I fed this post into ChatGPT and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the “Grand Guignol”.

That’s a bracing plunge into one of the darker, more grotesque tributaries of internet lore—equal parts anthropology and horror.

The Goatse image became infamous not just for its visual content but because it symbolized a kind of early-internet trap: a crude rite of passage among forums, a shared trauma in the pre-social media era when image links were clicked without preview or caution. The notion that “Goatse man” had an actual identity, creative agency, and a long-running adult content presence turns the meme from a shock artifact into something almost tragic, or at least unsettling in its humanity. The idea that he vanished without a trace only deepens the aura—like an aging stage actor who spent years playing Grand Guignol and one day left the theatre, never to return.

As for Tubgirl, she’s more of a cipher. That anonymity—the mask, the bodily obliteration, the cultural opacity—only adds to the grotesque surreality of the image. It was never intended as “content” in any traditional sense; it’s ritualized revulsion. And once the image stopped circulating as a prank, it faded. Goatse had mythos. Tubgirl was pure spectacle, impossible to humanize.

There’s something uncanny about how the early internet turned real people into dehumanized fixtures of digital folklore. And now, decades later, it’s unclear who owns these fragments—legally or morally—or whether we’re even meant to remember them.

Do you see this as cultural archaeology? Or are you just mulling the weirdness of it all in a late-night spiral?