A shock site is a website that is intended to be offensive, disgusting and/or disturbing to its viewers, containing materials of high shock value which is also considered distasteful and crude, and is generally of a pornographic, scatological, extremely violent, insulting, painful, profane, or otherwise provocative nature. Some shock sites display a single picture, animation, video clip or a small gallery, and are often passed around via e-mail or disguised in posts to discussion sites as a hoax in an attempt to trick users into following the link to the website (a bait and switch). Most shock sites are merely websites that openly display material some will consider as disturbing or repulsive, such as pornography and fetishes.
Some shock sites have also gained their own subcultures and have become internet memes on their own. Goatse.cx featured a page devoted to fan-submitted artwork and tributes to the site's hello.jpg, and a parody of the image was unwittingly shown by a BBC newscast as an alternative for the then recently unveiled logo for the 2012 Summer Olympics. A shock video known as 2 Girls 1 Cup also quickly became an Internet phenomenon, with videos of reactions, homages, and parodies widely posted on video sharing sites such as YouTube.
Famous quotes containing the words shock and/or site:
“It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“That is a pathetic inquiry among travelers and geographers after the site of ancient Troy. It is not near where they think it is. When a thing is decayed and gone, how indistinct must be the place it occupied!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)