Well, are you tired of visiting the mundane news sites and celebrity sites and stuff like that. Do you want to see and read something that will shock you? Do you want to swing away from the boring and the normal? Are you one of those who believe that Satan lives among us? Search no more! Deep within the labyrinths of the internet, in its darkest chambers, lies ROTTEN.COM. “The soft white underbelly of the net, eviscerated for all to see: Rotten dot com collects images and information from many sources to present the viewer with a truly unpleasant experience” – this is what the site proclaims itself to be. Believe me, it means what it says.
What is the site about - This site definitely does not increase your IQ. This site is gross to the extent of being disturbing to some people. Well for example you have pictures of a guy who committed suicide in his car using a shotgun to blast his head at point blank range! (C’mon Rahul, I have seen this stuff in movies, show me something really rotten) . Okay, how about a autopsy picture of a baby where the whole chest has been cut open, how about a severed head lying on the road, how about a head caught between the rotors of a helicopter ! You get the idea, don’t you?
The layout of the site- A skeleton with a stick greets you as you enter the site. Talk about warm welcomes! The background of the site is white and as there are no graphics on the opening page, the site loads up pretty fast. It is pretty easy to find your way around and the print is nice and easy to read. This site does not except banners and the reason they give is this – “F off and die. Banners are an abomination unto the lord; were we to display graphic banners as some trashy porn sites do, we would lose our innocence and purity.” You had better believe them; they haven’t had a banner ad since 1996!
The Sections - Well you might be wondering into what sections can gruesome stuff like this be divided into. Well, but these guys have done that too. First up, you have the “Rotten Now” section which gives you the latest pictures which have come in. Then you have “Rotten Galleries” which are permanent exhibits of some of the most popular pictures on rotten.com. Sample the name of some of these galleries – “Celebrity Morgue”, “Gunshot”, “O.J Simpson” etc.
Then you have the “Gaping Maw” which is an editorial. (You heard me right, an EDITORIAL!). Then you have “F of the Month” which has “delights” for the sexually perverse or a bit of laugh, if you find that kind of stuff funny. Then you have a press section which has the articles which have mentioned rotten.com and then you have the legal section which “proudly” displays the legal hassles they have faced until now.
Then you also have the usual search facility which I have not used at all. The FAQ section is pretty cool and is a must see on this site. I found some of the questions and the reply to them particularly funny. There is also this usual “links” column which will lead you to similar sites. You can also buy a rotten.com t-shirt if you like!
Why this site has me coming back for more and more - Well maybe the reason for me and 250000 others like me for coming back to the site is that it gives me something very different to look at. We all have this image of human loving human and angels with their halo’s and playing the harp and goody stuff like that. But this is a site which shows us how gruesome life really is and how shocking it can be. Probably it is this “SHOCK” factor which brings me (and probably you now) back to this site.
If you are a kind of person who starts screaming when he sees blood then don’t even think of typing the URL. The site is really worth a visit but be careful, you have been warned. (And by the way, this site runs on nothing related to Microsoft; it uses only Linux and Apache.)
Statutory Warning – Seeing rotten.com is injurious to your health especially to your stomach and you might lose your sleep for days. So definitely not recommended for insomniacs.
P.S – Please leave your comments and thoughts after you visit the website. PLEASE do that!