attempt, much like with the Goatse.cx trolling phenomenon, to trick unsuspecting readers into inadvertently viewing unpleasant images.

Rotten Library

In contrast to the main site, the Rotten Library offers a less graphic collection of pages, describing itself as 'an unforgettable collection of all that mankind swore to forget, but which we have trapped in agonizing clarity to remember always.' While most of its subject matter still falls within the general sphere of Rotten.com's focus – crime and criminals, human and animal sexuality, and the darker side of popular culture – the presentation is less scandalous. Its "exhibits" are extensive and researched, though they possess a definite point of view.

Some of these articles still contain disturbing images, such as photos of charred nuclear victims on the "Atomic Bomb" article, but they are at least germane to the text. The library contains a large and growing number of categorized articles, ranging from biographies and historical events to articles on various conspiracy theories and lists of little-known sexual acts.

The Daily Rotten

In late 1999, The Daily Rotten was started. This site, updated daily, contains links to news articles that decidedly cover the more bizarre, macabre and unpleasant side of life. Stories of terrorism, murders, suicides, cruelty and abuse are the staple fare of this site. Daily Rotten, also known as Rotten News, is driven by user submissions which are edited by a self-described Rotten Staff Duder. This also features comments for each one of the articles, posted by the registered members; they usually bring similar histories or gruesome images. They refer to themselves as rotteners.

The events of September 11, 2001 were featured heavily on The Daily Rotten pages, a fact that the creators acknowledge as contributing to the popularity of the site.

Today in Rotten History

Today in Rotten History is a section of The Daily Rotten that includes five or so few sentence blurbs on an event that happened in the past on the current date. The historical notes are often about the Holocaust, a natural disaster, a spree killing, deviant sexual behavior or other similar subjects.

The Gaping Maw

In 2000, the Rotten staff started up The Gaping Maw, an editorial/commentary archive. Most of the articles were written by cartoonist Tristan Farnon under the alias "Spigot" (Jerkcity, Leisure Town) and other associates, containing news satire and general rumination on modern society. Along with the Rotten Library, this has improved Rotten's standing in many communities since it has put an intellectual, humane side to what was otherwise considered a puerile "shock" site. On the afternoon of June 22, 2005, "The Gaping Maw" went dark to comply with new governmental bookkeeping requirements regarding the distribution of pornography, specifically governmental age-verification of models, under the 18 U.S.C. 2257. All articles were taken down, and the site's title page was replaced with a statement lamenting the passage of the laws, headed by the banner "CENSORED BY US GOVERNMENT." In January, 2006, "The Gaping Maw" came back online with some articles still unpublishable, others heavily-edited.

Boners

Rotten launched boners.com, as a response to viewers who wanted a page with daily updates despite the existence of Daily Rotten. Generally, a page will be updated with five or so viewer submitted pictures. Usually containing a funny sign/street name, snowmen in sexual positions or accidental public displays of nudity.

Rotten Dead Pool

In November 2003, the Rotten Dead Pool was launched. This is a game in which players pick ten people they believe will die over the course of the next twelve months. A point is awarded to a player for each of their picks who dies over the twelve months (unless the deceased was awaiting execution at the time they were picked, or murdered by the player). It has not been publicly stated by the site what the winner gets, if anything.

NNDB

In mid-2004, Rotten launched NNDB, a so-called intelligence aggregator. This is a growing website that lists information (birth, death, job history, biography, sexuality) of thousands of people.

Sports Dignity

An ancillary site off Rotten is Sports Dignity, a gallery of pictures, most of which are of athletes exposing their genitalia, flippdudeBold texting off the camera, or sporting huge gashes and injuries.

Legal Matters

Rotten.com has been threatened with lawsuits many times over the years, most in form of Cease and desist citations. These range from serious matters (proposals to get a picture of dead relatives off the site) to the almost comical (Burlington Coat Factory asking them to take down trenchcoat.org, a Trenchcoat Mafia webpage). . On 24 June, 2005, the federal government ordered that the "Fuck of the Month" section of the site be removed due to insufficient record-keeping. The page's moderator attacked Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush and all whom voted for him.

Publications

• The I Hate Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice Reader. Avalon Publishing. 2004. ISBN 1-56025-620-6. (pp.194-204 consists of the Rotten Library entry for John Ashcroft)

Notes

Warning: The following links contain content that some may find disturbing.

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