Were it not for the SDMB, I would probably never have encountered the very concept of a “goatse” photograph. Now I see a photo and think of it, even before getting to the bottom of the page where it’s pointed out.
Thank you, SDMB, for enriching my life. I think.
The link crashed my browser.
The original goatse shocker-picture is the one with the head-on view of the guy holding his anus open; you ain’t missin’ nuthin’…
My link goes to a Snopes page showing what was originally an odd-looking opening in the clouds, which has been photoshopped to include two clody/ghostly/Godlike hands holding it open, a la the infamous photograph.
The fact that somebody took a goatse and made it into religious glurge… I find that wonderful. It’s things like this that make it worth waking up in the morning.
I was assuming that the link that Lobsang was referring to that crashed his browser was the link to the original goatse picture, which the Snopes article links to, at the end.
I didn’t think Snopes would have crashed his browser, IOW.
Not sure why you’d think that – the way it was worded, following my entry, it seems pretty clear that he was headed to the Snopes link. Why that should have crashed his browser, I don’t know, but stranger things have happened.
I think if he was heading somewhere else (like the original goatse) he’d have said so.
That’s a really old one. Still doesn’t fail to get a chuckle from me every time I see it.
I actually see hands in the original photo. They’re fainter, but there are the coincidental shape of two hands, with thumbs roughly where the Photoshopper enhanced it.
God crashed his browser. How else can it be explained?
<link >
BAHAHAHA!!! That’s great!!
Word. If they could only make a flash animation that goes from “Hand of God in Clouds” then flashes to “Is REALLY Goatse”.
Somebody out there has these skills, right? It’d be so much better than those ones with Linda Blair in The Exorcist and stuff like that that pop up and scare the shit out of you.
“Oooohhh, beautiful clouds, looks like hands holding open a… AAAhhhhh!!!”
ETA: You’d really have to be gullible to think those hands look natural. I mean come on…
Really gullible…the kind of people who forward glurge e-mails…I can see how this might have worked out. 
If you look at the second picture in the Snopes link you see the original, which at least a suggestion of the hand on one side. This probably inspired the rest. I don’t think anyone thought the Photoshopped version was real. At least I hope not.
And now that I look at the Snopes article again, it’s conceivable that LobSang clicked on the link given in the Snopes page, but I still think he’d be more explicit were that the case.
And Snopes does report that this dates from at least 2004, so it is an oldie (although I wasn’t hip to “goatse” back then, and probably wouldn’t have gotten it.)
Who are exactly the same ones who would benefit from my Flash overlay idea. You can bet your ass nobody would be gullible enough to open the next religious glurge email 
Wow.
Why “goatse”?
That, for whatever reason, was the filename of the original.
www.goatse.cx was the original. I always assumed it was an attempt at ‘goatsex’.
I always wanted to buy a huge billboard with just the address on it, and then count the number of calls.
Whoa! Break that link, it’s NOT SAFE FOR WORK and somebody could get in trouble clicking on it!
Ah, I just checked it (having no NSFW inhibitions) and it’s no longer viable. Still…
