The Shocker!

Another Victim



In the spirit of Nat-Wu's recent (perversely gleeful?) post about "shock sites", today I address the topic of "prank flash" sites. A few of you might have been victims of this sort of thing before now, but until pretty recently I was unfamiliar with the phenomenon of the "prank flash" site, until I had the misfortune of stumbling across this one-damn Cliff Pickover and his "Reality Carnival"!-which I promptly shared with some of you via email in an effort to lessen the long-term damage to my brain by spreading some of the pain around.

Anyway my point is that Wikipedia-as near as I can tell the absolute best website in the world for a detailed cataloging of deranged websites of all types-also has an entry on the prank flash sites, similar to it's entry for shock sites, including a listing of various "popular" prank flash sites. Take this one, under the heading "Subliminal Music and Immages":

"After loading, an advertisement for whisky is shown. After a few seconds, part of the image is highlighted and the word "SEX" is visible. An image for a flooring company appears, with a woman appearing to be touching her shoulder. The image is then flipped, so it appears the woman is masturbating herself. The song "Dinner at Deviant's Palace" by the band Cradle of Filth begins to play in reverse. The Lord's Prayer is heard along with strange noises. In the middle of the prayer, a loud scream is heard, along with a flurry of pictures; some of them are of a harlequin fetus."

The entry includes the handy note that this prank flash site is "considered among many to be the scariest flash animation on the internet" and comparing it to the infamous "Rubber Johnny" short film/commercial.

Anyway, so that's fun with shock sites. I'd say that some of these actually sound a little scary, in addition to simply being "shocking", but there's no way I'm going to find out for myself while I'm sitting here in my room at 1:00 am in the dark. That's how I discovered "Rubber Johnny" in his original incarnation, and I sure as f#@# ain't doing that again (that's also how I discovered EVP websites, which I also don't recommend for late nights alone, but that's a topic for another day.) But if you're feeling bold and adventurous, try a few of them yourself. Or if you're feeling a little prankish, send some links to noobs like me who don't know any better and be sure to tell them to turn up the speakers for important "clues."