4. Something Aweful and Adam Goldstein
This one is pretty recent, and the whole incident happened as an elaborate internet drama. We imagine situations and incidents like this one coming to a television screen in the near future. Adam Goldstein had an online store, which sold computer parts. Now a certain customer known on the internet as decaf.tihs was dissatisfied with the service, as Adam Goldstein went on vacation after an order had been placed. After trying to call and mail Goldstein about his service, he got irritated, and asked for his money back. He sent a stinker off to Goldstein, and Goldstein replied that he would not return the money unless decaf.tihs apologized to him. Now decaf.tihs wanted his money back so he apologized, and his money was returned.
The matter could have ended there, but decaf.tihs went on to somethingaweful.com and began posted a thread on Goldstein and his unfair practices. The forum went a little crazy, and decided something had to be done. They called up Goldstein with death threats, taunts and insults. They got into his personal accounts on social networking sites, and insulted him there as well. Goldstein paid up for a Something Aweful membership, and joined in the discussion. Amazingly enough, Goldstein was called a troll, and no one really took him seriously. He defended himself and voiced his outrage, which just made everyone’s day on somethingaweful.com.
Someone from Something Aweful called up Goldstein at this point, and told him to calm down and not post on the internet, as he was over reacting to Trolls. Basically, the caller was trying to help him, and tell him not to feed the trolls. But Goldstein would not listen. The soundclip is here (some explicit content):
Then Goldstein threatened to sue somethingaweful.com, and boasted about the large number of lawyers in his family, and the large number of guns in his house (more than what the local police department had). Something Aweful moderators thought things had gone too far, banned a few people on the forums, and closed a few threads.
The matter could have ended there, but some people from somethingaweful.com ran over to big brother /b/ on 4chan (more on that later), with an appeal for help. Someone discovered that Goldstein charged $199 to rid a computer of all viruses, and deemed it too costly. Then all hell broke loose. Someone poked around, got his hacker tools together, and focused on Goldstein. Goldstein’s website was taken down, and the website of his service provider was also taken down. His MySpace account was broken into, personal information stolen, and defaced.
Then things broke out into the real world. Sex workers of various genders were called to Goldstein’s house. Free magazine subscriptions were delivered. Boxes and packages of every kind of free sample was sent by the kinder people. Posters warning of Swine Flu and AIDS were pasted around his home and workplace. Pizza joints around his house were ordered to send boxes of pizzas over. Various kinds of religious literature were also sent over. Sex toys, condoms and tubes of lubrication were shipped over at no cost.
Goldstein didn’t know whom to sue, or whom to fire at. He just learnt not to cross the wrong side of the internet the hard way.
3. Goatse/ hello.jpg
Goatse is one of the most famous shock images to circulate the internet. Goatse was the original Rickroll, a shocking image that sprang up on unsuspecting surfers. There seem to be "waves" of Goatse activity, as every new generation of internet junkies are introduced to the image. First posted on message boards, the image became well known somewhere around the turn of the century. The image was named hello.jpg, on Goatse.cx, a shock website. There have been many spoofs going around, including this famous picture, called "God's hands".
