Here are the eight online communities that killed our adventurous spirit...

August 31, 2007 7:59 AM

The Eight Strangest Communites On the Internet. (via)
posted by nuclear_soup (72 comments total)

Along those lines, I was cracking up when a friend found this thread at flickr.

"Discussing Inappropriate Photos in Crotch Shots"

There exists a group that is nothing but shots of dude's crotches, but NO PENISES ALLOWED.
posted by mathowie at 8:05 AM on August 31, 2007

Okay, I was maintaining my jaded internet hipster poise until the Boytaurs.
posted by phrontist at 8:09 AM on August 31, 2007

Man, I'm hung like a... oh yeah, that's right.
posted by phrontist at 8:11 AM on August 31, 2007

No matter what your fandom or fetish may be, it can always be made even weirder by adding Jesus.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:11 AM on August 31, 2007 [6 favorites]

Boytaurs is nothing. I'm really into Horsetaurs, which is a horse with an additional back end of a horse on their back end. Don't judge me.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:12 AM on August 31, 2007 [13 favorites]

Yeah, the boytaurs thing actually came as a surprise. Never heard of that particular mindmelter before.

I think my favourite bit was the reformed 'furvert' who said he was going to buy a fursuit just to remind himself what he didn't want. Yeah, and Ted Haggard is visiting masseurs from the back pages of the gay newspaper to remind himself how much he doesn't like it when oh yeah shove it in me, yeah, harder, fuck my.. I mean I don't like it! This is awful!
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:13 AM on August 31, 2007 [4 favorites]

Amazing they could whittle it down to only eight.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:13 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I had to look up the word 'yiff'. Am I still cool enough to be on MeFi?
posted by athenian at 8:14 AM on August 31, 2007

This is what Cracked came up with? It's what you would come up with if you had only ever spent 20 minutes trolling the web

Cracked has no idea how weird the Internets is.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:22 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I agree with the jaded until boytaurs thing, but I would like to note that the boytaurs in the article aren't half-horse. They are ALL BOY. Except with 4 legs. W.T.F.
posted by DU at 8:23 AM on August 31, 2007

This bit cracked me up: That means that people create an account, build a house for their in-game avatar to masturbate in, and then they stop playing and never come back. What does that mean for you, the curious, newbie player? It means that walking around Second Life is like walking around in some weird, virtual post-apocalyptic zombie movie, only instead of encountering zombies, you occasionally stumble across some dude dressed up like a mechanical teddy bear having sex with a giant cat.
posted by lodurr at 8:28 AM on August 31, 2007

I agree with the jaded until boytaurs thing, but I would like to note that the boytaurs in the article aren't half-horse. They are ALL BOY. Except with 4 legs. W.T.F.

Quadrupedos.com was already registered.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:28 AM on August 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Some of those boytaurs really are half-horse, if you go to the site. And some of them have four arms and three dicks and have nothing to do with horses. The free play of fantasy seems to be the rule there.

If I'm already into the third page of boytaur images, does that make me a pervert?
posted by creasy boy at 8:29 AM on August 31, 2007

does that make me a pervert?

Hoo yes.
posted by everichon at 8:35 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

And upon doing further research: a lot of these boytaurs seem to have photoshopped themselves fucking themselves and then added an extra pair of legs onto one or two of themselves. I thought I had heard of every fetish, but I had not.
posted by creasy boy at 8:35 AM on August 31, 2007

This is what Cracked came up with? It's what you would come up with if you had only ever spent 20 minutes trolling the web


Actually, it's what you come up with when you spend 20 minutes going through Something Awful's Weekend Web feature, and then stick what you found on two pages so you get more ad impressions.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:36 AM on August 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

lame.
posted by signalnine at 8:42 AM on August 31, 2007

Ice Chewers previously on Metafilter.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:50 AM on August 31, 2007

Does Cracked actually pay for a staff or do they just recruit writers by tracing back "zany" email forwards until they find the primordial soup it festered from, scoop a sample up in a test tube, and then culture it in agar until enough corherent strings of text appear to keep Google from downranking cracked.com as a spam blog?
posted by bunnytricks at 8:59 AM on August 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

The boytaurs are just one example of the conjoined-twin photoshop fetishes out there (who knew?). But my favorite has to be people who fetishizes chicks with headphones. There's something so…innocent about it as a fetish.
posted by adamrice at 9:01 AM on August 31, 2007

What about the fish fuckers?
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 9:01 AM on August 31, 2007

But even based on our limited pool of knowledge, we're pretty sure that Jesus never said anything about dressing up like an evil white trash clown.
posted by jason's_planet at 9:12 AM on August 31, 2007

"The Internet is a big place filled with sweaty, smelly creatures huddling in the dark drinking Mountain Dew and furiously posting on forums."

Hey, that was supposed to be a secret!
posted by davy at 9:14 AM on August 31, 2007

Seriously fucking lame. (Except for the Juggalos for Jesus.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:20 AM on August 31, 2007

My favourite bit:

I have been free from yiff for 6 months and 1week. I have no desire to go back now, but my parents don't understand that. I am going to buy a fursuit soon, just to remind myself about why I never want to go back to the way I was...
posted by KokuRyu at 9:23 AM on August 31, 2007

Boytaurs, maybe, but slash fanfic? C'mon. It's probably not "the strangest thing on the internet" if it actually pre-dates the internet. Especially if it pre-dated the internet... at Trek conventions. WHOA CRAZY NO ONE HAS HEARD OF THAT BEFORE.
posted by vorfeed at 9:24 AM on August 31, 2007

Oh, come on. I can come up with 8 weirder ones just by googling for "barney fetish."
posted by katillathehun at 9:33 AM on August 31, 2007

It's easy enough to stay jaded and detached about people like this, but imagine how it must feel to be one. Especially with articles like this one popping up every so often to remind you just how unforgivably weird you and the friends you never would've found otherwise are.

The fact is, some people enjoy things that the rest of us find bizarre. As long as they're not hurting anyone in the process, why not just leave them alone and stop making them feel miserable about themselves?

Sorry to trot out the tired old "don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes" line, but someone had to say it. I fully expect to get jumped on now by people wondering which of these groups I belong to, and why I'm so defensive about it.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:46 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

wow, that 4chan image board is pretty excellent.
posted by oddman at 9:50 AM on August 31, 2007

Jesustaurs? They all smell like Cool Ranch Doritos
posted by Smedleyman at 10:00 AM on August 31, 2007

Oh now, WanderingMind...just admit that you were the giant mechanical bear on Second Life. Come on, growl for me, you big teddy!

Hee.
posted by dejah420 at 10:05 AM on August 31, 2007

wow, that 4chan image board is pretty excellent.

That's what they all say at first glance, be prepared for it to turn on you though. (and God help you if you find out about any of the other chan boards...ugh)
posted by samsara at 10:08 AM on August 31, 2007

About 5 years ago I stumbled upon (really, it was an accident) a Yahoo Group devoted to people who liked to pleasure themselves while looking at images of the bare feet of male cartoon characters. 2D animation only, thanks. Disney a plus.

I'm sure they're still out there but no way am I going to have THAT in my search history.
posted by maryh at 10:15 AM on August 31, 2007

I usually look at crank dot net at least once a month to remind me that I'm relatively sane.
posted by white_devil at 10:20 AM on August 31, 2007

Of course, more boytaur feet are always welcome, and while boytaurs often decide to add more legs, many—if not most—boytaurs have feet hanging from the wrists of their muscular arms... four-legged and six-footed! Nothing beats the caress of a wristfoot, warm and gentle, soft and sensitive while heavy and firm. The very touch brings arousal, as a boytaur takes his boytaurfriend's face between his wristfeet, framing it gently between the sensitive soles, to kiss him, as their multiple hardons grow heavy and drooling between their many legs.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 10:21 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: you occasionally stumble across some dude dressed up like a mechanical teddy bear having sex with a giant cat
posted by dreamsign at 10:24 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

don't judge a man boytaur until you've walked galloped a mile in his horseshoes
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:28 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

They found 4chan but not Gaia Online?
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:33 AM on August 31, 2007

Weird? I visit those eight daily. You wanna see some really sick shit? Check out the freaks who photograph themselves having sex with ceiling mounted fire extinguishers, I mean there are some perversions I just can't abide. I only hung out in their forums for a couple of months before I'd had enough.

Now I'm rolling with the sprinkler-sex-for-Jesus crowd. They are much cooler.
posted by quin at 10:33 AM on August 31, 2007

heh, boytaurs is so 2003 - cited in this thread on human equine transformation.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:38 AM on August 31, 2007

The actual sites? Meh.

The picture of the fat boy licking his own manboob in the comments? Awesome.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:08 AM on August 31, 2007

Sorry to trot out the tired old "don't judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes"

I’m now a mile away from these shoeless idiots. Is it ok to judge them now?
posted by bondcliff at 11:19 AM on August 31, 2007 [4 favorites]

I felt bad because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no cock.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:38 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

That was an awkward meet-up, wasn't it?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:40 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Nothing beats the caress of a wristfoot

I am trying to think of something snarky to say about wristfeet, but I'm completely dumbfounded.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:53 AM on August 31, 2007

This joint's got sole.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:56 AM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I dunno, I think I could easily come up with some stranger communities.

-Deep Sinking
-N.A.C.F.T. (National Association of Cattle Foot Trimmers)
-G.I.R.B. (Girls in Rubber boots)
-American Cornhole Association
-N.B.A.C. (Neckbrace Appreciation Klub)
-Breatharian Insitute of America
-Radical Movement for Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization
-Christian Deerhunter Associations
-NUSPA (National Unidentified Skin Parasite Assocition)
-Ugly Bass Players
-presidential prayer team
-International Association of People Who Dine Over the Sink
-Luxurient Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
-The Temple of Prometheus
-Liberated Christians Polyamory, Swing, Biblical, Sybian Cyber Center
posted by madamjujujive at 12:04 PM on August 31, 2007 [13 favorites]

Didn't we spend yesterday talking about japanese people fucking manta rays?

maybe we should point the ray of introspection at OURSELVES!
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:17 PM on August 31, 2007

Just don't fuck the ray of introspection.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:26 PM on August 31, 2007 [3 favorites]

I was going to point to the site on people who fetishize inflating their stomachs with air or water to achieve the most engorged belly possible, but now I (thankfully) can't find it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:15 PM on August 31, 2007

In Australia, the ray of introspection fucks you - through the heart!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:23 PM on August 31, 2007

Of course, more boytaur feet are always welcome

Centipedophilia?
posted by mhoye at 1:36 PM on August 31, 2007

Mmm. Pretty lukewarm decisions, I agree.



::sniff:: It's still too soon for the Irwin jabs. My heart still hasn't healed.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:46 PM on August 31, 2007

Ok, the boytaurs site was pretty awesome, but I can't beileve they broke Rule #1. THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!

desu! desu! desu! desu! desu! desu! desu!
posted by cavalier at 1:51 PM on August 31, 2007

Cracked doesn't care what the 20 weirdest sites are, or the 10 wildest chase scenes, or the 15 most embarrassing film moments, or whatever. They've just locked into the internet phenomena that any "Top Ten List" will make it to the front page of Digg.
posted by fungible at 1:57 PM on August 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

fungible: and riding it all the way to the bank. Speaking of digg, I think I saw this there a couple weeks ago?

NO DIGG
posted by absalom at 2:21 PM on August 31, 2007

Mantafilter?
posted by Crabby Appleton at 2:45 PM on August 31, 2007

It's still too soon for the Irwin jabs. My heart still hasn't healed.

The sting is still there for me too, but I catch a ray of hope from time to time.

why not just leave them alone and stop making them feel miserable about themselves?

There's some weird shit that people enjoy that seems to be just that: weird shit, that people joyously enjoy.

But there's other stuff that just seems sad and loserly; the sort of thing you embrace not because you really like it but because you want to externalize your loserly feelings onto something outside yourself, or because your own life is so drab and awful that you need to disappear into something else to feel a little bit better.

And in one of those "I don't know how I know, but I know" things, furries4christ are in that second group.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:42 PM on August 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

Pfff, forget slashfanfiction.com. Try the Very Wrong Slash LJ community. Featuring:

Goofus/Gallant (Gallant is Aroused; Goofus is Horny)
Azathoth/Nyarlathotep
Arby's Oven Mitt/Hamburger Helper Hand

And many more!

(Of course, that's not exactly the Weirdest of the Web, either, but... ehhhh....)
posted by Many bubbles at 4:16 PM on August 31, 2007

I was enjoying this thread, secure in my knowledge that none of this was really new to me. Then Many bubbles has to come along with that Goofus/Gallant thing, and well...

[tips hat]

Thank you.
posted by mkhall at 4:26 PM on August 31, 2007

Everytime I come across discussions of weirdness I think about the time I got to my baseball game early and sat in the bleachers to watch the previous game. A couple young skater-type kids walked up. They were wearing these HUGE flaired-at-the-leg jeans and had purple hair and great big belts and just looked really kind of silly. The guy I had sat next to in the bleachers leaned into me and said "look what those weirdos are wearing!" And I realized I was sitting there in tight, tight baseball pants, and the legs of the pants ended at the knee where they gave way to stirrups and spiked cleats. I was wearing a baseball cap backwards and a skin-tight Under Armour T-shirt under a jersey that had the logo of a snarling Chili Pepper. And I couldn't help but wonder who the weirdo really was.
posted by vito90 at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2007 [2 favorites]

*takes a little bow*
posted by Many bubbles at 4:59 PM on August 31, 2007

But there's other stuff that just seems sad and loserly; the sort of thing you embrace not because you really like it but because you want to externalize your loserly feelings onto something outside yourself, or because your own life is so drab and awful that you need to disappear into something else to feel a little bit better.

Well I would disagree if this didn't describe the entirety of early 21st century American society.

Or the human condition in a nutshell.
posted by Avenger at 5:44 PM on August 31, 2007

Um, yeah, all of the above, but why did it fall to me to mention Portal of Evil?
posted by Kinbote at 6:12 PM on August 31, 2007

I'm a member of seven of those sites (that's right, FUCK 4CHAN!).
posted by Joseph Gurl at 10:20 PM on August 31, 2007

Apparently this was posted to MoFi also. In the comments is this relevant video link: If business meetings functioned like internet communities.
posted by philomathoholic at 3:14 AM on September 1, 2007 [2 favorites]

I have to say, that amidst this group of weirdness Second Life seems to be like the old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the other."
posted by chuq at 12:11 PM on September 1, 2007

Philomathoholic, your link seems to have locked up my friend's computer (as in, it played, and then everything locked up and she had to exit out of stuff). So anybody else using Firefox 2.0.0.6 with Adblock on Windows XP might want to watch out for that.

Here's the same video on YouTube.
posted by Many bubbles at 7:51 PM on September 1, 2007

have to say, that amidst this group of weirdness Second Life seems to be like the old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the other."

Yeah, it's like someone did a "Ten weirdest video games" thing and then the third one was, "Sims 2: You make little people and have them interact with each other! What is UP with that???"
posted by Many bubbles at 8:00 PM on September 1, 2007

Philomathoholic, your link seems to have locked up my friend's computer...

Sorry, about that. It's from collegehumor.com, maybe they have bad stuff on their site. I've got flash block, but not adblock. I just checked it, and it still works for me.
posted by philomathoholic at 12:29 AM on September 2, 2007

I guess they must. It worked fine for me, but... *shrug*
posted by Many bubbles at 6:20 PM on September 2, 2007

Radical Movement for Rebetiko Dechiotification and Bouzouki Detetrachordization does have a point. The kind of crappy fake Rebetiko music you hear at Greek restaurants should be banned.
posted by mike3k at 10:44 AM on September 3, 2007