20 Internet Communities You Can't Unsee

This website, which, unfortunately, offers exactly what it sounds like it offers, has been your destination for x-rays of things up people's butts since 1994. The site is so old school that it still has that classic page counter at the top (we were honored to be visitor 2,333,401). Not only does the website offer x-rays donated from different doctors and weirdos across the country, but they also have links to a number of case studies that you can read if you are both totally nerdy and totally freaky. One of our favorite aspects of this website is the column labelled, "butt-related items," which includes 90s rock band, The Butthole Surfers.

The "NoFap" sub-reddit is home to 64,415 "Fapstronauts" (their word, not ours, though we wish it were ours), who are trying to kick that nasty masturbation habit. We aren't here to get into a moral argument with you about self-pleasure. (Seriously, if you try to start a discussion about it in the comments below, we're going to make an intern respond to you and ask you stop. Don't make us make our interns do that: they work hard enough already.) What sort of inspiration does this sub-reddit offer for those trying to kick their habit? Well, one Fapstronaut praised the sub-reddit for helping him stop "fapping with my junk with my hands and start fapping my brain with life!" Don't let this (and the many, many other weird) sub-reddit turn you off from the site. There are great sub-reddits out there, like "showerbeer," where folks extol the virtues of beering down while getting clean.

You've likely seen clickbait with a title saying something like "Check Out This Living Barbie" in recent months. It turns out that there is a whole community of women out there who want to look like dolls from Barbie to Raggedy Anne. Gentlemen, if any of you out there are trying to look like a Ken Doll in hopes of wooing that special pink convertible driving lady in your life, you can start with this video detailing how to transform yourself into a real-life Barbie. If you would rather look more like a character from Dragon Ball-Z than an Americanized plastic plaything, you can learn how to transform yourself into an anime doll here .

Yeah, so this is exactly what it sounds like as well. Cute Dead Guys is your web destination for exactly that: pictures of dead men that you find attractive. That's right, this is the website where, as the banner puts it, "dead dudes rawk." Whether you're looking for pictures of hunks who died hanging themselves or just want to debate what will happen to necrophiliacs once human beings inevitably reach immortality this is the website for you. [We really hope this is not the website for you. -ed.]

Though the forum itself has disappeared into the Internet, there are still numerous records of Sonic-Passion, a forum for toonphiles (people who want to have sex with cartoon characters) and robophiles (ditto, but with robots) in general, and for people who want to have sex with Sonic the Hedgehog specifically. There are many images available on the Internet that imagine a relationship between humans and Sonic the Hedgehog, but it shouldn't surprise you to hear that the majority of them are NSFW. Forum administrator Alix Henriol created the site and rose to some level of Internet notoriety before the site dropped off the map (likely as a result of excessive trolling). The site still lives on in this diatribe against it which is thankfully accompanied by screencaps from the forum for posterity.

The Daily Dot recently brought our attention to this Internet subculture after discovering that Hannibal star Hugh Dancy is an active member of the community. Don't lick your chops too hard, Internet gossip mongers, it isn't that juicy. Hugh Dancy is a "carpeteer." Carpeteering is far more boring than it is crazy or freaky, but that doesn't make it any less ridiculous. Dancy is a regular contributor to Carpetsforairports.com which features a map of Earth with red dots representing airport carpets that have already been reviewed. Yes, this is a Yelp for airport carpets. See, the Internet continues to give us things that we never knew we needed! To be fair, the tone of Carpetsforairports is rather jokey, but the site's contributors do actually photograph and review pictures of carpets, no matter how cheeky the reviews may be.

Furry fandom, which is basically people dressing up like animals and sometimes having sex with each other, predates the Internet. Historians trace the furry movement back to a science fiction convention in 1980. Some furries trace the origins of furry fandom back to 1972 with the publication of Watership Down. Regardless of where you place the beginning of furry history, it is indisputable that the Internet has allowed the community grow by leaps and bounds. For those of you thinking you'll get into furrydom to meet anthropomorphized chicks, be aware that a recent study found that only 38% of furries think that sexuality is vital to furry fandom. Also, it's important to learn the lingo: sexual activities and materials are known as "yiff" within the community. If you're ready to take your furrydom to the next level, explore furryfandom.com for all your furry needs. They offer furry forums for meet-ups, roleplay, and even exchanging recipes. If your game for some roleplaying, just be careful, you might get "slapped by a lage trout." (Again, their words, not ours.)

Fantasy Feeder is a "fat-positive community." At first glance, we were down with that. If you can love the way you look in the face of media pressure, more power to you. There's a little bit more to it than that though. After a few clicks on Fantasy Feeders you can find yourself on a page titled "love to fatten someone." If you are interesting in "stuffing" or "fattening" someone, or being a person who is stuffed or fattened, just let the good people at Fantasy feeder know if you are a "carer," "dominator," "encourager," or "role-player," and start making your Hansel and Gretel dreams more than just a fairy tale.

Eating disorders are a sad reality for many men and women, and the psychological and physical damage they cause is only exacerbated by our body image obsessed media. Even sadder still, there are communities online that glorify eating disorders. A visit to a couple of these websites illustrates the slippery slope from skinny-obsessed gossip blog to all-out eating disorder glorification. One such website, skinnygossip.com, got some serious web attention after their recent takedown of Kate Upton for being too big. SkinnyGossip carefully treads the line between standard bitchy gossip blog and pro-eating disorder polemic. Even further down the binge-eating rabbit hole are websites like myproana.com which offer discussion threads where you can exchange "thinspirations" and hunt for a "binge buddy."

Many hate groups exist on the Internet. You are always a cursory search away from finding a group that hates any group you can think of. One of the most ridiculous hate groups online is The World Church of the Creator. The World Church is relatively new as hate groups go: it originated in Peioria, Illinois in the mid-90s. The group's rise has dovetailed with the rise of the Internet. The Creativists differ from many white supremacist groups in that they add creepy religious ceremony to their bigotry. The leader of the "church" is called "Pontifex Maximus," after a Papal title from antiquity. This hate group actually has ordained ministers, religious ceremonies, and sacraments. They even celebrate a week of "white racial pride" starting right after Christmas, so mark your calendars now if you want to get more upset than your family is already going to make you over the holidays.

From time to time we hear another awful story about someone committing suicide on the Internet. There have been numerous of instances of Internet suicide over the last decade: perhaps the most famous came in 2008 when a teen broadcasted his suicide to 1,500 people on justin.tv. Other widely reported cases occurred in Sweden in 2010 and in Mumbai earlier this year. It turns out that there is a (thankfully small) community of suicide voyeurs online, who actively seek out opportunities to watch or even goad people into taking their lives. Perhaps the most chilling story of a suicide voyeur is that of William Francis Melchert-Dinkel, an American nurse, who was arrested in 2010 for suicide voyeurism on chat forums. Melchert-Dinkel would pose as a female and convince (often teenage) chatters to join him in a suicide pact. Of course he never kept his end of the bargain.

What's weirder than fanfiction? That's easy: the answer is Slash fan fiction. You see, this brand of fanfic puts your favorite characters from pop culture in erotic encounters with each other. No matter who your favorite fictional characters may be, you can find erotic novelizations of their relationship at websites like slashfanfiction.com. Of course, you're going to find some Harry Potter action here, but you would be surprised at the breadth and depth of the material available. You've got Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps fanfic at your disposal. Also, be sure to check out Yaoi Fan Fiction, which is slash fiction specifically involving fictional characters and their nemeses. Yes, a surprising percentage of this variety of fanfic also involves the Harry Potter universe.

The 9/11 Truth Movement is far from the only outrageous conspiracy theorist movement on the Internet, it is just unfortunately one of the largest. Perhaps it is because of the blanket media coverage of the tragedy or it is because of how traumatized many in the US were after the events of September 11th, but the 9/11 Truther movement has significantly more adherents than emerged after other terrible events such as the John F. Kennedy assassination. Over a decade after the events of 9/11, the movement still holds rallies and fields Presidential candidates. Wikipedia lists almost a dozen 9/11 truth splinter groups that have sprouted up since the attacks. If your faith in humanity isn't totally shaken by a glance at the 9/11 truth movement, you'll be able to find "truther" groups of various sizes for every single tragic event that happens from now until the end of time thanks to the Internet.