Ancient Web: Stinkymeat2 Left Six Kinds of Meat to Rot in Public
Stinkymeat2 turned a deliberately disgusting experiment into an 18-day photo diary: six cheap meat products, public locations, daily observations, and exactly the kind of oversharing the early web did best.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
The old web had no shortage of ambitious projects, but few began with a $12.03 grocery bill and a plan to leave meat outside until it became unbearable.
Stinkymeat2 is the sequel to an earlier rotting-meat experiment. On Day 1, the author and his "stinkymate" buy six subjects: sausage, canned oysters, salmon, a whole young chicken, canned dog food, and a fast-food burger.
The tone is half mock science report, half gross-out diary.
Then the project gets worse.
Bring stinkymeat to the public
On Day 2, the author decides that "true science" should not be hidden in somebody's backyard. The meat gets split between public locations, including a park and a mall planter.
That turns the site into something more than pictures of decomposition.
Each day documents what changed, what disappeared, what smelled worse, how animals or people interfered, and how the author reacted to increasingly revolting conditions. The photographs are presented directly in the page flow with optional high-resolution versions, which was a perfectly reasonable way to build an Internet spectacle before video platforms swallowed this kind of stunt.
The project runs to Day 18.
By then most of the experiment has been disrupted or removed, and the remaining chicken has hardened on top while staying unpleasantly wet underneath. The cleanup report describes gloves, a filter mask, beetles, a biohazard bag, and the unmistakable realization that the smell has penetrated the mask anyway.
There is no polished documentary voice here. The pages work because the author keeps narrating the stupid practical details: grocery prices, security guards, public placement, missing meat, nausea, and the moment a decomposing chicken makes a Velcro-like sound when lifted from the ground.
That specificity is why it survives as Internet history instead of just a joke.
They did.
Apparently all it took was meat, a camera, and very poor judgment.
Part of the Ancient Web Collection.
- Categories: Ancient Web
- Tags: #experiments, #ancientweb, #internetculture, #photodiary, #webhistory, #weirdweb